We're Number 1 ... or Number 2!!!

Mitt Romney got absolutely shellacked in Missouri, is getting shellacked in Minnesota, and he may even lose Colorado. From TPM:

Romney thanked all his supporters, including those who have gone out caucusing tonight in Colorado. "The race is too close to call in Colorado at this point, but I'm pretty confident we'll come in Number 1 or Number 2."

That's right ... he's "pretty confident" that he'll come in "Number 1 or Number 2." As Andrew Sullivan pointed out tonight, it appears that if he doesn't have a week and millions of dollars of negative ads to pound his opponent with negative ads, he can't seem to win.

We've now had 7 contests (IA, NH, SC, FL, NV, MN, MO) with one more pending. Romney has won 3 with CO pending. Santorum has won 3 ... with CO pending. Rick Santorum is pushing Mitt Romney. Really.

UPDATE: Yeah, Romney lost Colorado too. Something really bad has happened with Mitt Romney tonight. The bottom really dropped out. In talking about the low turnout in Florida, I had said Michael McDonald was actually understating what a major potential problem this was for Romney. Nate Silver points out that this pattern has finally cost Romney ... big-time:

We have repeatedly noted the pattern in which Mr. Romney's stronger states and counties have been associated with lower Republican turnout.

So far, it was not clear that this had lost Mr. Romney a state -- save perhaps Iowa, when virtually anything might have altered the result.

But in Colorado, where the demographics were reasonably favorable to Mr. Romney -- he won 60 percent of the vote there in 2008 -- it may have made the difference. Mr. Romney's stronger areas in the state were associated with turnout declines of about 20 percent. But turnout was steady or slightly up in places where Rick Santorum did well.

Among other problems for Mr. Romney, this suggests that suggests that the caucus states could be problematic rather than advantageous to Mr. Romney, with his superior organization being outmatched by very conservative voters who have low levels of enthusiasm for him.

So, we've now had 8 contests, Santorum has won 4 and Romney has won just 3. That's a pretty poor resume for Mr. Inevitable.

Minnesota, Missouri, Colorado

Well, I got one thing right last week when I said Santorum is the biggest threat to Romney. Santorum has a really good shot to win two of tonight's contests (Minnesota and Missouri) and he is even in good position to come in second in Colorado.

My reasoning was only slightly off. I had said that Santorum dropping out would boost Gingrich. It seems Santorum is a threat to beat Romney in key places. But the reasoning is not as far off as you might think. Santorum doesn't just have a chance to win in Missouri ... he could get close to 50%. This matters because my logic had been that there are some states where Santorum + Gingrich > Romney. Missouri provides a real test of this proposition because Gingrich is not on the ballot. Even with Paul on the ballot, Santorum is inching towards 50% (he got 45% in the PPP poll).

Meanwhile, Romney is downplaying the importance of tonight's contests. Like Iowa and South Carolina, they don't really matter apparently. My favorite part of this memo is their invoking the fact that John McCain lost 19 contests in 2008 so we're really doing just fine. What ever happened with that President McCain anyway?

Post-Florida

Nobody really ever comes back from Florida, do they?

Gingrich will lose in Florida, the question is by how much? It is a bad sign that the most recent poll to include cell phones in their sample (NBC/WSJ) has Romney up by 15. I still think it won't be quite that bad and Gingrich will lose by 9 points or so.

Gingrich has life after Florida. He seems to lead in national polls (I still don't trust Gallup very much) and he seems to be tied or leading in other states like Arizona, Michigan, and Minnesota. A win in one or more of those states could help him get to Super Tuesday when some southern states vote that Gingrich could win. So what explains the disparity between Florida and the rest of the country? I've never quite bought into the "debates" argument. Everyone thinks the debates made Gingrich in South Carolina and broke him in Florida. But his movement was underway before those debates in both cases. And, if the debates were driving this, why wouldn't his numbers be moving similarly in other states?

I think it is the negative ads pounding Newton in Florida (and previously in Iowa) that are causing the movement there. Mitt can replicate this elsewhere. But it becomes harder to do on Super Tuesday.

All this is not to say that I think Gingrich can beat Romney in the long run. He can't. But he can make it last ... at least until baseball starts.