So the long-awaited Iowa caucuses are tomorrow. Here are some things you know, and some things you maybe didn’t.
- The polling remains very fluid. The most recent polls have Mitt Romney barely clinging to a lead, with Ron Paul and Rick Santorum close on his (and each other’s) heels. But all pollsters seem to agree that the numbers could easily change, as many voters are not strongly committed.
- One thing is very clear from the polling: a large majority of caucus-goers – on the order of 75% – are planning to vote for someone who isn’t Mitt Romney. The only question is how they will divide themselves up.
- Part of the difficulty in polling the caucuses is figuring out who is going to show up. This is made even more complicated by two curious and ironic facts about the Iowa Republican caucuses. (1) Any person eligible to vote in Iowa – even a registered Democrat or someone who is not registered – can show up on caucus day, declare his or her registration to be Republican, and participate. In other words, the Iowa GOP caucuses have election-day registration. (2) Photo ID is not required to participate – even for those who register on election day. And this, despite the fact that the Iowa Republican party has more or less total control over the rules of its caucuses. That is to say, if the Iowa GOP wanted a photo ID requirement, they could have imposed one. They chose not to. Interesting, no?
- Here’s another strange but true fact about the Iowa caucuses: they don’t assign delegates. As of today, each Republican candidate has zero delegates. After tomorrow’s results are in, it will still be zeroes across the board. The much-hyped Iowa caucuses are only the first step in a long and quite complicated process for selecting delegates in Iowa – the delegates aren’t actually awarded until June, at which point the game may have changed substantially. For instance, remember how Mike Huckabee supposedly won Iowa in 2008? John McCain actually got all of Iowa’s delegates. As ABC explains, “in presidential voting, the Iowa GOP caucuses are essentially a statewide straw poll.” And yet, this straw poll will almost certainly go a long way toward eliminating several once-viable candidates.
Despite all of that, we await the results just as breathlessly as the rest of the political world. My prediction: Romney wins, the Santorum surge propels Mr. Sweater Vest into second, and Ron Paul lands in his usual third-place finish. The spread between one and three isn’t more than 5 or 6 points. The blow to Michele Bachmann’s campaign is fatal; Perry has enough money to fight on for a few more states but never recovers; Newt’s poor showing and lack of organization renders his campaign similarly unable to recover and returns his operation to what it was originally intended to be: a book tour. Also, Santorum, despite his strong finish, quickly fades a la Huckabee – his lack of money and organization in other states makes follow-up victories impossible. Ron Paul sticks around for a while as a thorn in Romney’s side, but never actually wins a caucus or primary.
What’s yours?
Patrick says
Paul 26, Santorum 19, Romney 18, Gingrich 13, Perry 10, Bachmann 7, Huntsman 3
andoverliberal says
in Iowa, with Romney a close 2nd, followed by Paul and then Perry. Perry sets himself up as the only viable anti-Romney candidate in the race, wins SC and FL and sets up a long, bloody primary battle between Romney and Perry.
Trickle up says
behind Santorum, but Newt hangs in and stages a mini comeback in S C. The effect is to block any possible opening for Perry.
Romney benefits from all and arrives at the convention in control and without his hands tied. His speech, veep pick, keynote and and number of offensive convention speakers will be entirely Romney’s own choice in light of his strategy against Obama. GOP closes ranks and it’s a near thing.
sabutai says
Romney clings to the lead, many of Paul’s young backers don’t show up to caucus, though some bored Democrats do. But he’s damaged goods. This is Bachmann’s first and last event. Momentum counts big in IA, and Santorum rides it into second place. He then shows why he won’t win — a dumb campaign that’s going into NH. Waste of time, money, and expectations. Call it irrelevant, and head to SC like Paul is doing. That will be his undoing; Perry is the last one to go down.
Romney 24, Santorum 22, Paul 18, Gingrich 13, Perry 12, Bachmann 7.
joeltpatterson says
in their caucuses (in contested years) was in 2000 when Iowa’s GOP picked George W. Bush. So, when they were right, it was disastrous for America.
doubleman says
Journalists will have a fun time writing headlines mentioning Santorum’s finish.
Personally, I hope Santorum comes out first.
joshc says
I’m going to predict that the evangelicals coalesce around the surging Santorum and deal Romney another Iowa letdown:
Santorum, 27
Paul, 22
Romney, 21
Gingrich 14
Perry, 8
Bachmann, 5
Other 3
Ryan says
but they are hard core. If the polls are close, I wouldn’t be surprised if they pull it out. Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if Romney eeks by a divided field, either. Sudden surprises has been the name of the game on this Reality TV show of a primary.
I will absolutely laugh if Santurom becomes a flavor of the month. Who’d have ever thought that would happen? It seriously is a ‘everyone gets a trophy, but Romney’ Republican Primary so far. Honestly, think of all the candidates who’ve now been ahead of him and in first at some point nationally or in Iowa: Cain, Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann, Paul and now it’s looking like Santorum could, too… an absolute troll of a politician if I’ve ever seen one.
