Huh. It sure seemed to at the time.
But Huckabee had one major weakness (terrible fund-raiser), and made one major mistake: taking his momentum and dashing it against the rocks of New Hampshire, rather than basically skipping NH and getting a head start on SC.
FWIW, I think the expectations game won’t be a big deal this time, for one simple reason: Trump.
Because nobody really knows what proportion of his support will actually show up at the caucuses and polls, it’s hard to know what to expect from the guy who’s got the big lead in the polls. And if nobody knows what to expect from him, nobody knows what to expect from everyone else, either. Even the very last Iowa polls before the caucuses won’t do much to define expectations. Nobody knows.
Not to mention, people are paying less attention than ever to the talking heads who play that game anyway. What happens will happen. If Rubio gets 12% in Iowa and finishes third, that will matter in and of itself, and not in relation to what Larry Sabato said he should get in Iowa.
Let’s talk. Do you use PayPal?
Trump 27%
Bush 21%
Rubio 18%
Cruz 15%
Christie 12 %
Kasich 12%
I hate Cruz the most out of the pack. Ben Carson will be gone by the time Iowa votes, or will do dismally. Huckabee and others will have dropped out.
I disagree, Carson may be losing ground but I think he’ll stay in until South Carolina at least. There’s very little marginal cost for him not to get to the bible belt.
If Jeb gets 21% in Iowa, then that’s such a massive exceeding of expectations that it’s hard to see how Jeb doesn’t coast to the nomination after that.
Maybe it’ll be the result of the same ballot-box stuffing that got Nema98 allocating 105% of the vote to the top six candidates.
Dunno about SC, but I agree that (possibly excepting Gilmore) there will be no more dropouts before the voting in Iowa. If you’ve been running for President for most of a year, and have staked your hopes on Iowa (or NH), you’ve only got another 4 (or 5) weeks to hang in there.
I really do expect Huckabee and Santorum to drop out after Iowa, unless they do a whole lot better than they’re polling there. As 538 points out, they’ve spent way more time in Iowa than anyone else, and of course both have won there previously. So if they can’t do it there this year, they’ve got no reason to think they’ll be able to break through in SC.
As far as Carson is concerned, he’s whacko in more ways than I can keep track of, so who knows how long he’ll stay in? But he’s certainly sounded lately like a man who’s had enough of this, so I’m leaning toward his dropping out after Iowa too.
NM: Missed someone
NM: was responding to post #29. 
Okay having found the missing data set…
A look at the overall Straight Dope prediction…
How often candidates were included in Doper’s posts…
Cruz 12
Trump 12
Rubio 11
Carson 9
Bush 8
Everyone else: 2 or fewer. None of these candidates will be included in the rest of the analysis.
Lowest and highest % predicted for each candidate*
Cruz: 15/41
Trump: 19/35
Rubio: 8/20
Carson: 6/15
Bush: 5/21
(*Yeah, I realize the people who didn’t mention Bush and Carson would’ve been likely to come up with even lower numbers if they’d been forced to guess for every candidate.)
Mean %
Cruz: 30.6%
Trump: 26.9%
Rubio: 14.7%
Carson: 9.3%
Bush: 8.8%
(And I also realize that the lack of lower values for Carson and Bush is almost certainly making their mean averages skew upward.)
Median %
Cruz: 33%
Trump: 27.5%
Rubio: 13%
Carson: 8%
Bush: 5.5%
(For Rubio, Carson and Bush, treated it as if they had a full 11 data points, with “< the lowest predicted value” filling in the blank spots)
Cruz 36%
Trump 18%
Rubio 14%
Bush 10%
At least I’m hoping that what I’ve been saying will play out regarding Trump. His poll numbers are a mirage.
Cruz will overperform because of a strong ground game, whereas both Rubio and Trump will underperform for the same reason. My WAG is that Carson will continue to fade, and drop out of the top four, and Bush will benefit (barely) from the “second look” effect.
Cruz: 38
Trump: 26
Rubio: 9
Bush: 6
Cruz-34%
TRUMP-32%
Rubio-10%
Huckabee-7%
Santorum has just started to run ads in Iowa. Be interesting to see if the various smaller candidates doing ads for the first time increases their support.
8 Bush!
5 Kasich
4 Christie
3 Carson
Cruz, the current Crazy Candidate, will start to decline, but it won’t be enough to knock him out of the top spot. Some of his votes will go to Huckabee. Trump, the Big Crazy, won’t do as well as the polls, and will begin his long decline.
I don’t know who the next Crazy will be, but at this point it’s usually someone with a little credibility (last primaries, Gingrich was the final Crazy, during the SC primaries). Maybe it will be Kasich or Christie, which wouldn’t help them very much in Iowa, but could give them some steam going into NH.
Latest poll shows Cruz ahead in California. California votes late, but that’s a sign that his appeal is moving beyond Iowa.
It looks like a garbage poll conducted by drug-addled monkeys.
Cruz 30%
Rubio 25%
Trump 19%
Jeb! 8%
Carson 6%
Rand Paul 4%
The rest: 1% each
Gambling on elections is illegal in the U.S. AFAIK.
On the other hand, if you’re game, we can have a gentleperson’s agreement to self banning from posting about politics until a new U.S. president has been officially elected.
The deal is, if Trump finishes first or second in Iowa you will agree not to post in elections and also agree not to post anything about politics until inauguration.
If Trump finishes third or lower I will agree to do the same.
How about it?