I actually stand alongside Cillizza on this comparison; the Battle of Waterloo ended Napoleon and if Mitt Romney is not careful, Michigan could easily end his inevitability of becoming the GOP standard bearer in the 2012 General Election.  Luckily for Romney, everything has to go right for Santorum and only a few things need to go wrong for Romney in order for Santorum to really pull off the Michigan victory.  However, if recently polling is any indication (and A LOT can change between now and Feb 28), the Romney campaign should be (quietly) going into panic mode.

The Michigan Primary:  Scheduled for Feb 28, the GOP Primary in Michigan will be a proportional contest meaning the candidates with receive delegates based on how well they do in the polls.  Michigan has 30 delegates available this year.  Therefore, a Santorum win will not help him much in the delegate count against Romney.  However, that is not the important thing right now.  The important thing is that Romney is the prohibitive front-runner and for him to lose in Michigan, his proverbial home state, where everyone has assumed he’ll win easily, means that the Romney campaign has serious issues it still must grapple with.  That is not a story-line Romney wants to wake up to on Feb 29 and that story-line would plague him going into the March 6 Super Tuesday contests.

Therefore, the Romney campaign has a few routes it can take in the next two weeks.

1) Embrace Michigan and Stay Positive: The Romney campaign went up with a positive ad today touting his Michigan roots.  This may be an indication that the campaign plans to stay positive and re-introduce Romney as the “favorite son” of Michigan.  Romney could double down on this approach.  Stay positive with all advertisements.  Hammer home the fact that George Romney was a popular Michigan Gov. and that Mitt grew up surrounded by Michigan and the auto industry.  Using his biography and experience, Romney could work to convince the voters that he is the true leader and Michigan’s favorite son who will be able to get Michigan and Detroit turned around.

2) Embrace Michigan and Demonize Santorum: The Romney campaign could decide to go the “Florida” route.  In Florida coming off a bad SC loss, Romney went hard at Gingrich.  Romney embraced Florida showing knowledge about problems Floridians are facing and using his experience as the means to helping them.  Romney could do the exact same thing in Michigan.  Dump money and negative advertising into Michigan.  Paint Santorum as the Washington insider that he is.  Reveal to voters the long history of pork barrel spending that Santorum was and is addicted to as a Washington elite.  Prove that Santorum is incapable at addressing Michigan’s problems because he is one of the Washington guys that created them.  It worked in Florida against an underfunded Gingrich, so there’s no reason to believe it can’t work in Michigan against an also-underfunded Santorum.

3) Cut Losses, Focus on AZ & Super Tuesday States: Romney could also always see the writing on the wall and downplay Michigan, focus on AZ’s Feb 28 primary and move briskly onto Super Tuesday like Santorum did in Florida.  This would be a terrible idea mainly because it would show weakness and not help keep the bad headlines out of the media.  It’s a possibility, but not for a front-runner like Romney who strength lies in the fact that he can compete anywhere and everywhere.

So what should Romney do to avert a Waterloo moment?  A combination of #1 and #2 would probably be the best.  He needs to hit Santorum hard.  Santorum is not the Tea Party conservative he is trying to make himself out to be.  Romney is the true Washington outsider and Romney needs to paint the differences between a man with experience as a businessman, turn around specialist, and conservative Governor against a former Congressman and Senator who has never seen an earmark he didn’t like and who remains committed to the practice of earmarking.

Romney must win Michigan by convincing voters he is Michigan’s favorite son, reminding voters of his father’s Michigan legacy, proving to voters he has the experience and knowledge to help fix Michigan, and revealing to voters Santorum’s big government/big spending record.  If he does this within the next two weeks, Romney will have survived his Waterloo and will be the GOP nominee.

First, why do states caucus instead of vote via primary?  It basically comes down to money.  For primaries, the state has to pay and organize the voting.  However, if a state caucuses, the state does not have to do anything.  Rather, the state parties organize and put on their own caucus voting.  The state parties can also use the caucus as a fundraiser. Therefore, the states do not have fork out the money and the parties can raise money.  Its basically a win-win for the state and parties.  However, when it comes to voting – the ultimate democratic experience – our states should not be cutting corners financially.

Second, what even is a caucus?  Primaries are the normal voting that we are all used to: you go to the polls, which are open basically all day, and cast a vote on a ballot that then the Secretary of State’s office tallies and reports.  Caucuses are more like town hall meetings.  Voters have to register and report to their specific precinct location.  They have to arrive at the correct time.  Precincts meet in a room and voters listen to supporters of each candidate give a short speech on why voters should support their preferred candidate.  Then voters cast their ballot, which the precinct leader then tallies and reports to the caucus official, who then tallies all of the precinct totals and reports back to the county party officials.  The county party officials then recount all of the ballots and report to the state party.  If the state and county party organizations are not perfectly coordinated and extremely organized, this whole process is best described as disorderly chaos.

