Happy Year End, Kossacks! The Dog has been off the ‘net for a family gathering in Michigan and from what I’m seeing it looks like it might have been a good couple of weeks to miss.
So, here we are on the verge of the Iowa caucus and the beginning of the end of the Primary Wars here on Kos. The Dog has been writing about the trends in the polling in the early states and now the rubber is about to meet the road. Today we’ll go over the trends for Iowa and New Hampshire and end with a prediction for each of those races (hey! No fair skipping to the bottom of the dairy! Eyes up here!) .
Lets start with the Hawkeye state. Below is the latest trend chart from Pollster.com (all hail the mighty Pollster.com for doing the work for the Dog, and everyone else!) and a new chart that shows a standard trend, a more sensitive trend and the last five poll average. This is a fairly new feature, but it is interesting so the Dog thought we should look at it as well.
Sen. Edwards:
If your plan in Iowa is finish on an upward trend and gain a bunch of the second chance voters, you could not do better than the Edwards campaign (well, other than having the lead). Sen. Edwards is trending upward at a steady pace. Looking at the chart it is tempting to think that he is gathering his support from the voters that are leaving Gov. Richardson. The Dog is not sure about that, as to him the supporters of the New Mexico Governor are more likely to rally to Sen. Clintons banner, but it would be impossible to say from this data. If we look at the more sensitive trend it shows Sen. Edwards ahead of Sen. Obama so it is likely that at least some of his new found support is coming from the Junior Senator from Illinois. In any case he and his campaign have done what they needed to do and made him a viable choice for caucus goers.
Sen. Obama:
Both the trend and the sensitive estimate are not good news for Sen. Obama. The Dog knows that this is all within the margin of error and the Hawkeye states way of deciding who gets their delegates is strange and volatile but this is the type of data that no campaign could be happy with. It looks like Sen. Obama may have peaked just a little early. He still has a great ground organization and that may make the difference, but the trend shows him going down at just the wrong time. It may be that voters that liked moved to him recently changed their minds when they looked closer at him and his ideas, then again it could just be that there are a lot of wishy-washy voters out there. If he is going to win here, he needs to beat the trend, and not have a lot of second chance voters go to Sen. Edwards.
Sen. Clinton:
Things looked really pretty bad in the beginning of December for Sen. Clinton, but she and her campaign have managed to turn the trend around (not a very easy thing to do) and are trending upwards. As I said above, I think that she is getting a lot of this new support from Gov. Richardson and voters that switched away then switched back. She is leading in the trend by 3.4% (inside the Margin of Error), by 3.6 in the more sensitive trend (over Sen. Edwards with Sen. Obama third!) and by 2% over both of her challengers in the last five average. This is good news but not great for Sen. Clinton. She has managed to stop the bleeding, but will it be enough to win? She, like the other two will need some serious support from the second chance voters to take this.
On to the Granite State! Ha! You thought the Dog was going to predict now? Nope, you just have to wait.
Below are the trend chart and the new chart from Pollster.com:
Sen. Clinton:
From the happy to the not so happy for Sen. Clinton, while she has managed to reverse things in Iowa, New Hampshire is still a strong downward trend. The Dog thinks that this is really people finding out that there are other candidates in the race and leaving the one that had the highest name recognition. Sure, the missteps in the campaign over the last month have not helped, but she is still sitting at 30.1% support. This close to the primary, that is not a bad place to be, but her campaign can not be happy with the downward trend, especially with the numbers that Sen. Obama is putting up. Given that her numbers in the last five are higher than either of the trend methods, she may be on the verge of reversing the trend, which a win in Iowa could only help. Still it looks very tight and all the effort that the Clinton campaign has put into Iowa in the last three weeks may have hurt them in New Hampshire.
Sen. Obama:
This is what peaking at the right time looks like. Sen. Obama has been trending upward for nearly all of the 4th quarter as the voters in the Granite State get to see him and hear his message. He is within a whisker of Sen. Clinton in the trends though lagging in the last five polls average. Big win in Iowa would do a lot to put him over the top here. The Dog is sure that this is his campaigns strategy, but even a 2nd place loss in Iowa is unlikely to be very damaging. If on the other hand, he come in third, it is likely to make a win in New Hampshire much harder.
Sen. Edwards:
We all know that his campaign is betting the farm on Iowa. He is 12% and 13% behind the leaders. If there was no Iowa, the Dog would say that he has very little chance of winning in New Hampshire. But Iowa is in the calculus for this election and so a win there might (a big might, but still) translate into a second place finish for him.
So now to the predictions (for those of you that skipped ahead, shame on you! Go read the rest of it! ;~) ) , the Dog knows that it is a fool that says he knows how an election will come out, but here is the Dogs foolishness;
In Iowa, the Dog thinks that it is going to be as follows:
Sen. Clinton gets a close win, Sen. Edwards is second having picked up most of the support from Sen. Biden and in a surprise Sen. Obama comes in third. It will be close, with the final tallies inside 5%.
In New Hampshire, the win in Iowa powers Sen. Clinton to a 4% win over Sen. Obama with Sen. Edwards a distant third. This will set the stage for an firewall strategy in South Carolina for the Obama campaign.
So, there is the Dogs predictions, I am confident we will get yours in the comments!
UPDATE:
The Dog is out of here! Have a safe and fun New Year Kossacks! Feel free to argue amongst yourselves, it is what we are really good at!
Cheers