Nominations At A Glance: Two New Leaders

Cross-Posted On Open Left

With only 27 days before the Iowa caucus, in case people here had not hear of my Nomination At A Glance series, I wanted to stop by and let people know about it. Four years ago, I started my blogging career with a regular Daily Kos diary series called The Empirical Cattle Call. Even though I was wrong back then, I really enjoyed that series, and wanted to show my new work to the old neighborhood. Four years later, I have significantly tweaked and simplified my nomination projection formula to take into account only poll averages and estimated early state momentum. This is a system that would have projected not only John Kerry to take the Democratic nomination the day before the 2004 Iowa caucuses, but which would have correctly projected every nomination campaign, before Iowa even took place, from 1976--2004. Take that for what it is worth.

Only seven days ago, I was still projecting Clinton vs. Romney in the general election. Now, both the Democratic and Republican leaders have changed...

Democratic Nomination, At a Glance
All state polls included in the averages had the majority of their interviews conducted November 23rd through December 6th

State	Est. Date	# Polls	Obama	Clinton	Edwards	Richardson	Biden	Kucinich	Dodd
Net Avail Cash	Sep 30	Q3	$30.5M	$32.2M	$23.4M	$5.1M	$0.8M	$0.3M	$2.4M
Iowa	Jan 03	5	27.2%	25.8%	23.2%	6.8%	5.6%	1.4%	1.2%
New Hampshire	Jan 08	7	24.0%	33.6%	16.4%	9.1%	3.0%	2.3%	0.9%
Nevada	Jan 19	1	18.0%	45.0%	14.0%	2.0%	4.0%	4.3%	2.0%
South Carolina	Jan 26	2	27.5%	40.5%	12.5%	2.0%	6.0%	2.0%	1.0%
Florida	Jan 29	3	20.7%	52.7%	10.3%	2.5%	1.0%	2.5%	0.5%
National	Feb 05	NA	23.0%	44.0%	12.0%	3.5%	2.9%	2.3%	1.0%

The "Obama Iowa Domino Theory," otherwise known as estimated early state momentum, stays in effect. He remains close enough in New Hampshire that I project an Iowa victory will move him in front in New Hampshire, and he remains close enough everywhere else that I project he will move in front everywhere else following an Iowa and New Hampshire sweep. Clinton needs to gain only 2% in Iowa, or 3% in New Hampshire, to retake the lead, so obviously the nomination remains extremely close. Edwards needs about 8% in Iowa to retake the overall lead, which he has not held since mid-May.

Some people have noticed that Clinton has more "strong" or "hard" support than Obama. I think this is almost certainly true, and Pollster.com provides a good explanation for it:

"Candidates who are gaining support or losing support both tend to have a lot of soft support along a hierarchical vote continuum," he emails First Read. "Supporters have either just arrived from undecided and arrive as soft supporters, or supporters are preparing to depart to undecided, and soft support is the way station. That's why a lot of Obama support would be soft support."

Obama is rising in the polls, and his new supporters will tend to be soft supporters. Clinton is slipping a bit, and the supporters she will lose first tend to be her softest supporters. The net result is that Clinton ends up with more "hard" supporters than Obama. This phenomenon also probably explains why Obama’s first upward rise halted in late April / early May. At the time, he was close to Clinton, but he had pulled close with a lot of soft support taken from Clinton. His overall support was thus far shakier than Clinton’s. Not surprisingly, Obama saw a significant downturn after the "rockstar" period in his campaign ended.

The extent to which this will impact momentum is unclear. Still, it should give Clinton supporters reason to be optimistic over the next month, and Obama supporters a reason to worry. Yes, Obama is ahead, but new leads are always built on shaky foundations, and could collapse with one or two bad news cycles (see Dean, Howard, post-Al Gore endorsement). This is a very close campaign, and it is balanced on a knife’s edge.