Even if the caucus is perfectly organized and runs extremely smoothly, there still is a major problem: it is anti-democratic.  For instance, at the Iowa caucuses, only 6% of eligible Iowan casted their vote.  At the Nevada caucuses this weekend, only roughly 33,000 Republicans attended the statewide caucuses.  This is a systematic problem.  At today’s Colorado and Minnesota caucuses and this week’s Maine caucuses, we can only expect a tiny percentage of elgible voters to actually show up and cast their vote. For comparison sake, in 2012 the New Hampshire primary saw a voter turnout of 31% of eligible voters (with SC at 17% and FL at 13%) – between 2x & 5x Iowa’s caucus turnout.

Further complicating the caucuses, the contests are typically non-binding meaning the vote does not pledge delegates to a particular candidate.  Why then are people voting if the votes do not assign delegates to a candidate?

Overall, caucuses depress turnout and therefore, decrease democratic behavior.  A voter first has to register, then locate their specific caucus site, then show up at the right time, devote easily a 1 hour +, and then finally vote.  You cannot vote via absentee.  You cannot vote when it suits your daily schedule.  It is tedious, time consuming, and excessively inconvenient.   It is no wonder that turnout is extremely low.

Add on top of the anti-democratic nature the fact that rarely is a caucus perfectly organized or run.  In 2012, Iowa’s state party lost 8 precincts of ballots and had to alter the results of the caucus roughly a week after voting.  It took Nevada basically 2 days to count and certify the votes following their caucus.

In the greater scheme, the amount a state has to fork over to pay for a primary is minuscule.  Primaries promote turnout and our democratic values and nature.  Caucuses look more like third-world county voting – all that is missing are the blue-ink thumbs.  I really do not see much upside to caucuses.  True a state party can raise some money and states can save some, but the reputation fallout of a poor caucus can ruin a state party offsetting any benefit.  Iowa’s GOP state chair resigned after Iowa’s caucus debacle this year and Nevada’s GOP is getting some seriously bad press.

In the end, state should not caucus – stick to primaries and everyone will come out on top with the voting.

As of today, Romney has won two contests with Santorum and Gingrich both winning one.  Romney leads with delegates and has the momentum heading into the February contests.  The question is now, what does the GOP race post Florida mean for each of the candidates?

Mitt Romney: With his decisive win in Florida, Romney has reclaimed the front-runner status that waffled after his South Carolina second place finish.  Coupled with his professional and extensive organization and his monetary advantage, Romney is now probably the juggernaut that many would expect from a front-runner.  Going into the friendly Romney states in February, Romney has to maintain his front-runner status by keeping opponents at a distance attacking them just enough to keep them off their message and by honing his own message to come across as the candidate with ideas and a vision.  Romney has to play February smart so that when hostile states begin voting again in March, Romney’s momentum is so massive that even a few second place showings won’t side track the nomination like South Carolina threatened to do.  Don’t expect Romney to clinch the nomination as early as other front-runners, however.  With the new RNC rules, it’ll be a longer road until he is anywhere close to the 1,144 delegates required.  Nonetheless, by late Spring, expect to start hearing a chorus of Republicans calling for the other candidates to bow out to let Romney’s nomination shine.

Newt Gingrich: Gingrich got beat badly.  He’ll try to downplay Florida, but its hard to go from a decisive victory in South Carolina to a distant second place showing in Florida, a much more diverse and representative state.  He failed because he couldn’t compete with the Romney organization or the Romney message.  Being forced to respond to the Romney attacks, Gingrich came across Nixonian and desperate – not a good combination.  Gingrich has to convince everyone that this is a tw0-man race, which will be tough to do in caucus states that will tend to break toward Ron Paul and with Santorum nipping at his heals.  Gingrich can either maintain his angry, “I hate Romney” campaign strategy or instead decide to return to his positive, idea oriented campaign.  Gingrich has a lot of explaining to do in order to convince Republicans he has what it takes to run a successful general election campaign and be a component President. Unfortunately, February will not be a good month for Gingrich and as the contests come and go, he’ll need an even stronger turnaround.  Gingrich has vowed to remain in the race until the Convention.  There is nothing to stop him, except money.  Sooner or later, the money will dry up; it’s just a matter of can he stop that from happening in February to give him a chance to compete in the Southern states that vote in early March.

Rick Santorum: As much as Gingrich needs the theme to be a two-man race, Santorum needs to prevent such a narrative from occurring.  Santorum has no plans to quit anytime soon, nor should he considering he’s won a contest.  However, Santorum needs to win something again and hopefully by a few more than 34 votes.  As such, expect Santorum to spend his limited resources very carefully in locations where he has a chance at winning or at least come in second.  He’ll contest everywhere (well, everywhere he’s on the ballot), but he won’t play hard in every state.  However, when push comes to shove, I expect Santorum to be the next candidate to bow out.  His money is drying up and his message is not resonating with the movers and shakers of the conservative movement.  It probably won’t be until after March 6′s Super Tuesday, but it will come.  Now, will his voters all migrate to Gingrich like Newt keeps saying they will?  I doubt that.  If Florida had been a two man race, polls showed that Santorum supporters would split evenly between Romney and Gingrich, which is not good news for Gingrich.

