“Nobody thinks Romney’s going to win. Let’s just be honest. Can we just say this for everybody at home? Let me just say this for everybody at home. The Republican establishment — I’ve yet to meet a single person in the Republican establishment that thinks Mitt Romney is going to win the general election this year. They won’t say it on TV because they’ve got to go on TV and they don’t want people writing them nasty emails. I obviously don’t care. But I have yet to meet anybody in the Republican establishment that worked for George W. Bush, that works in the Republican congress, that worked for Ronald Reagan that thinks Mitt Romney is going to win the general election.” — Joe Scarborough, on Morning Joe.
Of course Romney will lose the general election. Why? First Read clues us in:
The responses from the elected Republicans [to President Obama’s budget speech yesterday] seemed to be: How dare the president campaign against us! And as we pointed out yesterday, Obama isn’t necessarily running against Mitt Romney; he’s running against the Republican Party brand—and making sure that Romney owns that brand. In fact, Romney’s biggest challenge over the next two or three months will be for him to differentiate himself from the brand. There’s been a lot of focus of late on how damaged Romney has become in this process (his high negatives with indies, etc). But we’ve noticed a larger trend: The brand of the GOP is what’s been damaged; Romney may simply be collateral damage. And this is why he has to figure out a way to either improve the GOP’s brand or differentiate himself. Which can he achieve?
Romney wins Wisconsin, D.C. and Maryland. Yawn. Santorum heads for his last stand in Pennsylvania. Yawn. I think I will stop covering the Republican primary polls now, since the race is over. It is all General Election polling re Obama v. Romney, and of course regarding other down ballot races. And having said that, there is no polling available today except for the following Senate poll from Nevada. PPP says they have numbers for the Nevada general election matchup between Romney and Obama published later today, and they say that the numbers will show Obama in his strongest position since he won the state in 2008 with 55%.
GENERAL ELECTION — U.S. SENATE
NEVADA (PPP): Sen. Dean Heller (R) 46, Rep. Shelley Berkley (D) 43