Iowa and New Hampshire, Six Months Out

Where's Trump?

Back to the political junk, as a dog returns to its vomit. What’s the state of the US Presidential race as of today?

In the normal course of things, both parties generally come out of Iowa and New Hampshire with just two or three viable candidates. Who will they be?

Note that we are forecasting events six months from now. A week is a long time in politics. So we are quite likely to be wrong. Still, it’s fun to speculate.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton’s campaign hot-air balloon is now steadily losing altitude. I don’t think this will stop. The server/email scandal is going to stay in the news for months, if it does not absolutely scupper her before that. Some of her supporters may not want to shift to Sanders, feeling that he is too far to the left or too white. But there are other candidates in the race.

Those looking for a Joe Biden to replace her, are looking in the wrong direction. I don’t think Biden will get in—his poll numbers are too low to look like a draft. He risks embarrassment. In any case, all Biden getting in will do is help Clinton, by dividing the opposition.

More likely, Clinton support will start going to Martin O’Malley. He’s a dark horse, and Democrats like dark horses. As a former mayor of Baltimore and governor of Maryland, he has shown an ability to win black votes, if Sanders cannot. Iowa likes to upset front-runners, and there is reason why it does. Iowa is a caucus state. That means actual polls are less important. More important are organization, fervor, lots of gladhanding at county fairs, and appeal to the politically well-informed. Sanders should do well on fervor. O’Malley has been doing a lot of slogging, retail politics, on the model of John Edwards, and this is what is inclined to win through in the Iowa context. Since he beats the polls, it looks to the media like big momentum. Suddenly O’Malley is everywhere. Then New Hampshire, which likes to go against Iowa, goes for Sanders instead of Hillary—he is already leading there. And it’s almost all over for Hillary. She probably has the money to stay in the race until the end, but that doesn’t get her any wins. Bill Bradley had the money.

Among the Republicans, it is more complicated. It doesn’t particularly matter whether Trump comes in first in Iowa. He might; but he is more or less certain to do worse than the polls say, since it is limited to high-information voters and party stalwarts. So the story will still be “Trump loses,” and a spotlight will shine on someone else. There is room for two more candidates who are not Trump coming out of New Hampshire: an establishment pony, and a right-wing pony holding the outside position. The establishment colours are likely to be on Jeb Bush. His support could collapse before then, but I doubt it. He has the money, and enough experience that he is unlikely to blunder badly. He is a bit rusty from being out of politics, but that means he will probably get better on the stump quickly, and this may look like momentum.

The right-wing pick is more dubious. Over the last two cycles, the right-wing pick has been more specifically the favourite of the religious right, and the religious right has been powerful enough in Iowa to deliver their man an outright win—Huckabee and Santorum. Both pretty dark horses going in. No reason to assume the Christians are less powerful this time.

There are a few candidates who are going to look good to the Christian right: Santorum and Huckabee are back, and Cruz, Rubio, Perry, Walker and Jindal are also angling for their support. The Jesus people might split their votes and end up ineffective. But I doubt it. They seem to be well organized. In Iowa, the word gets out: we support X this time, as a group. Huckabee is probably the candidate closest to their heart. However, the last two times, when they backed dark horses, they only succeeded in propelling them into a second-place finish. That’s not really good enough. If they think they can in good conscience, they would probably rather back someone who could eventually win.

This argues, I think, for Walker or Rubio. Possibly Cruz if he keeps rising in the polls; but Cruz is too unpopular with the party establishment to be a likely winner. Walker seems to be fading, too, and Rubio rising. So let’s say it’s Rubio they settle on.

So we have the following top three when the Iowa votes come in: Rubio, Bush, and Trump, in any order. Possibly a top four in any order, including Rand Paul in the mix. Rand Paul should be able to do well too, on the strength of the libertarian vote. But neither Trump nor Paul really matter, because they cannot win the nomination. The real race then boils down to Bush and Rubio.

Then Kasich will be lying in wait for Bush in New Hampshire. If Bush does not make a pretty strong showing in Iowa, besting Rubio, he will be vulnerable in NH. Put simply, if Rubio comes out of Iowa with more votes than Bush, Bush is in trouble, and Rubio is the probable nominee. If Bush does better than Rubio in Iowa, the race goes on.

But anything, anything, could happen.