Is Mitt Romney Unstoppable in New Hampshire?

Daniel Doherty | January 02, 2012 11:16 AM

Although Hawkeye State voters will head to the polls tomorrow and cast their ballots for president, a new Suffolk University survey released today shows Mitt Romney with a commanding lead over his Republican rivals in New Hampshire.

Here are the results in alphabetical order:

N=                                                            500 100%
Michele Bachmann ............................01 13    3%
Newt Gingrich ...................................02 55   11%
Jon Huntsman ....................................03 45    9%
Gary Johnson .(dropped out)..............04 1      0%
Fred Karger ........................................05 0      0%
Ron Paul ............................................06 75    15%
Rick Perry ..........................................07 8      2%
Buddy Roemer ...................................08 6      1%
Mitt Romney ......................................09 205 41%
Rick Santorum ...................................10 14    3%
Undecided (DO NOT READ) ............11 78    16%

Considering Suffolk University surveys, at least this election cycle, tend to skew Mitt Romney's polling numbers slightly higher than other reputable polling organizations, the former Massachusetts governor is nonetheless leading Ron Paul by an astounding 26 percentage points. What’s more, only 16 percent of voters are undecided, which suggests that the vast majority of Republican voters in the Granite State have ostensibly chosen their candidates. Clearly, this is encouraging news for Team Romney, especially since he’s already garnering more than one-third of the vote.

Incidentally, over the holidays, I had the opportunity to speak with a number of New Hampshire primary-goers. One public high school teacher, for example, told me that she was impressed with President Obama‘s charm and charisma when he campaigned at her school in 2008. Today, however, she and many of her students are disenchanted with his administration and are now leaning towards Mitt Romney. Interestingly, she explained that in the Granite state – I was surprised to learn this – young voters and high school students are deeply involved in the political process. While this revelation will probably not affect the outcome of the election on January 10, it does indicate that President Obama is losing key voting blocs that made possible his victory in 2008. This, in short, is good news for all the Republican presidential candidates, especially if this trend proves to be correct.