On the morning of the Iowa caucuses, analysis pieces like this are almost obligatory. What happens under various scenarios that might unfold tonight? There are certain opinions that are becoming conventional wisdom. For example, if Romney wins tonight then he will coast to the nomination. Or, if Ron Paul wins it will help Romney by doing harm to his strongest potential opponents. Or, if Santorum wins he won’t have enough money to capitalize on it.
Those are all defensible opinions, but there’s more to look at than this surface analysis.
The nomination isn’t going to be won in Iowa or New Hampshire. It’s going to be won, most likely, in South Carolina and Florida. The results from tonight are only important for how they will impact those southern contests. Let’s assume that Santorum will finish in the top three tonight, with Paul and Romney. The next thing to look at will be the placement of Gingrich, Perry, and Bachmann. Gingrich’s position is important because he has a double-digit lead in all recent polls out of South Carolina. If his support dries up, it will go primarily to other not-Mitt candidates. With a top three finish in Iowa, Rick Santorum would be the most obvious beneficiary of Newt’s collapse, but the support could also flow to Perry or Bachmann. Let’s look at the polls in a couple of different ways.
New Hampshire
Romney: 41%
Paul: 19%
Gingrich: 13%
Santorum: 4%
Other Not-Mitt: 21%
Source: RCP Average
South Carolina
Gingrich: 37%
Romney: 21%
Paul: 9%
Santorum: 3%
Other Not-Mitt: 16%
Source: RCP Average
One thing to add to this is that while the social conservatives may give Rick Santorum a somewhat unique chance to over-perform in Iowa, the more moderate electorate of New Hampshire may do the same for Jon Huntsman, who is polling about even with Gingrich in the Granite State.
Let’s look at Ron Paul first. If he wins in Iowa, he will get a lot of attention. The Republican Establishment is absolutely dreading this outcome, but they’re ready to go after Paul with all guns blazing if they need to. Paul’s triumphant speech tonight would touch on a variety of themes of that deviate from conservative orthodoxy, making many, probably most, people deeply uncomfortable. The week leading up to New Hampshire would become a debate about Ron Paul and his unfamiliar views. This would suck up almost all the oxygen, leaving little room for the other candidates to make much of a move either way. It’s hard to predict how it would all shake out in New Hampshire. Dr. Paul might get a boost and close the gap with Romney. Or he might feel a bit like Howard Dean did when the press and the Democratic Establishment buried him between the Iowa and New Hampshire contests. In any case, I think the rest of the polls would be largely frozen, with Huntsman and Gingrich fighting for third place and Santorum feeling frustrated that his better-than-expected finish didn’t garner him any real attention.
But what if Santorum wins tonight? In this case, the focus will be on the oddity not of the candidate but of the caucus system in Iowa, which seems to produce unelectable winners from the extreme socially-conservative fringe. Yet, Santorum won’t be savaged by the Establishment. In fact, there should be some effort by the part of the Establishment that truly doesn’t like or trust Romney to buck up Santorum’s credentials. I’m certain you’ll see this from talk radio and much of the blogosphere. Can it move Santorum’s numbers from the low single digits in New Hampshire and South Carolina? I think he’ll pick up Bachmann’s support, at the very least. He’ll need to cut into Perry and Gingrich’s support to move into the top tier. However, New Hampshire enjoys vetoing Iowa’s choices, and I think a lot of the not-Mitt vote will move to Jon Huntsman. He may move into third place behind Romney and Paul, and Gingrich may head to South Carolina on the tail of two disappointing finishes.
Finally, what if Romney wins? This will, indeed, be reported as a coronation. After all, if Romney can win in Iowa without visiting it more than a handful of times last year, without spending a whole lot, and without initially even planning to compete there, then his opposition is simply too weak to present any competition. But the truth is that he’ll still have to close a double-digit deficit in South Carolina. It’s hard to see how Romney is threatened by either Ron Paul or Rick Santorum, so it’s also hard to see how he’d be all that better off for having beat them in Iowa. His biggest benefit would be kind of indirect. The Republican Party would be spared the embarrassment and controversy of Iowa selecting someone far out of the mainstream. Their electorate would look less insane and threatening. That would help Romney in the general.