Republican Nomination, At a Glance
Except Michigan, which are currently relying on polls conducted since November 7th, all state polls included in the averages had the majority of their interviews conducted November 23rd through December 6th

State	Est. Date	# Polls	Huckabee	Romney	Giuliani	Thompson	McCain	Paul
Net Avail Cash	Sep 30	Q3	$0.6M	$9.2M	$11.4M	$6.4M	-$0.1M	$5.4M
Iowa	Jan 03	5	27.2%	25.4%	11.8%	10.6%	6.2%	5.0%
New Hampshire	Jan 08	7	10.1%	33.7%	17.9%	3.3%	16.4%	6.1%
Michigan	Jan 15	1	9.0%	25.0%	28.0%	13.0%	12.0%	2.0%
South Carolina	Jan 19	3	22.0%	17.7%	17.3%	16.0%	9.7%	4.3%
Nevada	Jan 19	1	23.0%	29.0%	17.0%	5.0%	7.3%	3.0%
Florida	Jan 29	4	15.3%	13.0%	31.5%	11.0%	11.0%	4.0%
National	Feb 05	NA	16.2%	11.5%	26.3%	13.1%	13.6%	4.2%

Back on Saturday, Obama became the new leader in the Democratic nomination campaign. Today, for the first time, Huckabee is the leader for the Republican nomination campaign. His leads in Iowa and South Carolina, combined with second place showings in Nevada, Florida, and nationally, move him clearly past Romney. I still think Romney can pull out both New Hampshire and Michigan, which should give him a chance in what would become a decisive South Carolina showdown. However, whereas before I favored Romney to win South Carolina, now I favor Huckabee to do so. I guess Giuliani can still try to secure a string of third-place finishes, win Florida, and hope that turns into something big on February 5th. However, I wouldn’t count on much coming of that strategy. If Huckabee wins both Iowa and South Carolina, I bet he takes Florida, too.

A Huckabee nomination makes a lot of sense for Republicans. Did anyone really ever believe, in their gut, that either Romney or Giuliani would win the Republican nomination? Really, really? The various advantages enjoyed by the four previous Republican frontrunners, McCain, Giuliani, Thompson and Romney, all seem to have been earned by default. Huckabee, by contrast, actually seems to fit with the Republican grassroots. Being a southern Governor helps his profile, too. Granted, based on the same Obama vs. Clitnon rationale I described above, right now Huckabee’s support must be overwhelmingly soft, but the same can be said of all his opponents, too. As such, I just don't think soft support will be as much of a problem for Huckabee as it currently is for Obama. If the Republican establishment is going to step in and stop Huckabee, they better do it fast. The Romney speech wasn’t good enough to make a dent in Huckabee’s rise, and in another two weeks the campaign might be out of reach for any of his opponents (when Huckabee hits 20% in New Hampshire, it might be game over). It helps Huckabee a lot that the Republican establishment is divided between Giuliani and Romney.

Can either Obama or Clinton beat Huckabee? Yes, but it could be a closer election than we had been expecting. Huckabee locks down the southern Republican base, with the possible exceptions of Virginia and Florida. He is also strong in Ohio. Those are strengths that return us to the tight elections of 2000 and 2004, not the blowout election many of us have been hoping for.

Notes: The Nomination At A Glance formula is based on polling averages over the last two weeks. It projects the Iowa winner to gain 11.3% on the Iowa second place finisher in New Hampshire, and 18% on the Iowa third-place finisher (the second place finisher gains 6.7% on the third place finisher). It projects that a sweep of Iowa and New Hampshire will provide a 33% boost nationally.  This is based on data provided by diarist fladem, and should be treated as estimates, rather than hard numbers.

Click here for previous nomination at a glance results. Candidates are listed from left to right according to how likely it currently appears each is to winning the nomination. Early state polls can be found here and here. Net available cash means cash on hand for the primaries minus debts owed by the campaigns (info here and here). The primary calendar, at long last, is finally set. National polls are substituted for the 20 states holding caucuses or primaries on February 5th, but that will change if even one organization begins conducting a daily tracking poll of only the February 5th states. Michigan is not included for Democrats because virtually all have withdrawn their names from the ballot.