Lots of really effective negative ads from Paul and Perry, that’s what happened. The ads remind Iowans about 'the same old Newt," as I guess they were trying to forget about that.
Actually, Perry is having a little resurgence here. The GOP has gone through so many “not-Romneys,” now they’re starting to recycle them. And Perry has restyled his campaign to be the “Faith” candidate, not ashamed to go to church and say nasty things about the gays … a lot of the solid religious fundamentalist Iowa Republicans eat that up.
Although speaking of “the gays,” Newt’s the one who told a gay man this week that he should go support Obama. He’s so confident he’s telling people to vote for someone else!
Yup. This should probably tie in with the “do political ads work” thread from a few weeks ago. One repeatedly proved fact is that unanswered negative ads will decrease a candidates approval rating. And Newt still has no money (and very few important surrogates) to respond with.
You could say the same thing about him suddenly becoming popular in the first place. Other than Perry, the non-Romneys are invariably people the electorate has never heard of or has completely forgotten about (and I doubt anyone knew anything about Perry’s policy positions other than that he was probably Tough On Crime).
Each has collapsed in turn once the voters find out all the things that distinguish them other than not being Romney.
You and I know that Newt was a smart douchebag in 1994 and is a smart douchebag now, but the voting public has the attention span of a gnat and most of them probably didn’t even know he was the Speaker of the House until he got over 30% and the talking heads started discussing him.
Several things happened to Gingrich. First the debates ,which were his oxygen, have ended for the time being. The campaign moved to the ad phase where he was a huge disadvantage and was hit by a massive barrage of ads from Romney and Paul. At the same, mainstream Republican commentators like George Will and the National Review mobilized furiously against him. All this was bound to take a toll; the only question was how much and how fast. It appears it’s been enough to make a Gingrich victory in Iowa a fairly distant prospect especially since he probably doesn’t have much of a ground game to fall back on.
I think the only thing that can save him now are some big endorsements. Cain is a possibility and while he is finished as a candidate I could still see his endorsement boosting Newt by a few points and give him some badly needed momentum. Limbaugh would be the big one though. If he decides to strongly support Newt and attack Romney, this could push Newt over the finishing line in Iowa which would give him a boost in NH, South Carolina and Floriday and the time to fill his coffers and build a ground game.
All this is a long shot though and it’s looking like an easy Romney victory at this point. I still think there will be another twist, not necessarily stopping Romney but giving him a real scare. As the debates recede in memory could Perry make a comeback and produce a suprise showing in Iowa?
How ironic - the “15%” business is only how the Democratic caucus in Iowa works.
Apparently, the way the Republican one works is, (a) there is a “straw poll” that, presumably, is used to determine “the winner” (when all of the votes are added up statewide), and then (b) each local caucus decides on its own (e.g. proportional to votes, plurality takes all, rock-paper-scissors, two out of three falls) who to send to the county convention, which in turn decides on its own who to send to the congressional district convention, which then decides (a) who to send as the district’s three delegates to the national convention (although they may not do this this year, if the Republicans are serious about the “you only get half of your delegates if your primary/caucus is before February 1” rule) and (b) who to send to the state convention, where they select the rest of Iowa’s national convention delegates.
The half delegates rule applies only to primaries and caucuses other than the designated early starters, which include Iowa and New Hampshire. The anger against Florida was that it threatened Iowa and NH’s places of privilege. Iowa’s delegates will count because it’s supposed to be first, no matter when it happens.
I thought the 2012 rule said that the early starters (Iowa, NH, SC, Nevada) had to wait until February 1 (and could have “winner take all” contests), and the other states had to wait until the first Tuesday in March (and could not be WTA until April 1).
However, these rules were subject to the Democrats following the same rules, and apparently they have not, so they are going back to the 2008 rules, which, IIRC, say that the early starters can have their events in January, and the others starting on the first Tuesday in February, without delegate penalties.
Things are going swimmingly well for the Mittster. Not only is he leading in 538’s projections but there is a mini-surge for Santorum (seriously??!!). Since the latter has no serious campaign outside Iowa that suits Romney just fine. Santorum takes away votes from Gingrich and Perry who could potentially challenge Romney. The ideal scenario for Romney is he comes first in Iowa and Paul and Santorum come in second and third and that is indeed the order in the 538 projections right now.
Of course the projections are pretty close after 2, and the caucus process itself is pretty unpredictable so it’s hard to say what will happen. Still all Romney needs is to beat Gingrich and Perry and that is looking more likely by the day. If Romney comes in second to Paul that’s OK for him too. He will probably win comfortably in New Hampshire and gain huge momentum.
Romney’s main worry is that as conservative candidates drop out their support goes to Gingrich or Perry and they become a serious challenge. Even on that front things are looking good. It’s likely that Bachmann will be eliminated but a strong showing by Santorum could mean he sticks around for a while.
If Romney wins in both Iowa and New Hampshire, the nomination is practically his. Expect the poll numbers in Florida and even South Carolina to swing in favour of Romney.
The same thing happens if Ron Paul wins Iowa but possibly not as fast.
The next few states after Florida are all heavily Romney territory-Nevada, Maine, Colorado, Minnesota.
What I don’t understand is: how could Gingrich possibly win South Carolina with a probable 4th or worse showing in Iowa? I know SC doesn’t really care what anyone thinks of them, but I seriously doubt that many voters will back a loser just because he’s (sort of) a southerner without the support of the SCGOP establishment which has either been supportive of Romney or in a holding pattern to prevent the nominee from being someone other than Romney.
I know Silver deals in data, but there are intangibles being ignored here. Those SC numbers will nosedive after Iowa and then Silver’s algorithm will reassess Gingrich down. The only way to do it is massive error bars. Honestly, how useful is a prediction that a candidate will get between 14 and 57 percent of the vote?
Gingrich was born in Pennsylvania, lived there and on military bases when he was young, but graduated high school in Columbus, Georgia, college at Emory University in Atlanta and got his doctorate from Tulane in New Orleans. Since then he has resided mostly in Georgia and Washington, DC. I’d say that makes him a prototypical Sun Belt southerner, like millions of others whose families migrated south in the past 50 years. I guess he’d be more southern if he’d been raised drinking sweet tea on his back porch when he wasn’t picking pecans or playing with the sharecropper’s kids down the lane, but really, he’s a southerner.
There hasn’t been a poll in SC/FL for almost 2 weeks so new data has not been incorporated yet. When the next poll comes in, that data will be revised down sharply.