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What’ll that do in the rest of the primaries? Newt Gingrich spokesman Mr. R.C. Hammond has told the Wall Street Journal that Alabama and Mississippi, which vote next Tuesday, “are must-wins if Gingrich is to remain credible as a presidential candidate”. When he was pressed if Newt “had to win” those states, Hammond responded, “Yes.” I agree with Andrew Sullivan who says: “There doesn’t seem much wriggle room in the quote. So if Santorum wins those states, as he well…

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And what about the “increasingly impressive” EdM? Today’s must-read political column is that by Peter Oborne in Telegraph in which he looks at relations between the coalition partners and predicts that the arrangement won’t survive 2013. He focuses on the Vince Cable letter row to underline the point that the government has two economic policies – George’s and Vince’s. Oborne goes on: “..Allies of the Chancellor are trying to diminish Mr Cable by pointing out that he has been responsible…

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Could he pull off a shock victory? The March 29 by election at Bradford West brings to six the number of by elections on the British mainland since the general election. All of them have been in LAB seats – two as a result of illness/death; one because the incumbent wanted to become Mayor of Leicester and three because of actions of the courts. The five that have been held have all been solid LAB holds with the only interests…

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Nate Silver’s 538 New York Times blog Is a Newt exit the only way Mitt can be stopped? In terms of delegates delegates it is now:- 401 Romney 160 Santorum 110 Gingrich 62 Paul The winning target is 1144. Romney has more delegates than his three rivals combined. The only possible game-changer would be if Gingrich quits the race. Apart from Georgia, his home state, he had a dreadful night scoring single figure vote totals in half the states and…

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Were the first signs in the daily Gallup tracking poll? At 6pm UK time yesterday evening the daily national tracking poll came out and showed a big reverse in the way the GOP contenders were being viewed. Romney was down 4% on the day and Santorum was up 2%. Because this poll is based on a five day rolling average it meant that that the reversal was even more marked based on the final day’s fieldwork. As I tweeted at…

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And the new UK boundary proposals come under fire By me on Guardian: Boundary changes: Lib Dems oppose nearly a third of new constituencies bit.ly/zH4tvx — Juliette Jowit (@JulietteJowit) March 6, 2012 Romney down 4 Santorum up 2 in Gallup daily tracking — Mike Smithson (@MikeSmithsonOGH) March 6, 2012 gallup.com/poll/election.…. Mitt lead down from 16% to 10%. Is something happening out there? — Mike Smithson (@MikeSmithsonOGH) March 6, 2012 Early exit polls show John Kerry opening a lead in Ohio….

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What’ll be the political fall-out? All the signs are that a deal has been done by the coalition partners to scrap the 50p tax rate and that there’ll be some form of mansion tax. It’s suggested that the latter might be in the form of more council tax bands at the top for the most expensive dwellings. Already Ed Miliband has started attacking the plan saying that the new property tax, whatever its called, shouldn’t be used “as an excuse”…

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