Why I sure as heck am skeptical that Romney will falter in NH
The question dominating political analysis right now is whether Mitt Romney can hold onto his large New Hampshire lead or will he falter to a charging Rick Santorum. Santorum, after all, is coming off a very strong second place showing in the Iowa Caucus, and his northern (somewhat Pat Buchananesque) populism might take hold with New Hampshire voters.
Count me as a skeptic for the following five reasons.
1. Mitt Romney voters are solid Mitt Romney voters. Mitt Romney lead the field with 59% of the vote among those in the latest Suffolk Poll who said they were unlikely to change their mind or were sure about their voting choice.
Put another way, 38% of the entire primary electorate says their choice is Romney, and they are solid on that choice. No other candidate comes close to that percentage, and 38% is almost certainly enough to win the New Hampshire primary.
2. The truly undecided voters in New Hampshire are overwhelmingly liberal or moderate. There can be little doubt that Rick Santorum runs best with conservative voters. He won them in Iowa, but he garnered only 8% of the vote among liberals and moderates.
Problem is that among the 17% of undecided voters in New Hampshire in the latest Suffolk Poll, 57% are moderate or liberal. This number does not leave Santorum a lot of room to catch up.
3. It’s not like Ron Paul is going away. Lots of pundits like to discredit Ron Paul, but the truth is that he had a fairly strong performance in Iowa. Paul is polling at ~20% in New Hampshire and that is a large chunk of the electorate.
Early (and I stress early) signs from the Suffolk tracking poll is that he has also received a bounce out of Iowa. If Rick Santorum is hoping to capitalize on newly found viability, it seems he might have to compete with Paul for it in New Hampshire.
4. There just isn’t that much anti-Romney, pro-conservative vote in New Hampshire. Mark Blumenthal put it best when he said “even if every Bachmann, Perry and Gingrich supporter switched to Santorum, his support in the Granite State would only total roughly 20%”.
5. Historically, surges in New Hampshire require two parts: the underdog overperforming, and the favorite underperforming in Iowa. Whether it was Gary Hart and Fritz Mondale in 1984, Bob Dole and Pat Buchanan in 1996, or Howard Dean and John Kerry in 2004, the front-runner was perceived as doing worse than expected.
There is no doubt that Rick Santorum did better than the polls indicated in Iowa, but here’s a little secret… so did Mitt Romney by a little. Compared to the final polling averages, Romney did ~1.5% better than the final projections. Santorum certainly exceeded that doing ~6% better, but it’s not like his finish was shocking.
If I were to estimate (and keep in mind, it’s only an estimate) where Rick Santorum will end up in New Hampshire, I would peg it at ~15%. That’s actually slightly better than Nate Silver’s historical Iowa momentum into New Hampshire model would indicate based on the Iowa results vs. pre-Iowa polling in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are solid, and Newt Gingrich will hold onto some of his vote. This leaves very little room for a Santorum surge.
[...] probably need to come at Romney’s expense, which seems unlikely. My colleague Harry Enten pointed out earlier today that Romney voters are not fickle. As Harry argued, Romney leads the field “with [...]
[...] probably need to come at Romney’s expense, which seems unlikely. My colleague Harry Enten pointed out earlier today that Romney voters are not fickle. As Harry argued, Romney leads the field “with [...]
[...] although Santorum seems in a slightly better position than Gingrich. Their lack of a support is of no surprise to this analyst, but does not bode well for them heading into South [...]