Ron Paul: Did you forget Ron Paul was even in this race?  Yep, he’s still around and will be for the long haul.  Paul competes best in caucuses where organization matters and the attendees are the most enthusiastic voters (Ron Paul’s supporters are border-line fanatics).  In February, he’ll play strong in the caucuses that are more open, like Maine.  However, will it be enough to push him into second or even third on the national front?  Doubtful.  Paul has only 4 delegates so far and with the next handful of contests awarding delegates proportionally, there is little hope for Paul to overtake Santorum and especially Gingrich.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he lasts until the Convention in August, but the only threat Ron Paul will bear is how his supporters end up voting in November.

The race is no longer if Romney becomes the nominee but rather when he does.  According to exit polls from Florida, Romney has made advances in winning over conservatives and tea partiers, but he still has work to do.  For instance, Romney won “conservatives” 41% to Gingrich’s 37%, but lost self-identified “very conservative” voters by 11 points (Gingrich 41% vs. Romney 30%).  Similarly, Romney won voters who support the tea party – Romney 41% to Gingrich 37% – but lost those who “strongly support” the movement (Gingrich 45% vs. Romney 33%).  These voters still have issues with Romney and will continue to haunt Romney for the next few weeks.  However, it is hard to fathom how Romney does not win the nomination aside from a massive campaign meltdown for the former Governor, which seems unlikely.

Next time – a discussion on the Tea Party.  Has the movement seen its best day pass? Did it ever really have a chance in influencing the GOP nomination?  What will it’s future be in November and beyond?

However, then some miraculous events happened: Newt did poorly at the two Florida debates, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush defended Romney against ridiculous claims by Newt, and Romney found his mojo (as well as powerful negative attacks).  Romney’s slip in the polls have since turned into strong front-runner positions, yet again.  While I was taking a leap of faith in predicting a Romney win last week prior to the South Carolina primary, I am standing on much firmer ground today.

Florida is important to two reasons: 1) its a massive state with 5 distinct microcosms and 2) it is an important swing state.  Winning Florida not only will give the victor 50 winner-takes-all delegates, but also serious momentum going into the AZ and MI primaries and caucuses in Maine, Colorado, Nevada, and Minnesota.  A Romney win will help to secure these next pro-Romney states in his column making a comeback for Gingrich very difficult.  But more to come on a post-Florida strategy after tomorrow’s vote.

Now off to my prediction (which followed a similar calculation to ones in the past with two slight alterations):

Weighted Average Poll:  I pinned too much hope on old polls for my South Carolina prediction.  I realized then that the more current polls, while not a perfect reflection on how voters will react on election day, are a much better indicator. As such, I decided to weight the more recent polls heavier than the older polls.  I looked at polls that came after SC, giving the 3 first polls a weight of 0.1 (Quinnipiac 1/19-1/23, Rasmussen 1/22, Insider Advantage 1/22).  The next polls received a weight of 0.2 (PPP 1/22-1/23, FL Chamber of Commerce 1/22-1/23, CNN 1/22-1/24, Monmouth University 1/24-1/25, Insider Advantage 1/25, Rasmussen 1/25). Finally, the latest polls received a weighting of 0.7 as these reflect the most current opinions of voters (Quinnipiac 1/24-1/26, Sunshine State News 1/24-1/26, Miami Herald/Mason Dixon 1/24-1/26, NBC/Marist 1/25-1/26, PPP 1/28 & 1/28-1/29, Rasmussen 1/28, Suffolk University 1/28-1/29, Insider Advantage 1/29).   I tried to break the polls into pre-Debate #1, post-Debate #1, and post-Debate #2.

Trending:  Using the same technique, I took the last poll and subtracted the first poll, halved the results and added that to the Weighted Average.  This worked to catch any of the momentum the candidates has that isn’t reflected in the polling data.

Turnout Expectations (Absentee Ballots):  Florida is the first state with absentee ballots playing a huge role.  Voters could start mailing in their ballots as early as last Saturday, ending this past Saturday.  As a result, we have to build into the prediction those who have already voted.  According to polling data, absentee voters are breaking heavily toward Romney (which is not surprising since the older Cuban-American population tends to vote via absentee and they are a pro-Romney group).  As a result, I’m giving Romney a +2 bump and Gingrich and Paul a -1 decrease.  Paul because he has basically abandoned the state to focus on the next caucus states and Gingrich because he   seriously lacks a ground game.

Undecided Voters:  The remaining 8 points of undecided voters have to be distributed among the candidates.  Romney is definitely the front-runner and the surging candidate.  He is increasingly viewed by Florida voters as the best to take on Obama, as a result, I’m bumping him +4.  Gingrich has successfully casted himself as the anti-Romney, so I’m increasing him my +2.  Santorum and Paul each get a bump of +1 since Santorum had a great debate performance on Thursday and has played hard with the religious voters.  Paul will definitely get a bump from his fanatic followers.

Florida Primary Prediction:  It is hard to estimate the true percentage, but the prediction aims to examine how the candidates will rank and then the relative spread between them.