To summarize, Romney looks strong overall, and his position won’t be impacted too much by tonight’s results, no matter what happens. But he still has to deal with the fact that he is polling far behind in South Carolina. If Gingrich finishes in fourth or fifth place, his big lead in South Carolina could begin to dwindle in a big way. Rick Perry isn’t going to do well tonight and Bachmann will probably be knocked out of the race. Neither of them will be a factor in New Hampshire either. But Perry can hope to pick up conservative support in South Carolina if the field is winnowed by then. Santorum needs to win. If he doesn’t win, he’d benefit most by a second place finish behind Romney, not Paul. That would allow him to get some positive press. Ron Paul could benefit from a win tonight for two reasons. He’s more serious about promoting his ideology than he is about actually winning, and a week’s worth of bright celebrity is just what he’s shooting for. As for the nomination, he can’t win it outright but he could possibly become a king-maker at the Republican National Convention. To do that, he needs to win at least a third of the delegates. Winning in Iowa would be a good start. On the other hand, he needs a not-Mitt partner to take up another third of the delegates or he won’t have all that much influence at the convention regardless of how many delegates he controls. By winning in Iowa, he may inadvertently make it less likely that he’ll have that not-Mitt partner.
So, that’s what I think tonight will mean, under a variety of likely scenarios. What do you think?
Romneybot doesn’t need to win South Carolina. He’s not the candidate of the Republican base. He’s the extremist to them. To us, he looks the “sanest,” but by demeanor and (genuinely held, not faked) ideology, he’s a fringe candidate, just like Paul.
He’s going to win the primaries by winning in states that he won’t win in the general. Which, now that I think about it, was the way Obama beat Clinton. But in that case, it was an example of organizational prowess. In the GOP case, it just shows how divorced from anything resembling sanity that conservative southerners have become from the rest of the country.
I’m not sure Romney has an ideology, beyond his own self-interest and maybe some vague beliefs that loosely tie into that. Even as politicians go, the man’s a cypher.
Why do you think the ABR (anybody but Romney) vote will go to Huntsman in NH? yes he has been working NH like hell, but Huntsman has a lot of the same problems as Romney, AND he actually worked for Obama and went out foreign. I simply can’t see people who don’t like Mitt heading for huntsman instead.
As for who will win Iowa, I can see Ron Paul wining. I think Santorums ABR surge has come just a little too late for Iowa and he has to come from too far behind. Paul has just the kind of near fanatical followers that would stand in a hall for hours waiting for the end of the caucus. I think that such an early win would likely torpedo Paul going forward though as it will bring way too much attention on Paul too early for him to survive it. I don’t see Romney winning Iowa and I don’t think he cares much either.
I don’t see Santorum getting much momentum out of Iowa in NH. Perry is not even competing there and Bachmann and Gingrich are going to have negative momentum.
Independents can vote in NH and there will be a lot of cross-over moderate votes for Huntsman to sweep up.
Boo:
Don’t forget 2008. If you remember, the “mainstream” press called Cranky McSame the comeback kid for finishing 5th in the Iowa caucuses, lead by Drudgico of course.
well, no one is positioned to make the comeback kid claim except Perry. And fifth place won’t git er done.
If Perry finishes in third, he could make that claim and use it for positive momentum in S. Carolina.
The only thing I see slowing Romney down is if Paul can turn an IA win into a NH win (which isn’t impossible, since NH is something of a Mecca for libertarian weirdos). If he doesn’t get a win in the first three states, I could see the establishment deciding that, hey, maybe one of the Ricks wouldn’t be so bad.
Most likely, though, is that Romney places in IA and wins NH, allowing him to cruise to the nomination.
Okay, let’s say that Romney finishes second tonight and first in NH. When does he win again? Florida? Nevada?
Because Romney has to actually win primaries and caucuses to be the nominee.
I think he wins again in FL, because no one will be able to compete with his self-fulfilling inevitability (and the money and establishment support It brings). Good performance in IA followed by an NH win will give people a good reason to dismiss the shellacking Romney’ll receive in SC. A loss in NH will give a lot of folks who would tolerate Romney on account of his alleged electability pause, which Perry or Santorum could exploit.
