4. Newt Gingrich, odds of winning 3%
December has obviously not been kind to Newt Gingrich. He was hammered away at by Ron Paul and seen his favorability tumble, and yet he seems to have at least for the time being stayed in contention and stopped bleeding. He also seems to be the only candidate besides Romney to be competing still in a national sense, every recent poll has shown a near national tie between Romney and Newt and it is possible that , as Caucus approaches, Newt will be able to gather enough to put a charge into the race. His ability to compete beyond Iowa, may allow for a late break for him. He is still marginally in the game.
5. Rick Perry, odds of winning 2%
This is mostly just a numbers game, if Rick Santorum’s 16% is good enough to still be contention, than it is hard to argue inherently that Rick Perry’s 10% is not enough. He has also spent most money amongst the most in the field. A late break in his direction can’t be completely discounted. However the trend looks terrible, this is mostly a hedge.
6. Michele Bachmann odds of winning 0%
She is really struggling in this race at this point and is hard to see how she pulls it out. She does have a few advantages in that she won the Iowa Straw Poll, has something of a head start on the ground and checks all the box, and at the moment is staying somewhat out of the fray. However the recent turmoil of the last few days and her polling collapse have ended pretty much ended her campaign.
Conclusion
Passion is often the most important thing in a caucus, and Christians and Paulists have more of it than Romney people. Therefore, with every possibility to be wrong. I go with, Santorum 23, Paul 22.5 Romney 22, Gingrich, 14, Perry 10, Bachmann 6, Other 2.5. Also go with a turnout between 100,000 to 110,000 down slightly from 2008.
As a bonus,Here is the a formula for figuring out how each candidate is doing in Iowa as the results come in for top three finishers. The Des Moines Register has results from old races that are instructive. For Mittt Romney the math is simple, if he holds the same basic vote total as 2008, he should be in for a probably winning night, the more off pace he has the more trouble he is in. For Rick Santorum, he should be looking to get about 2/3 of the Huckabee vote to feel comfortable, although that would be a slight loss to Romney. For Paul, he needs to at least double his support from 2008, and probably needs 2.5 times to be successful. For other bench marker , you can check Santorum against combined Bauer and Keyes from 2000[needs to slightly beat the percentage] For Romney, Dole in 1996, for Paul, Buchannan in 1996.
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