• Mitt Romney: 45%
• Newt Gingrich: 31%
• Santorum: 12%
• Paul: 12%

Romney will finish strong easily breaking the 40% threshold and topping Newt Gingrich by double digits.  The fight for 3rd place will be more of a challenge.  I think Santorum will slightly edge out Paul since Santorum has made an effort to win votes in the state.

After the results come in tomorrow evening, I’ll reassess each candidates’ prospects for the GOP nomination and discuss where the race post-Florida could head.  Will this be a brokered convention like Gingrich keeps saying it will be?  I’ll explore this after Florida.

Political races always get ugly in South Carolina and 2012 was no disappointment.  However, tomorrow SC votes and many have now declared Newt Gingrich the frontrunner.  I’m going to buck the majority of national pundits and predict that Romney will eek out a victory in SC.  He has roughly a 33% ceiling in SC and I think he will butt his head on it.  More importantly, I believe Gingrich’s momentum hit an apex on Thursday morning and Santorum’s 2nd debate performance coupled with Marianne Gingrich’s interview will help Santorum pick away at some of Gingrich’s votes.

Like the last two contests, I followed a similar route to my prediction.  It isn’t scientific and the whatever the 1st place and 2nd place results will be, they will definitely be close.

RCP Average Poll:  I decided to look at only the polls from this week.  A lot happened over the weekend and this week that basically makes earlier polls meaningless.  Therefore, I averaged the Monmouth University Poll (1/12-1/15), two Insider Advantage Polls (1/15, 1/18), two Rasmussen Report Polls (1/16, 1/18), a CNN Poll (1/13-1/17), a NBC/Marist Poll (1/16-1/17), a Politico Poll (1/17-1/18), and two PPP Polls (1/18, 1/18-1/19).

Trending/Momentum Error:  Most importantly, looking at the difference between the first poll and the last poll in my set, I was able to calculate the momentum each candidate received this week leading up to the SC vote tomorrow.  I took the difference and cut it in half and then added it to the RCP Average Poll.  This will help to take into consideration all of the endorsements made as well as the various news stories that came out (Gingrich’s ex-wife, Santorum’s wife’s history, and Romney’s tax returns).

*Note: I didn’t include weather error like I did in NH and Iowa simply because weather rarely plays a role in deciding who comes out to vote in SC.*

Turnout Expectations:  Primaries are an expectations game.  It is true that winning matters, especially in the delegate count, but the expectations game determines who “really” won and “really” loss.  Clinton did not win NH in 1992, but rather hugely exceeded expectations.  Santorum is in the final 4 mainly because he surprised everyone in Iowa.  Gingrich is now the frontrunner and has alluded in his ego-manic way that he’ll win SC.  For this reason, I’m knocking him down 2.  I shaved 1 point from Paul mainly because his debate performances have lacked and he probably doesn’t have the amount of support many think he does in South Carolina.  I added 1 to Romney because he has been pushed slightly off his game this week meaning his people are working extra hard to win a state he definitely shouldn’t.  Finally, I gave Santorum a plus-2 boost since he has played hard in South Carolina and is largely still written off.  He’s had a good week between evangelical endorsements and the certified Iowa count.  That will matter.

Undecided Error:  Finally, those remaining few voters will need to make up their mind and they will split across the field.  Newt, I believe, has hit his saturation point, so I didn’t give them any addition points.  Santorum will gain 3 points mainly because of the good news coming out from Thursday’s Iowa certification, Lou Dobbs‘ endorsement, and Gingrich’s ex-wife’s interview.  Paul will get 1 and Romney will get 2.  Paul because of his staunch principles and Romney because he is viewed as most electable.

South Carolina Predictions:

• Mitt Romney: 33%
• Newt Gingrich: 32%
• Rick Santorum: 19%
• Ron Paul:16%

While I think Mitt Romney will pull out a narrow win, I would not be surprised if Newt pulls it off.  What that means for the GOP is a completely different post, however.

All in all – now that Huntsman and Perry are already out, SC will not majorly alter the dynamic of the race.  All four candidates, regardless of their finishing, will move on to FL and most likely to NV, AZ, and MI in February.  If Romney sweeps through FL and the February contests, the rest will have no choice but to drop out for the pure reason of money, but first, let’s see what happens tomorrow evening.

Every four years, each party decides who will be their standard-bearer until the next Presidential election comes about.  While only 1 man can claim his party’s title, a long line of Could-Have-Beens weaves through history.  Looking purely at the 2012 candidates’ strategies, we can briefly examine (and in hind-sight, nit-pick) why their lofty goals plummeted.

So far 4 major (and mainstream) Republican candidates have dropped out of the race – fmr Gov. Tim Pawlenty of MN, Herman Cain of GA, Rep. Michele Bachmann of MN, and fmr Gov./fmr Ambassador Jon Huntsman, Jr. of UT.  Each failed at their quest for different reasons, but all have a commonality – a failed strategy.