I’d love to see an analysis of the dream outcome of Paul supporters (like myself) Namely a Paul-Santy-Mittens lineup. I suggest all bets would be off after that.
I think what the Paul team is hoping for is precisely the scenario you thought would be worst. Namely that after Iowa and NH, Paul and Romney are the only two left standing.
In such a two man race, it is not at all clear how the southern red States will go. They love their wars, so that seems to exclude Paul, but they don’t want a liberal Mormon for president either.
You won’t get that outcome as quickly as you’d like. Perry’s campaign only really begins in South Carolina. And Gingrich currently has a big lead there that will dwindle, but enough to justify dropping out.
CBS affiliate quoted Romney today as saying he might only get to second place.
i wouldn’t be surprised if Paul pulls a win in New Hampshire. He’s had supporters there for years, and the state has a strong libertarian streak. I lived next door in Massachusetts for years, and most NH people I knew loved Paul.
I predict Romney wins NH going away. For every born-in-NH libertarian holed up with his gold and guns in a cabin up north of Berlin, there are three ex-Massholes who moved up I-93, and vote Republican, purely because of taxes, but in every other way think Paul is a complete crank.
Tonight is only meaningful if Romney wins, bc essentially it means he wins NH comfortably and walks from there. He won’t be getting SC probably under any circumstances, but otoh it’s unprecedented for a non-incumbent Republican to win both IA and NH, so you can bet that’s going to make a powerful inevitability argument going forward.
SC isn’t an especially predictive race, or not in recent elections, and I would bet Romney can survive losing there and in FL, if Newt is still in the race by then. And that will depend on how far this Santorum surge (eww) extends.
Bear in mind, the IA caucus for Republicans isn’t the same as the Dem process; it’s essentially the Ames straw poll writ statewide: you have a single secret ballot, there is no threshold for viability, no standing in various living-room corners, none of that. Everybody votes and that’s that.
So aside from gotv efforts, Ron Paul’s machine doesn’t stand to accomplish anything at the last minute except perhaps to alienate voters with aggressive behavior. If they’re smart, they won’t wear coordinated hats or other clothing.
I think it breaks down thusly: 1) Romney 2) Santorum 3) Paul. It depends on how well Santorum is prepared to capitalize on a good showing for fundraising, bc after NH, it’s basically up to him to unseat Newt in SC, and if successful there, then possibly in FL. Unless Huntsman does remarkably well in NH–last I checked he’s still stuck trying to break into double digits–then he’ll be history when NV and Maine roll around in Feb and Romney should win NV at least.
Essentially we’re looking at Hillary Clinton in 2008 if Obama had chosen not to run. Paul will do his best to go the distance, but if the rest of the opposition is gone (due to lack of funds and infrastructure) and he’s regularly getting trounced 90-10 in winner-take-all contests (April and thereafter), he may opt to take his campaign war chest home and give it to Rand to fund his own run in ‘016, much as he seeded his Senate run in ‘010.
I’ve given up on Perry. Santorum is essentially our only hope for a prolonged primary, and that’s just depressing.
One more thing: the Citizens United money at this point all seems to be firmly behind Romney. That was enough to take out Newt in less than 2 weeks.
This is actually entirely wrong. I just looked it up on wikipedia.
No Republican has ever won the nomination without first winning South Carolina since 1976. Reagan won South Carolina, but failed in his overall primary attempt, and Ford lost reelection. Since then, whoever wins South Carolina, wins it all. This was especially important in 2000 and 2008.
Romney is fighting history in trying to win the nomination without being the candidate of the south.
I see where I went wrong, I got NH and SC mixed up in the 2000 race, thought McCain won SC and went on to lose…
But then again, if Mitt wins IA and NH, that’s never happened either. A Republican probably doesn’t stand a chance in hell of winning the GE without the South, but maybe you don’t have to say the same about the primary. We’re in uncharted waters here either way.
While we’re talking about prior precedents, here’s a couple more interesting figures:
There are other precedents we could get into regarding Iowa alone, but it’s starting to look like a futile exercise. Basically, this year’s GOP primary appears to be suffering some effect similar to what global warming has wrought on what we used to consider normal seasonal weather.
God bless Talking Points Memo.