Sunday, August 21, 2011

IOWA Political Musings

Hi All,
I have thought a bit about the Iowa Caucus after the recent events in Ames and have come to certain conclusions, based upon assumptions which may or not turn out to be valid. To wit:

1. Romney will be a MAJOR player in Iowa. He has said as much if anybody wants to listen. He has said he will be in Iowa frequently; so frequently that folks may wish he wasn't. He has said he wants to win the caucus. He also has said that no one but the media pays attention until after Labor Day. So, I believe Romney will compete to win in Iowa and will force a focus by his competitors that will prevent them from investing in N Hampshire and Nevada. They will almost certainly concentrate on Iowa and S. Carolina.
2. The competitors will be Perry, Bachmann, Santorum, Paul, Cain and Palin. Gingrich may or may not be in the Iowa race , but in any event will be inconsequential. Palin, I think , want's to be a player....if for no other reason than the debates and her public image.
3. The Caucus results will be based upon the following assumptions:
a. The 2008 voter split will be essentially unchanged :
Very conservative...............45 %
Somewhat Conservative.....43 %
Moderate............................ 11 %
Liberal................................ 1 %

b Romney's base support in all categories will remain unchanged
c. Huckabee's support will split as follows:
Perry..........35 %
Bachmann.30 %
Palin..........30 %
Paul........... 5 %

d. Thompson's support will split as well:
Perry..........50 %
Romney.....25 %
Bachmann.10 %
Palin..........10 %
Paul........... 5 %

e. McCain's support will split as follows:
Romney.......75 %
Perry ...........20 %
Paul.............. 5

If these are reasonable assumptions, then the overall state vote is
Romney...... 35 %
Perry.............24 %
Bachmann.....13 %
Palin..............13 %
Paul...............13 %
Others........... 2 %

Santorum, Cain and Gingrich could " Tweek" these numbers a bit, Congressional District wise, but probably not change the fundamental conclusions. Of course, redistricting, because of the census, cost Iowa a CD and the geography of the political landscape may change a bit. In a later posting, I'll take a look at the 2008 results by CD and extrapolate to the new census redistricting and see what it looks like.
But the central conclusion , to me, is that Iowa can be a Romney get and he'll be crazy not to chase it, particularly if Sarah runs .

CraigS

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks for this info craig:) great job!

Closer To Home said...

Great post.

If we first accept that Romney's strategy requires winning NH, then he has a number of ways incrementally to do that. He will first put all required effort into the state itself. A secondary tactic is to defend NH by fighting in IA, especially against Perry, for whom an IA win is an equal necessity.If Romney can leverage his '08 strength with tangible campaigning in '12, he forces Perry to spend nearly full time there, with little ability to press a campaign in NH. Romney can bottle up Perry in IA and wear him out.

I think your Romney numbers may be a bit optimistic, but I don't have a problem hypothesizing something between 28 and 30%. At that level, he can do no worse than 2nd. If Palin is in, he can do no worse than 1st with those numbers.

I believe much of his old IA cadre is still sitting on the sidelines and waiting. If I were guessing, they are already under agreement to pick things up after Labor Day, and are participating in a strategy to lower expectations in IA by starting late.

Concerned Patriot said...

Thanks for posting, but I don't know that I agree with your numbers. I think people are underselling Santorum and he will surprise in Iowa if someone better doesn't jump in.

craigs said...

Closer to Home and Concerned Patriot

I agree with both of your comments. The impact of Santorum and Cain is difficult to judge, but I do think the impact will be more on Bachmann and Palin than Romney. Mitts numbers may be a trifle high depending on the CD split, but his competitors numbers are also probably a little high, depending on Santorum and Cain and Paul

CraigS

Anonymous said...

sarah who? CraigS?

Anonymous said...

BREAKING NEWS...BREAKING NEWS...

Romney said he will be a major player in Iowa...if he says it...it must be true

The word of Romney...Praise be to Romney.

jerseyrepublican

Anonymous said...

The biggest mistake is to take anything from Bachmann's current numbers...if Palin gets in, Bachmann will be back to the 2nd Tier...sporting T-Paw-Type numbers. She will have zero effect on the Caucus and I predict will fizzle out completely by November or December.

jerseyrepublican

craigs said...

I can't wait to see Palin debating Perry. Romney can watch Bozo debating Bozee

CraigS

Anonymous said...

If Sarah gets in the race, I suspect that she will take more voters from Bachmann and Perry than from Mitt. Should be interesting to watch.

AZ