1) T-Paw: In 2008, he was on the short-list (and I mean, very short-list) for McCain’s VP selection. However, his mere name-dropping was enough to start his quest for the WH.  Being a conservative Governor of a very progressive state, T-Paw had a record to run on.  Yet, he fell flat and fell hard in Iowa.  His pointed mistake was putting literally all of his beans in the Ames Straw Poll in August 2011.  By making Ames both publicly and necessary for him to catch fire in Iowa in order to propel his candidacy into the later states, T-Paw placed expectations enormously high.  In many respects, he fell into the same strategy trap as Romney did 4 years earlier (although, Romney had built those high expectations after winning the Straw Poll).  Needless to say, his dismal showing meant he could not logistically run for President any longer.  If he had managed his Ames Straw Poll strategy a little wiser, he definitely could have lived to fight on.

2) Herman Cain:  Now, I am amazed Cain did as well as he did in the polls and lasted as long as he did.  He clearly had no clue what he was taking about most of the time and was obviously not prepared to hold the most powerful job in the world.  Needless, his campaign suspension came from a HUGE strategic error.  Following Politico’s revelations of his alleged sexual harassment, the Cain campaign failed to attack the issue head on.  They did not address questions; they attempted to pretend it was a non-issue.  As the scandal further escalated with more allegations, Cain in many respects acted as if he was the apparent victim.  If instead, Cain had come completely clean immediately (and let’s remember, Politico gave the Cain campaign a whole 10 days notice prior to running the initial story), and in a Nixon-esque “Checkers” speech, addressed the American public in an up-front and truthful manner, the issue probably would have subsided and the campaign could then have focused on its message.  Yet, that is not what happened and woman after woman stepped forward diluting Cain’s message (if he actually had one) and forcing him to stop the humiliation.

3) Bachmann:  Now apparently, there was a lot of in-fighting and disagreement among staff in the Bachmann campaign.  This no doubt played into the terrible strategy that resulted in her ultimate last place showing in her birth state of Iowa.  Bachmann in many ways is a tailored made candidate to win the Iowa caucuses.  She is a fire-branch fiscal conservative and staunchly social conservative.  Yet, despite her winning the Ames Straw Poll, Bachmann’s campaign decided she was a national figure and therefore, they would run a national campaign, moving her all over the place, while Rick Santorum and Rick Perry camped out in Iowa.  By running a national campaign, Bachmann’s message was diluted, especially in Iowa, and she was never able to capitalize on her Ames Straw Poll win.  By the time she realized her hopes were thinning out, her retreat into Iowa came too late.  If she had focused on Iowa, she probably could have been the big story on Jan 3, not Rick Santorum.

4) Huntsman:  Finally we come to Romney-lite, or rather, Jon Huntsman, Jr.  On paper this guy was literally the perfect candidate for President.  He was in many ways like the Stepford-Candidate.  He was a businessman, a former Governor, and a multi-time Ambassador.  How much better can you get.  His personality probably held him back (he acted like that father who is trying to hard to be the cool-dad).  However, his strategy vagueness probably did him more harm. Here was a conservative Governor from the reddest state in the Union running in New England as a pragmatic moderate.  He didn’t know if he should have been the conservative his record alludes that he is or the moderate that the media had adorned on him.  In doing so, he pigeon-holed himself to depend on a class of voters that couldn’t get him very far past his New Hampshire firewall.  He ended up winning basically people who will vote for Obama in the Fall in the NH primary – not good for someone running in the GOP nomination race.  Good news for him, though, he still has an excellent resume and between 4 to 8 years to clean up his tarnished Republican persona before another Presidential attempt.

South Carolina is only a week away and after that Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich are going to have to make an important decision.  Do they continue on their hopeless quest or do they face the music.  Ron Paul will linger around for a while and he and Romney can duke it out along the road to the White House.  However, I suspect that we’ll be getting at least one more major concession speech next Sunday and I’m putting my money on Rick Perry.

New Hampshire isn’t about the race for 1st place, it is more about who will come in 2nd place and how close can they close the margins on Romney’s huge lead.  For Romney, this is an expectations game.

Anyone who thinks he’ll win by the 20+ point lead he has in polls is kidding themselves, but to win the expectations game for Wednesday’s new circuits, he’ll have to win by at least 10 points.  I’m fairly confident he’ll do so, but it really means his team in New Hampshire better be working hard on the GOTV (I know that they are).

Below I discuss how I calculated my predictions.  It is similar to the Iowa caucus prediction, but a few items (such as organization) were left out since organization matters a lot more in caucuses than primaries.

RCP Average Poll:  I took the last 11 polls since the Jan 3 Iowa caucus.  They included 5 Suffolk daily tracking polls (1/2-1/3 to 1/6-1/7), 2 WMUR/UNH Polls (1/2-1/5 and 1/5-1/8), 1 Washington Times Poll (1/4), 1 NBC News/Marist Poll (1/4-1/5), 1 Rasmussen Poll (1/5), and 1 PPP (1/7-1/8). From these polls, I simply calculated the mean poll number for each candidate.  This was my starting point.

