Who Won the Week?

With Rick Santorum dropping out of the Presidential race, it is almost certain that Mitt Romney will become the GOP nominee, and thus, the general election has now begun.  Due to this, I would like to begin a weekly “Who Won the Week?” by analyzing developments that took place throughout the week. 

Coinciding the start of this segment with the effective end of the primary season gives Mitt Romney an automatic edge to win the week.  After all, Romney can now train his full attention at beating President Obama in the fall instead of fending off competitors from his own party. 

An end to the primary has yet another advantage for Mr. Romney: he can now begin raising money for the general election without having to worry about spending it to compete in the upcoming primary states. 

Further, though the “War on Women” charge from many Democrats seemed to be working in Mr. Obama’s favor leading into this week, Hilary Rosen’s comments about Ann Romney may soon evaporate the President’s strong lead among women voters.  True, the White House has done much to distance itself from Rosen, but the damage had already been done, and the story continued for at least three days. 

This isn’t to say that the President hasn’t had any upsides this week.  All week he has been pressing the so-called “Buffett Rule” in various campaign stops and his weekly radio address.  And it seems to be working: a new poll came out today showing 60% of Americans agree with the rule while only 37% oppose it.  Among independents, the level of support is at 63%.    The issue is a real winner for the President, specifically as he will be facing off against a multi-millionaire in the general election.

President Obama also set off for Colombia this weekend for the Summit of Americas.  The political benefit of this trip is centered most around the fact that the President will be meeting with several leaders of Latin American countries, which will likely gin up more support among the Hispanic base in America. 

However, unfortunately for Mr. Obama (and many others), the trip seems to have been caught up in a scandal by the Secret Service, with allegations of misconduct among nearly a dozen personnel.  It is yet to be seen how this scandal will play out, but chances are it won’t benefit the President politically. 

Now to polling: at the beginning of the week and up until Thursday, the President was receiving quite good news from various polls placing him ahead of Mitt Romney in the one on one matchup.  However, as the week continued, the polls continually looked better and better for Mr. Romney and worse for Obama.  The latest RealClearPolitics average has Obama besting Romney by only 2.4%, a sizable difference from earlier this week when Obama was leading Romney by approximately 5.5%. 

Who won the week?  Mitt Romney.