GOP Brackets: Tea and Not-Tea

In Epic Journey, we analyzed the three "tournament brackets" of the 2008 GOP nomination contest. At National Journal, Ron Brownstein suggest that the 2012 race is coming down to just two: tea party and non-tea party. The former remains volatile.

The last few national CNN/ORC polls, though, suggest that the non-Tea Party half of the GOP may be starting to coalesce around Romney. In the late August and early September surveys, the non-Tea Party Republicans divided almost exactly evenly among Perry, Romney and Palin (with Perry holding a narrow advantage within the margin of error each time). But the most recent national surveys show Romney rising steadily with that non-tea party portion of the GOP. While Romney attracted 16 percent of their support in late August and 18 percent in early September, he increased to 24 percent in a late September survey and 35 percent in the mid-October poll. That 35 percent is by far the most any candidate has attracted from non-tea party Republicans in any CNN/ORC poll this year. It's also a significant increase from the range of 16 percent to 22 percent support that Romney attracted among those more pragmatic voters in all the previous CNN/ORC polls since June.