Trending/Momentum Error:  Just like caucuses, primaries can be swayed by momentum.  Santorum came out of nowhere to place a close second in Iowa.  This could mean he has the momentum going into New Hampshire.  However, Romney should have never won Iowa (at least according to the pundits), so he could have momentum.  I decided to give Romney a slight +1 bump since he was the Iowa winner and Santorum a +2 bump since he really surpassed expectations in Iowa.  I knocked down Gingrich -1 since he came in 4th in Iowa and has been struggling to come up with a coherent message that isn’t “I just hate Mitt Romney,” and knocked Paul down -2 since he didn’t perform as many expected in Iowa and that gives way to suggestions he’s hit his ceiling.

Weather Error:  Bad weather means the more enthusiastic candidates/supporters do well while the complacent ones sit on the sidelines.  New Hampshirites are use to cold nasty weather for their primaries, but icy weather can keep a lot of voters at home instead of at the polls.  However, the weather appears to be partly cloudy and not too cold (high of 40 low of 20) tomorrow (according to weather.com), so I didn’t give anyone a bump. The weather shouldn’t keep anyone at home and therefore, no candidate can claim a weather victory.

Turnout Expectations Error: Primaries are all about expectations.  Will Romney break 40%?  Will be out do his 2008 showing?  Can he do as well as McCain in 2008?  Will Huntsman make it into the winner’s circle?  Expectations is what drives the pundits and talking heads to spin stories and that is what the voters in SC and beyond will be listening to on Wednesday morning.  I knocked Romney -5 since a lot of his supporters are expecting him to win, so they may not come out to vote because of that.  Paul got knocked -1 because of his foreign policy views may limit his ability to grow supporters beyond his libertarian following.  Perry, Santorum, and Huntsman each received a +2 bump.  Huntsman because he has lived in the state for the past few months so he should get a little bump; Santorum since he was the surprise “winner” of the Iowa caucus; and Perry because he performed well at the two New Hampshire debates this weekend.  Those three should each do a little better than everyone is currently saying.  Gingrich’s lack of message and vengeful actions will likely keep him where he stands in the polls.

Undecided Voters:  According to my RCP Average Poll, there is 12% undecided.  On primary night, these voters will be forced to decide.  I sent + 3 to Romney and Huntsman since Romney is the favorite “son” of New Hampshire and Huntsman has been living there.  I gave + 2 to Gingrich, Perry, and Santorum since Gingrich’s attacks will probably sink into some the voters, Perry’s persona and debate performance should win over at least some, and Santorum’s Iowa results have given him new media attention that should grab some more voters.  I think Paul has hit his ceiling in New Hampshire, so he won’t necessary grab the undecideds.

New Hampshire GOP Primary Prediction:

• Mitt Romney: 39.0%
• Rick Santorum: 15.9%
• Ron Paul: 15.6%
• Jon Huntsman: 14.5%
• Newt Gingrich: 9.9%
• Rick Perry: 5.0%

Romney will be the winner (no surprise there), but he won’t make it to the 40% goal.  He’ll beat the 2nd place finisher by at least 10 points, though.  The real race is 2nd place.  It will be extremely close between Santorum, Paul, and Huntsman.  I think Santorum will just slightly edge out Paul and Huntsman will come in a very, very close 4th place.  However, all of these candidates are within 1% from each other, so it is anyone’s game in the last day or so.  Not surprisingly Newt will come in a distant 5th and Perry an even more distant 6th.  Perry is really only competing in SC now and Gingrich is just around because of his personal vendetta against Romney.

Overall – New Hampshire is about 2nd place and Santorum, Paul, or Huntsman are in the postion to all claim that title.

Mitt Romney:  I predicted a first place showing and he did it – albeit by an extremely close finish (@ midnight Pacific time his lead was reported to be 8 votes!).  Romney played timidly in Iowa from the beginning but saw an opening the week before Christmas and he jumped on it.  His mainly volunteer-based team pulled out the stops to win.  While the win was close, a win is a win and with Romney likely to be the 1st place finisher in New Hampshire (which will make him the only non-incumbent GOP to win both Iowa and New Hampshire), it makes his opponents seem more like side show characters rather than contenders.

Rick Santorum:  The story of tonight truly is Senator Santorum.  He came from a distant 5th or 6th place to finish in the top 2 and a close top 2.  He will truly receive a nice fundraising and polling bump out of Iowa.  But is Santorum a Huckabee who was unable to convert an Iowa win into a nomination win?  Santorum has little money, little organization in the other states, little ability to jump onto the airwaves, and has not yet been vetted.  He’ll likely become the anti-Romney conservative, but can he win the nomination, let alone the general election?  I doubt it.

Ron Paul:  Third place for Paul was a clear disappointment.  You could just see it on Senator Rand Paul‘s face while his father was giving his concession speech.  He has motivated a lot of young people and brought fiscal responsibility to the forefront of the discussion, but tonight’s results showed that he is unable to go beyond his libertarian followers.  I’ll echo Sarah Palin and say that the GOP needs Ron Paul and his followers, so they shouldn’t marginalize them at all.  Find a way to bring them into the fold – we’ll need them come November.

