Unlikely Voter

When three candidates hang into the Presidential nomination race after Super Tuesday, it becomes time to check whether anyone can get a majority.

Mitt Romney is close. So far he’s not there, but if current trends hold he will be the Republican nominee for President of the United States, and become so on the first ballot.

When I left for CPAC, Mitt Romney had just won the Nevada caucuses 50-21 over Newt Gingrich, numbers reasonably in line with the last poll, by Public Policy Polling.

In DC I found out Rick Santorum came out of nowhere and did well in Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri. Let’s see if the polls caught it.

It’s popular to talk down polling, but from where I sit, the polling of the primaries has been pretty good. Yes, Iowa was terrible, but that was a caucus. The primary polling has been solid.

Florida’s polling has lined up in a nice, neat band for every candidate, making it easy to say Mitt Romney is going to win tomorrow.

When word came out of InsiderAdvantage’s new Florida poll, I said to myself “I’ve heard this story before.” Newt Gingrich shooting up like a rocket, but confirmation is needed.

Rasmussen provided the confirmation.

InsiderAdvantage appears to be the first out of the gate in South Carolina after Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary. As expected, South Carolina is showing movement from New Hampshire, the way New Hampshire and South Carolina showed movement from Iowa.

At least, Rick Santorum is down and Jon Huntsman is up. Sticking out though is the lack of any gain for Mitt Romney.

I made a big deal about the polling in Iowa being skewed. However I have no reason to suspect oddness in the New Hampshire polling going into today. Open primaries are much easier to poll than closed caucuses.

Jon Huntsman has rebounded rapidly, but he’ll likely finish behind Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

Three quick polls of New Hampshire came out this week to try to measure the effect of Iowa on New Hampshire. Predictably, the top three of Iowa are now the top three in New Hampshire.

This matters most to the one candidate that put nothing into Iowa and everything into New Hampshire: Jon Huntsman.

According to CNN, both Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are set to win 6 delegates thanks to their close 1-2 finish in the Iowa caucuses. Ron Paul fell to third place. He didn’t win, and he fell further and further behind as the votes were counted last night.

Not one poll projected Ron Paul to drop to third, and PPP stuck to Paul being in first. I said those polls weren’t predictive. They weren’t. I was right.

I went way out on a limb saying Ron Paul does not win the Iowa caucuses, even when he led a bunch of polls. I still say now that Ron Paul will underperform the polls because the turnout model is unrealistic.

Tonight we find out the truth.

Rick Santorum. Now? Seriously? This is ridiculous. How are prognosticators supposed to do our jobs if we get a break so late it makes Mike Huckabee look like an early frontrunner? Seriously, Iowa, simmer down now.

All I know is Ron Paul isn’t winning. Beyond that, anything’s possible.

Another poll is out, and this one doesn’t even try to model what the actual caucus electorate will look like. So again, Ron Paul leads, and I’m still way out on that limb saying it’s not predictive.

Correction: I misread the news article.

Remember 2004? Insurgent Democrat Howard Dean uses a rash of young people online to raise surprising sums of money and gather incredible “buzz” for his candidacy. And yet he drops to third in Iowa, then second in New Hampshire. He would not go on to California, and Texas, and New York, nor would he take the White House.

Now between the PPP poll I covered earlier, and Insider Advantage, It’s Ron Paul in the Howard Dean spot. He only wins if the youth show up.

I’ve been telling people PPP’s polling Iowa was making nonsense predictions. The pollster has doubled down.

I’m going way out on a limb here, and if the actual results refudiate what I’m saying then I’m going to have to take some taunting, but I just don’t see how this poll remotely reflects reality, and I’m flatly saying it’s not predictive of the caucus results.