Iowa Caucus Results (What we learned)

Parksstp ^ | 2012-01-05 | parksstp

[parksstp]

For those that were wondering how my predicted simulation worked out, it was okay if you switched Gingrich and Santorum's numbers for the most part, moved Bachmann to where Santorum was and bump Paul up more.

I've done some analysis on the results. I was in the process of doing a county-by-county note update, but after 30 counties of 99, it's taking too damn long. So I'll just get to the basics:

As for accuracy, it seems I know the people of Davis County like Rush knows his glorious naked body /sarc. It was my most accurate projection county-wise though I did hit the nail on the head in other small counties. Since Romney, Perry, and Paul for the most part were the most stable in the polls since December, I was more accurate with them. I think if Newt hadn't of crashed, I would have been right on with his numbers too.

In Davis County (which is in the link that was uploaded a few weeks ago), I predicted 18 votes for Romney, 39 for Perry, 25 for Bachmann, and 76 for Paul. The results of that county were, 18 votes for Romney, 39 for Perry, 25 for Bachmann, and 79 for Paul. Let's see Rasmussen do that!

Also, I nearly got both Romney and Huntsmans's overall percentages. I said Huntsman would get about 804 votes statewide (he got 745).

Anyway, enough tooting my own horn. Time to analyze what I found:

First, a HUGE Congrats go out to the people of NW IA. Some SERIOUS speech-making must have gone on here on behalf of Santorum. At best, I thought Santorum would get a plurality of the Huckabee support that would be divided among the other conservatives. In actuality, he got well over 80% statewide of it. The Bachmann people clearly helped Santorum. She was up around 9% in the polls and lost half of that, which equates to about 6,000 votes. Santorum's winning percentages in the NW were close to or even higher than Huckabee's. These people were NOT going to let the vote split.

However, there were exceptions. Santorum can trace his 8 vote deficit to Emmet county (North IA). Bachmann got an amazing 47 votes 18% here. It was her largest percentage win in the state. I would have loved to see what was going on here and why she was so popular. While she did (as a MN person) run okay in the North/Northeast counties, it was nowhere near 18%. This all but made the final difference.

Because Santorum took such a huge chunk of Huckabee voters, Gingrich and Perry were virtually duking it out for the Thompson/McCain supporters of 08. Adding their percentages county by county for the most part shows this adding up to around 26%, the total of Thompson/McCain. I'd like to know what was going on in Adams County, a place where 100+ more people in a small county showed up. This was a target Paul area also. My question is what MO town did the buses come in from? Adams County was large enough to support maybe 1 surge, but definitely not 2. Something was going on here. But then again, for all I know, perhaps SD and NE voters crossed over into Western IA to help Santorum.

As for the "Huge" Paul increase, it wasn't as grand as everybody worried it would be. Some of the small counties you can find incresases of voters beyond what I projected, but not anything big. Instead, I found something really stranger.

The biggest discovery of the analysis was the Ron Paul/Mitt Romney connection. It's not as obvious in the East, but in Central and West IA, it was VERY apparent. Whenever Romney experienced a percentage drop of 4 or 5 points in a county from his 2008 performance, the total of that percentage loss was almost 100% found in Ron Paul's numbers. Ron Paul's numbers, however, were not as relevant to Santorum, or even Gingrich or Perry. In other words, numerical data suggests Ron Paul hurts Mitt Romney more than Paul hurts the conservatives in the race. The dirty little secret is that other than the independents/Democrats who joined the caucus to vote for Paul, what Republicans did vote for Paul appears to have come solely at the expense of Mitt Romney. You can clearly see this play out in Western IA. Paul's performance kept Romney from winning Woodbury County in the west, and it kept Romney's overall totals in the Eastern population centers in check. This allowed Santorum to "catch-up" in the rural counties where conservatives dominated. And EVEN in these counties, when Paul did well, it did NOT hurt Santorum, Gingrich, or Perry, but it did have a significant effect on Romney.

The "Paul" factor is something that the Romney people will have to deal with now, because if what happened in IA happens in SC, then there's no chance for Romney to carry SC and he will be in more trouble come FL, and this is EVEN if Gingrich, Perry, and Santorum all decide to ride it out to FL, which I'll show.

Forget NH. Romney will carry it. Goal is to keep him under 40%. Santorum is surging into the teens, Huntsman's put all his eggs there, and there are many lunatic supporters for Paul. If Hunstman, Gingrich, Santorum, and Paul can combine for 60 or more%, then Romney's in big trouble.

SC is the intriguing part though. I kid you not when I say that Romney is probably looking at 3rd or 4th place at best here.

First, Santorum/Gingrich/Perry will carry the sway in heavily populated, heavily conservative Greenville/Spartanburg and NW SC. If Paul overperforms in these areas, it would not surprise me to see Romney running as low as 5th in this part of the state.

For now, my gut says that Santorum gets a plurality in the NW, but Gingrich and Perry can compete for a share there too. For these two, however, like in IA where they went after Thompson/McCain voters, they're going to go after the coast: Myrtle Beach, Georgetown, etc. These are the McCain votes that Romney absolutely needs to win in SC. He's not going to get them even if Gingrich, Perry, and Santorum all stay in, not at the percentages he would need to win in SC statewide.

Romney's only supposed strength is in Charleston, Columbia, and possibly the rural "Blue" counties along the I-95 corridor. However, guess who will be there with his lunatic fringe supporters to cut off Romney's potential margins? That's right, finally the Paultards can be a useful assho--, er, asset, um yeah, that's what I meant.

As it stands, I don't care how "splintered" the conservative vote might be in SC, Romney is still not going to win there. It's entirely possible, if not likely. Gingrich/Santorum finish 1-2 ahead of Romney.

[parksstp]

For your info.

I left a line in my document to put the actual votes under my projected vote totals, but this was taking too long. At least in SC, there are only 46 Counties.

Also, if someone wants to attempt NH, good luck. They might only have 10 counties, but to get the true data, you've got to go to the NH SOS site and pull up the vote totals by townships/wards to get a more accurate picture. I started this awhile back, but they've got like 260 townships and wards, too many and it takes too long to figure out what we already know.

[lquist1]

Wow! Nice analysis! I never even considered the idea that the Paul lunatics might have a useful purpose in our quest to bring down Romney. Seeing it from this perspective, I’m much more encouraged than before I read this...

[CainConservative]

What we learned is that Huck would have dominated this field once again in CONSERVATIVE EVANGELICAL Iowa heartland.

Ricky, Willard, and Uncle Ron should ALL send Huck a gift basket. : )

[Keith in Iowa]

>>>For those that were wondering how my predicted simulation worked out, it was okay if ...

Damn, that’s a lot of if after you said “if”... kind of like saying I could get lucky with Daniela Ruah if she’s only say “yes”. :)