New Hampshire Predictions

Tomorrow is the first primary in New Hampshire. In many ways, it'll be a snoozer. Mitt Romney has been polling way ahead of all the other candidates for months and the only questions is how much he'll win by. Generally the thought is that if he wins less than 40% of the vote, it'll be a disappointment for him.

The networks will probably declare Mr. Romney the winner as soon as the polls close and then go into an overly animated discussion about who will win second place. Uncle Ron is currently holding that position as he's been pretty stable in the high teens (even flirting with 20% in one poll). Jon Huntsman has been surging lately as his total commitment to New Hampshire starts to pay off. He has an outside chance to overtake Uncle Ron and claim the #2 spot for himself. If he fails, he may not last much longer. Mr. Huntsman has ignored South Carolina and he had hoped to turn a strong showing in New Hampshire into a chance to keep enough money flowing in to compete in Florida. However, if he finishes in third (or worse), he will probably see his money dry up just as Ms. Bachmann's did.

Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Santorum are fighting it out for fourth place. This actually matters to some degree. If Mr. Santorum beats out Newt by any significant margin, it will solidify his position as the "conservative option". He would then probably start to peel more of Newt's supporters away in South Carolina and maybe even a couple of the Perry diehards (Mr. Perry is pulling 1% in New Hampshire and only 5% in South Carolina). Conversely, if Newt finishes ahead of Mr. Santorum, it could feed into the impression that Mr. Santorum lucked into his Iowa tie and his supporters will bleed back to Mr. Gingrich.

The one thing that is the real take away in all of this is that if any one candidate (outside of Ron Paul) can keep some money flowing in, there will a consistent drum beat of challenging Mr. Romney through the cycle. That candidate may suffer for it, but the primary voters appear to still not like Mr. Romney very much (even if they don't like anyone else either) and will keep at least one person around as long as that person is willing to stay around.