earlier. there are places where if romney s one-on-one in the race, it does get more interesting. but no one expects any dropouts before then, except for perhaps jon huntsman if he doesn t perform up to the market, the math is very good for mitt romney. he has to have, as you suggested, someone challenge him for the more centrist part of the party and right now they re not. they re all challenging in their own pool. and mark, we ll ask you from what you ve heard from team romney, what do they need to do? and what do they not want to happen? they ve probably got to be north of 38% to have no problem at all in the expectations game. below that will depend on where everybody sits. right now, they don t see santorum having enough time to surge into the 20s or the mid at least the mid-20s. they see paul as pretty stable where he is. and so that means unless we see an absolute collapse from huntsman and gingrich with the
huntsman campaign is praying to get a podium spot next to romney so huntsman can go after romney. i think for all of these reasons, mitt romney s going to have a difficult time at these debates. and the question is, will he get testy as he s known to do. mark haleprin, in the end, it all comes down to math and these moderates are going to vote for mitt romney. and if you want to get from 8% to 11% or 11% to 15%, you are fighting for the same conservative votes in the same pot. that s people haven t been avoiding mitt romney because they re scared of him or because they like him, they ve been avoiding him because they know they re not going to get his votes. how is that going to change this weekend? sets up very well for mitt romney. as you say they all want in theory, they recognize they must go after mitt romney. now or never. but they re still competing with each other to be the romney alternative. you saw yesterday, newt gingrich was asked by a voter, how do you
these candidates could beat mitt romney. it would be great to see a series of polls in the southern states. who are you for santorum or romney? it s possible he could survive that and thrive there. the problem for all of them is if gingrich and paul and rick and both ricks stay in, romney never has to have that one-on-one challenge. let s get to where we re going next. and that is new hampshire with only four days to go until the voting in new hampshire, the republican presidential field is gearing up for two debates this weekend. the focus is likely to be on mitt romney as the latest suffolk university poll shows the former massachusetts governor carrying 41% support in the granite state. romney beats his closest competition ron paul by over 20 points. and coming off his strong finish in iowa, rick santorum jumps two points to third place with 8% support. right behind him, newt gingrich and jon huntsman at 7% each. but huntsman is getting a boost
please, everybody be quiet next week i m going to come can we call the republican national committee? because donny deutsch has a prediction. alex, we re going to this is big. goes to ronald reagan, here we go. mitt romney s going to drop about five points. he s going to go into the mid-30s. huntsman will jump to 15, all of a sudden he ll be a factor and santorum will jump to 17%, 18%. all of a sudden we ll be talking about those it s on videotape. two of the number we ll show it. can we get to the other big story of the day, please? i d like to cover the president of the united states. boy, he s doing well. he is. on a number of levels. he finally got somebody to head up the consumer financial protection bureau. very good move. hold on, can i just say, though? thank god, people need protection. and the republicans would never let it happen so he did it himself. this is shocking to me.
but if they attacked me, i would hold them up on the campaign trail. new hampshire is different. new hampshire is a state that where you had, mark, one editorial page after another endorse john mccain back in 2008. and it mattered. huntsman is getting all of those endorsements right now. he s going up on tv now, the super pacs are going up, do you see a late huntsman charge? he had a pretty big crowd last night at an event i was at in newport and proved as a candidate. but right now, i still don t see it. i think he s also going to be endorsed by the nation magazine and huffington post. look, there s kind words for him in that editorial by the globe. but his biggest problem, you talk to any republican from the other campaigns and they say he hasn t defined himself. what is he? moderate and centrist? or a true conservative? he s proud of it, happy about