Traditionally it has been held that one needs to come in at least third in Iowa and at least second in New Hampshire in order to win a party’s nomination. This has been the case since 1972, but it looks like that rule is going to die on the Republican side this time around.
The general polling order in Iowa has been, for the last few weeks, as follows:
Huckabee in first place, by varying degrees.
Romney in second, generally not too far behind (though this may be about to change).
Thompson, McCain, Rudy, and Paul in various permutations of third through sixth (usually Thompson and Rudy take third and fourth, but a Rasmussen poll showed McCain in third. I don’t buy it just yet, but it’s at least believable; Rudy’s also dropped into sixth at least once).
New Hampshire, on the other hand:
Romney in first, universally.
McCain in second, also pretty much universally, some ties not withstanding.
Rudy in third unless he’s tying with McCain (something that’s not happening much anymore as McCain builds a lead on him).
Paul and Huckabee jockeying for fourth.
And Fred Thompson polling within the margin of error of 0.
If the patterns that we’ve seen hold, then the following will result:
Iowa “winnows in” Romney, Huckabee, and Thompson.
NH “winnows in” McCain and Romney.
Rudy is left in the cold, but in a survivable position. Nobody is eliminated.
The only “nominatable” candidate under this scenario is Romney; if McCain edges Romney out in NH, this still holds…but second in NH is also close to a deal-killer for him. Which would leave us with five candidates, all rejected by IA or NH, and the only one they both like knocked out, and almost everybody both benefiting from a good showing in one state and reeling from a lousy show in the other.
Tags: Iowa, New Hampshire, Polls