Newt Gingrich:  He was once a front-runner, but is now only the front-runner of the second tier.  He is clearly angry at Romney (whom he blames for all of his follies) and is way too arrogant to realize that most of his polling troubles were his own fault.  He will devote the rest of this campaign not to winning the nomination (because there is no path for him to do so), but rather to weaken (or rather kamikaze) Romney’s campaign.  This is terrible, as Gingrich is clearly not thinking about the Republican Party’s health, but rather a personal vendetta. But then again, when has Gingrich ever thought about anyone except himself…oh right, never!

Rick Perry:  He spent the most in Iowa and came in a distant 5th place.  He was supposed to be the anti-Romney, but after the first votes were cast (and after campaign gaffe after another), he’s set to return to Texas to “reassess” his path.  He’s canceled all of this week’s engagements and tonight’s concession speech sounded not only like an Iowa concession speech, but also a campaign one.  He’ll be out by this weekend’s New Hampshire debates.  The real question is what will happen to his supporters.  Will they be up for grabs or will they quickly migrate to Santorum in mass?  It might depend on if he plans to endorse while also packing up his bags.

Michele Bachmann:  Despite coming in last (well, I guess she did beat Jon Huntsman), Bachmann is showing no signs on quitting and I don’t she will until South Carolina.  She really under-performed tonight and will likely continue to do so.  The odds were stacked against her. However, the money will stop coming in and sooner or later she’ll need to refocus efforts on her House seat since she won’t be taking on Obama in November.

Tonight was truly amazing for two reasons, the closeness of the top 2 and the inability of the Iowa GOP to call the race before midnight Pacific time (3 AM Eastern and 2 AM Central).

Heading into New Hampshire we still have Romney as the tentative front-runner who will need to battle a smaller handful of candidates vying to be his alternative. We’ll have Santorum with the momentum to become the anti-Romney (never thought I’d say that) and Gingrich acting like a spoiled kindergartener with Bachmann and Huntsman trying to make their case.  Ron Paul will remain in the race as he has both money and organization (as well as consistent support).  The race has only begun and really shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Average Poll:  Using Real Clear Politics data, I updated the polling data with the latest polls.  They included a CNN poll (from 12/21-12/27), a new PPP poll (from 12/26-12/27), a new Rasmussen poll (12/28), a new Insider Advantage poll (from 12/28), and a NBC poll (from 12/17-12/28).  These polls showed Romney holding onto his slight lead and Rick Santorum surging into third place.  They also further showed Newt Gingrich‘s slide.

Trending Error:  Using the new polling data, the trending error slightly changed, but the methodology remained the same.

Enthusiasm Error: I changed two aspects here.  I increased Santorum’s ranking from 4th to 3rd and demoted Gingrich from 3rd to 4th to represent the Rick surge and Newt slide.  As a result, Santorum receives now a +0.5 bump and Gingrich remains constant.  This helps to better represent the momentum Santorum is currently receiving and the favorable news coverage he is having.

Weather Error:  The only change here is bringing down Romney’s advantage by 1 to a +1.  I realized that it didn’t make sense that I was giving Romney a +2 bump while only giving Paul a +1 bump despite both having very similar organizations.

Organization Error:  No changes here.

Undecided Error:  Momentum really matters here.  Like I said before, Romney and Paul have basically tapped the most I think they can get.  I reduced Gingrich to +1, decreased Bachmann to +1, increased Perry to +1 and Santorum to +5.  Gingrich has been sliding in Iowa and losing support nationally.  Bachmann’s campaign has been sidelined recently with Kent Sorenson’s defection and instead of focusing on her message, Bachmann is having to deal with this bad news.  Perry should receive a slight boost.  He has been hitting the air waves with millions in ads.  Santorum should receive another bump with the favorable momentum he recently is receiving.

Updated Results: The new results have Romney still leading with Paul close behind him (it is going to be a tight race on Tuesday).  Rick Santorum has surged into 3rd (from 4th) with Perry now behind him in 4th (from 5th).  Newt Gingrich has fallen the most, from 3rd to 5th. Bachmann and Huntsman still round out the bunch at 6th and 7th, respectively.

• Mitt Romney: 29%
• Ron Paul: 26%
• Rick Santorum: 16%
• Rick Perry: 12%
• Newt Gingrich: 10%
• Michele Bachmann: 6%
• Jon Huntsman: 1%

In only a week, the first voters will attend the fickle Iowa caucus to start the Republican contest.  On Tuesday, Jan 3, we will see the GOP race change dramatically.  Candidates will succeed in their efforts, while others will fail.  Some might end their campaigns next Wednesday, while others will have received a much needed life-line.

Pundits will be trying to determine what will happen.  In this post, I’ve made my attempt to predict the results a week out from the caucus.  As I say below in my disclaimer, this is far from extraordinarily scientific, but it makes a valiant effort to predict the fickle nature of caucuses.  Unlike primaries, which are votes, a caucus is a whole different and odd nominating animal.  Therefore, they are increasingly difficult to predict.  However, by taking into account recent polls and a bunch of errors (trending error, organization error, voter enthusiasm error, weather error, and undecided voters errors), I’ve predicted how the Iowa caucus may end.

