If this poll is right, anything could happen in NH

3 Comments

1. 

   Marie3 on December 26, 2015 at 12:07 pm

   The WBUR 11/1 and Boston Globe 11/19 polls weren’t hugely different from this one except for the anomaly of Carson at 16% and 10% respectively.

   2015 travel days to Iowa:

   67 – Graham (his BFF’s strategy didn’t work for him)
   57 – Christie
   44 – Kasich
   44 – Fiorina
   36 – Bush
   25 – Paul
   20 – Rubio
   17 – Trump
   16 – Cruz
   12 – Carson
   8 – Santorum
   2 – Huck

   In their extremely short-lived campaigns Perry had 14 travel days to NH and Walker had 12.  Reports on Walker is that he flopped big time and NH was a weak fit for Perry as it is for Carson, Santorum, and Huck. Not that much better for Rubio and Cruz, although my guess is that Cruz would suffer more from more exposure in NH than Rubio would.

   My second guess is that Bush would have to do much better in Iowa than the current projections for there to be a “flight to Bush” in NH.  Same with Kasich (who is sort of the most natural seeming fit for NH).  Christie appears to be doing better in Iowa than either Bush or Kasich.  

   Third guess — Iowa: Cruz 1st, Trump 2nd, Rubio 3rd then Cruz 4th or 5th in NH and Trump more likely than Rubio for 1st.

2. 

   ATinNM on December 27, 2015 at 2:56 pm

   To get a feel for movement we need to know voter’s second choice within their section of the GOP coalition because it is most likely for people to move within their ideological group then break their allegiance.  I see 3 main groups (all number are rough & YMMV):

   Establishment/Corporate Wing: Rubio/Kasich/Bush — 35% of vote

   Evangelical/Fundie Wing: Cruz/Carson — 16% of vote

   Peasants-Are-Revolting Wing: Trump/Christie/Paul — 37% of vote

   First thing to note is the Evangelical/Fundie candidates are out of it.  Which also goes with the grain of NH presidential primary winners that leaves roughly 72% of voters determining the winner and the Peasants-Are-Revolting faction having the narrow lead in what is, for all practical purposes, a Toss Up.

   For Trump to win he has to eat a goodly way into Christie’s support, since Paul supporters are a loyal bunch, by and large.  The other way Trump can win is if there is no substantive change in voter support.  Countering this is the fact nobody has ever actually voted for Trump so his ability to turn supporters into voters is unknown.  Christie doesn’t have a chance.

   For Rubio to win he has to eat into Kaisch’s support with some side movement from JEB! which is not impossible. For Kaisch to win would take some highly implausible things to happen, like a collapse of Rubio’s support. For JEB! to win would take a miracle.

   The kicker in all of this is polling the mobile-only demographic which is just about everybody under the age of 35 is fraught.  Slightly countering this is they rarely vote unless someone rouses them emotionally and that person, in New Hampshire, is Sanders.  However, with everything so tight on the GOP side even a few thousand very difficult to detect youngs voting for a candidate could very well tip the election.

   So.

   Given Trump has two ways to win and assuming he can turn supporters into voters I’ll predict, based on what we now know, he’ll squeak the win.  If he doesn’t, then it will be Rubio — who will go on to flame out in South Carolina and the Nevada caucuses.

3. 

   cruzy on December 30, 2015 at 10:28 am

   They’ll nominate Reagan, then work on digging him up. When they find out he raised taxes and hung out with Arabs, they’ll throw him back and dig deeper.