and Huckabee leads the GOP Primary.
Obama +8 over Romney
Obama +9 over Huckabee
Obama +13 over Palin
Obama +12 over Gingrich
(Those are all among registered voters, Obama's leads expand slightly in every case if all respondents are included.)
GOP Primary:
Huckabee 24%
Romney 20%
Palin 15%
Gingrich 14%
Paul 8%
Santorum 3%
Pawlenty 2%
Pence 2%
Barbour 1%
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/04/13/rel7d.pdf
50/50 election, Obama versus his mirror image (R, unknown):
Obama must win one of Florida, Ohio, or Virginia or both of Colorado and Nevada lest he lose. He won't win more than one of the three states that clinch and one of Colorado and Nevada, and he could lose every one of them.
Obama vs. Romney, 54-46:
Romney fares slightly better in the Rust Belt than did Obama -- well enough perhaps to flip Indiana -- but worse almost everywhere else. Texas gets close, but I see no reason to believe that Romney would do well with evangelical voters in Kentucky, Tennessee, or West Virginia.
Obama vs. Huckabee, 54-46
I equalize Huckabee and Romney to show differences of the "flavor" of the Presidential election:
Huckabee fares far better than Romney among fundamentalist and evangelical voters in the South, but worse everywhere else -- like Hispanic voters in the Mountain West. Georgia, Missouri, and South Carolina become iffy; Huckabee loses the Dakotas and Indiana and makes no inroads into North Carolina or Virginia. Georgia and South Carolina depend upon the military vote.
Obama vs. Palin, 60-40
The more that people see of her, the more they will dislike her. She would go down to a Landon/McGovern/Mondale defeat except that America still has lots of people who would never vote for a black man.
Sarah Palin does well enough among those people who would never vote for any Democrat, who would
never vote for any black person, and low-information voters, but that is it. I think that she would fare about as well as Goldwater in 1964, which is even worse than this map shows. She would lose Texas and set up a landslide in electoral votes. I have colored Utah white because she is callow enough to say something that would offend Mormons and cause them to "show her and the GOP" that LDS sensibilities are not to be challenged.
Gingrich is hard to figure. He has practically no exposure as a campaigner for even a statewide election. He is more "thoughtful" than other GOP candidates, but Obama is stronger at that suit. I can't come up with a map because I can't identify any particular strengths or weaknesses.
The key for the maps is margins: red for the Democrat, blue for the Republican, deep colors for over 10% margins, medium for 5-9.9% margins. pale for margins under 5%, and white for iffy.