*Disclaimer: This is loosely scientific and uses polling data from December, which is both static and somewhat outdated.  I’ve made an attempt to factor in non-polled errors, such as organization, weather, and how the undecided voters will swing.  However, this is a prediction a week out from the caucus and with the candidates zig-zagging across Iowa, a lot can change between today and next Tuesday.*

Average Poll:  Using Real Clear Politics, I was able to come up with a basic polling average using the last seven polls from December.  They include two PPP polls (from 12/11-12/13 and 12/16-12/18), two Rasmussen Polls (from 12/13 and 12/19), two Insider Advantage Polls (from 12/12 and 12/18), and an ISU Poll (from 12/8-12/18).  Polls are not great predictors for caucuses but they are the best starting point we have. I tried to keep the polls recent as old polls are fundamently useless as polls are static predictors.

Errors:  The errors help to hone the average poll to take into account different aspects that could affect the outcome.  I determine that trending, voter enthusiasm, weather, organization, and undecided voters can all alter the results on Jan 3.

Trending:  Trending is important.  Momentum is everything is races like this.  Therefore, its important to predict where that momentum is going to take the candidates over the next week.  Taking the difference between the first December poll and the last one (PPP #1 and Rasmussen #2), I determine the spread for each candidate over time.  I then halved it and added it to the average.  Its probably not the best method, but gives a rough indication of where the candidates could find themselves going into the New Year’s weekend.

Voter Enthusiasm:  I first ranked each of the candidates in what I thought their supporter’s enthusiasm was.  I then decided to augment each candidate based on their ranking, giving the 1st rank +2, 2nd place +1.5, 3rd place +0.5, 4th place +0.0, 5th place – 0.5, 6th place -1.0, and 7th place -2.0.  I decided that giving negatives was necessary as those ranking lower won’t have the enthusiasm to actually get their voters to the caucus locations on Jan 3.  Therefore, my rankings were such:  1st – Paul, 2nd – Romney, 3rd – Gingrich, 4th – Santorum, 5th – Perry, 6th – Bachmann, and 7th – Huntsman.

Weather Error:  As Gov. Huckabee said last week, weather plays an enmorous role in the Iowa caucuses.  Bad weather gives the fanatic candidates a bump, while good weather will improve the chances for the better organization and slightly less enthusiastic.  Keeping with Gov. Huckabee’s prediction, I found that good weather would improve the chances of Gov. Romney (+2) and Ron Paul (+1), while hurting Gingrich (-2) and Perry (-1).  Why the negative?  Both candidates have had a rocky campaign and the good weather is going to give their rivals a bump that would hurt their chances.  I see good weather hurting them the most as their possible voters may go elsewhere.  Why good weather?  According to weather.com Des Moines and Sioux City will have Sunny/Windy weather on Jan 3 and Cedar Rapids and Waterloo is forecasted to have Partly Cloudy/Windy weather, which for January in Iowa is good weather.

Organization:  For caucuses in particular, organization plays a major role.  Therefore, it is important to take a candidate’s organization into account.  Romney and Paul by far have the best organization on the ground, while Gingrich is severely lacking.  All the other candidates have typical ground games.  Therefore, I gave Romney and Paul a boost of +2 while docking Gingrich -4 and held all the others constant. The -4 for Gingrich may seem drastic, but I think a good organization can help propel you in a caucus state, while a bad organization can eliminate your chances.  It can easily be a deal-breaker.

Undecided Voters:  This is tough: predicting where the undecided voters will fall on Jan 3.  There is no real way to truly determine this, but this is where I can add a little bit of my own personal assessment of the campaigns.  I think Romney has basically tapped all he can in Iowa.  His support has remained fairly constant since his 2008 2nd place showing, therefore I kept him constant.  I think Gingrich and Bachmann will both see a little boost from the undecideds (+2).  Gingrich because he has shot up to the front of the pack and has had good debate performances and Bachmann because she was the Straw Poll winner and is the favorite daughter of Iowa.  Santorum gets the biggest boost (+4) because he has truly run the perfect Iowa campaign.  He has been in Iowa for months campaigning and his social conservative record will really appeal to many voters. All others remain constant since they have gained all that I think they can in Iowa.

Prediction:  Therefore, my prediction for the Jan 3 Iowa caucus is as such:

• Mitt Romney: 29%
• Ron Paul: 26%
• Newt Gingrich: 14%
• Rick Santorum: 12%
• Rick Perry: 10%
• Michele Bachmann: 8%
• Jon Huntsman: 1%

I would like to say, I did not rig it so that Romney comes in first.  While I stand by my prediction, I will be quite surprised if Gov. Romney does pull out a first place showing.  I think Ron Paul has a strong chance and my prediction shows that since the two of them only have a 3 point spread.  Overall, this is still anyone’s contest.