Lives in Virginia, spent decades living in and was representative for Georgia, was born in Pennsylvania and owns a home in Wisconsin.

The point is that the whole ‘home state’ thing is stupid nonsense. That candidates selectively used it to try and make a point about Romney’s challenge of winning his ‘home’ state isn’t born out of confusion as to where he lives or substantive comment on the race but strategic campaign slogans.

It actually doesn’t matter if a candidate loses every state he calls home if he wins enough delegates.

There were three polls over the weekend in TN and this one was the clear outlier (showing Romney ahead, not a tie as the thread title claims). The other two both showed Santorum with 34%, Romney with 29/30% (like this poll) and Gingrich with more volatility at 18 and 27%.

Looking at it all together the best prediction gives Santorum a 2-4 point win over Romney with Gingrich having a very good shot at finishing over 20% to take some of the statewide delegates.

You are right, no delegates to the GOP convention were formally awarded in Washington on Saturday – just projected estimates based on outcomes which have historically been accurate enough.

Personally, I think the whole momentum narrative through the early primaries is based on little statistical evidence (with the possible exception of performance against expectations in meaningless Iowa giving small momentum to performance in meaningless NH) and lots of projection by those who need to manufacture stories out of more or less independent events either for print deadlines or their own peace of mind.

They mostly serve as indicators of the campaigns ability to forge operations, message and campaigning on the ground. At this stage, it is fairly clear (to me at least) that Romney is the only one able to do it in a broad enough map to come close to enough delegates – and even if he falls just short of majority with a strong plurality there is no way he doesn’t end up the nominee.I think the rest is just a show for the political press and associated junkies who would be bored to death if the primary was already over. That alone may be enough for Santorum, Newt or both to play the sacrificial role of Huckabee past Super Tuesday this year to keep those in need of a story appeased but I’m not willing to bet on it.

You really aren’t good at reading polls are you? Sure, you can believe Newt is surging in TN and national polls if you like – the evidence suggests otherwise but if it makes you feel good go right ahead.

Ah what the heck, I’ll spell it out for you. Check the list of recent national polls at RealClearPolitics. Most recent three polls have Newt at 13, 15, 16. The previous three polls 13, 15, 14. The three before that 15, 15, 10. What surge are you seeing there?

You are amusing, that’s for sure. I dealt with TN above – misrepresenting the outlier of three polls is something someone willfully misinformed or a pompous fool might do. He isn’t tied in any poll, an honest assessment of all the evidence suggest he is in the mid 20′s with a solid third place finish. A dishonest assessment (one designed for a press release by a candidate rather than meaningful understanding) would look very much like yours – hmm, I wonder where you get your ‘information’.

As for the national polls – look at the numbers above and tell me what surge you see. Look at today’s Gallup tacking poll, Newt dropped 2 points and is down seven to Santorum (which by the way is most likely statistical noise in the daily samples, as was the two points he had gained yesterday, not evidence of a surge that suddenly fell back).

And as for Georgia, yep Gingrich is going to win there (though even in the one true positive area you feel the need to misstate reality or somehow miss the poll where he is up by ‘only’ 10). Congratulations on that victory.

Someone taking one outlier poll as definitive is going to give a lecture on margin of error and statistical analysis, quite laughable. You go ride that surge, hope the hangover on Wednesday isn’t too bad for you.

Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t make it a misrepresentation of reality – in your world I’m sure Newt has come out as the winner to date, everything is right on track.

Please take your delusional comments elsewhere.

You did mention Gingrich’s number in a second poll, you neglected that to add that he was trailing by 7 points in third place. I know, that undercuts the whole ‘he is statistically tied’ line you want to lead with but what can you do. And of course, you prefer to completely ignore Rasmussen’s poll because it is inconvenient to your preferred narrative. Any realistic assessment of course would take it into account – but reality isn’t your strong suit, you are too ‘advanced’ for that.

You can spin around in circles for all I care, it will be plain to anyone with half a mind that in your eagerness to see good news for a third place candidate you mangle any rational perspective of the evidence before you.

I think you are putting a bit much into the causal relationship between polls. 3/4 was two days ago – the TN poll is of the same date. A single close poll in TN has no casual effect on outcomes in OH (and it is still an outlier among other polls in the same timeframe). In terms of events that you would expect to drive shifts in perspective, very little has happened since Sunday.

A double digit drop in a single poll, particularly when you have many other polls at the same time that don’t show it, is most certainly not a good indicator of momentum but far more likely an indicator of an off poll (which is not just not unusual but to be expected due to the statistical nature of polling – if you have no weird results across 10-20 polls you should suspect bias in the polling).

In Ohio, Santorum’s polling numbers are down a few points on average from the peak two weeks ago – from ~37 to ~32, those points have shifted to Romney, not Newt who, with the exception of one outlier, is polling int eh same 13-18 range he has been for the past two week. Again, that is not an indication of movement, this is a very clear indication of stable support levels. Given that, there really doesn’t seem to be evience to suggest that Sanroum’s support is soft in a way that benefits Newt.

In OK, there were two polls last week (ARG and YouGov) both showing Santorum with sizable leads at 37/38%, Mitt in second at 26/30% and Newt in third with 22%. I suspect that has tightened in a similar way to TN and OH but given the size of the lead Santorum probably holds on there with ease.

I don’t see any realistically conceivable way Newt wins 3-4 states today (I can of course conceive of some highly unlikely events that would help but the time for sudden hurricanes is running short). He will win Georgia, he has a tiny possibility of winning TN and that is his upper limit.

Maybe you should have done a better job understanding what the polls were saying – it was a remarkably predictable set of outcomes (outside of ND, AK and ID which were just guesses) yesterday.