Romney probably will win the GOP primary by process of elimination, when all is said and done, but it’s going to be done by prying the nomination from the cold, dead hands of all the dunderheads they could throw at him in the primary process. Egads!
He is not loved or feared, just lucky.
liveandletlive says
I’m hearing that even Dems are attending his gatherings. He has nearly 1500 volunteers all set to become precinct leaders. He seems to have quite a following.
Laurel says
and so many die-hard supporters if there were even one other outspoken libertarian (or in Paul’s case, “libertarian”) in Congress. But as he’s the only one, they cling to him whether he deserves their devotion or not.
liveandletlive says
and Rand Paul scares me like no tomorrow. I think Ron Paul and his “personal liberty” talking point is what gives him so much appeal. It even appeals to me, except that I understand that the unintended consequences of a totally free country would be devastating for everyone. If people understood the scope of “liberty” he would encourage, they would not even get close. But, most people don’t really listen or take the time to understand the true meaning behind these appealing talking points.
Pablo says
Chris Matthews came up with a stinging metaphor for the Romney campaign, reported in this Huffington Post story. Here’s the key point:
This really doesn’t come as much of a surprise in Massachusetts. It’s the way Willard “Mitt” Romney did business in 2004, when he decided to try to help elect more Republicans to the legislature. Cookie-cutter ads started appearing in mailboxes, from the Massachusetts GOP, attacking the Democratic candidate. Governor Willard was still Mr. Sunshine, but his statewide operatives were providing attack-postcards as their in-kind contribution. Voters didn’t like it, and the effort resulted in a net loss of GOP seats in the Great and General Court.
Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich is fighting mad. Newt is rehearsing a new song that includes the magic words, “Romneycare funds abortions and Planned Parenthood.”
My prediction is that, at long last, someone is going to decide that they aren’t running to be Romney’s vice president, and actually starts to return the fire on the Bain of Belmont Hill.
I predict Romney will fall behind Ron Paul and Rick Santorum in Iowa, and there will be some really fun times ahead when GOP attacks on Romney start to mount.
merrimackguy says
Though maybe Paul second, Santorum third.
The follow-up predictions are right on.
dcsohl says
I don’t think it’s fair to characterize the caucuses as a “state-wide straw poll”. It’s true that the caucuses don’t award delegates directly but they are an important first step.
The caucuses tonight are “precinct-level” caucuses. They elect delegates to go to the county-level conventions on March 10. The county conventions in turn elect delegates to the state convention on June 16. It is the state convention that picks the actual delegates.
The Republican Party put out a timing calendar which said, among other things, that a certain batch of “early” states (IA, NH, SC, NV) could begin delegate selection after February 1. These precinct caucuses do not count as a violation of this rule since no delegates are actually chosen tonight.
Nevada, likewise, has precinct caucuses which they were threatening to hold in mid-January. New Hampshire was absolutely determined to be the second state, as they always are, after Iowa, so they moved their primary to next Tuesday, so they would still be before Nevada. But the NH primary does bind delegates, so NH is now in violation of this rule and stands to lose half of their elected delegates and also lose the voting privileges of their unpledged delegates (party leaders).
Fun stuff, eh?
johnd says
Mitt Romney goes on to to win the GOP nomination and defeats President Obama who is mired in a staggering 9.x% unemployment rate after the US economy stalls and drops in the summer of 2012.
merrimackguy says
In order to win Romney has to regain all the typcially Red states that the Republicans lost in 2008, Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, etc, etc, but he also has to win Florida and Ohio.
With Obama holding all the typically Blues, he just has to dump hundreds of millions into negative TV ads in those two states to sway voters.
Additionally the Republican governors in OH & FL have already been stirring things up there, and not in a positive way for Romney.
There is no other path.
Check out http://www.270towin.com
johnd says
Really?
theloquaciousliberal says
Fun to play with.
But, here’s my Romney victory scenario that I think is frighteningly realistic. Romney wins back Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Michigan. All else remains the same as 2008 (Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada and Iowa remain Blue) and Romney wins 273-265.
Do you see Romney has having absolutely no chance of winning back those five states (FL, OH, IN, PA and MI)? Which is the most challenging?
jconway says
Romney 29 Santorum 24 Paul 21 Newt 11 everyone else single digits
merrimackguy says
If you look at the site you can get history by state.
Voting anywhere follows patterns. It’s not like the stock market disclaimers (“past performance is not an indicator of future performance”). A state that voted Blue for years on end (Michigan) is just not going to change.
Some states are swing states though.
Obama’s strength in places like VA and NC was partly due to demographic changes, but mostly due to high turnout in two base groups- African-Americans and students. I bet (without looking) he got 90-95% of that vote. Without that boost in 2012, as their turnout will be lower (enthusiasm gap), he loses those states.
He also loses a chunk everywhere of independent votes he got, and then he loses the swing states.
There is no formula that says Obama loses a Blue state like Michican and then wins a swing state like VA. Votes just don’t behave that way. I don’t think the Romney as favorite son scenario is valid. He doesn’t even live in MA anymore.
Which brings us back to OH, and FL.