During the 2008 Democratic primaries, I had a lot of success in forecasting outcomes from state to state based solely on demographic variables. Those projections did slightly better than the polls, although that was a low bar to clear because the polls had a lot of misses that year.
Some readers have asked why I haven’t done the same thing this year. The reason is that the 2008 Democratic contest was uniquely well suited to this sort of analysis, while this year’s Republican race is a bad fit for it.
The 2008 race became a two-person contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton almost immediately after Iowa. It’s much harder to make these projections when more than two candidates are involved, as in the race this year.
And the 2008 Democratic nomination was in some ways remarkably stable. Mrs. Clinton led in essentially every national poll conducted before Iowa. Mr. Obama overtook her at some point in mid-February. Mr. Obama’s lead fluctuated a little bit after that — he was essentially tied with Mrs. Clinton at his worst moments and about 10 points ahead of her at his best ones. But the February shift was the only clear lead change in the national polls.
Yes, the split between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton manifested itself in different ways in all different states — precisely the reason that demographic analysis proved valuable. But results that seemed hard to explain at first became more understandable later on. Mr. Obama won Iowa — and he won most of the states like Iowa no matter when they voted in the process. Mrs. Clinton won New Hampshire — and almost all of the other states that shared similar demographics. There were a few anomalous results — Mr. Obama won Connecticut but none of the states that surrounded it, and Mrs. Clinton did the same in South Dakota — but not many.
In contrast, there have been 10 separate Republican candidates who have led in at least one national poll at some point in this nomination cycle (counting a few candidates who decided not to run officially). They are, in alphabetical order: Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Donald Trump. They may soon be joined by an 11th candidate, Rick Santorum, who is likely to lead in a new Public Policy Polling survey that will be out soon.
That PPP poll is out and shows Santorum at 38% nationally. Interesting – in one fell swoop he’s now higher than Romney has ever been (nationally). The other thing is that Romney has been losing support, both in terms of number of voters and percentages, compared to 2008. His victory in Maine for example was with somewhat fewer votes than he got in 2008 (same thing in Nevada and so on).
No question in my mind that Santorum could beat Romney head to head, despite starting somewhat behind. But with Gingrich and Paul staying in I think it’s out of reach for him. Too hard to win an absolute majority on the first round of balloting at the convention, and after that I don’t think it goes to him.
I don’t like romney. I think he is the obama of the republican party. Newt, he might be well spoken and could go head to head with barry (well I guess anyone could because I am 100% sure barry will use a teleprompter if there is a debate), but I don’t have a good feeling about him either. Ron Paul has some good points, but his foreign policy ideas makes me wonder if he wears a tin foil hat. Santorum has his shortfalls too, but I am looking at him a little closer. I will not agree 100% with any of the candidates, and no one will either, but there has to be one candidate I agree with the most. I agree with ABO, however I have learned that when someone believes there can be no one worse there can.