With two weeks to Iowa, the Republican presidential nomination is wide open.Nationally, Giuliani's lead in the polls has dwindled to where he's in virtually a dead heat with Huckabee and Romney. With no candidate getting more than 25% in the national polls, and at least four candidates in double digits, it's clear no consensus is emerging among badly fractured Republican voters.
At the same time, it looks like Huckabee's rise nationally has probably peaked out, with some of the shots taken at him having stuck. That said, Huck is not going away--he's finally coalesced the hard core Christian values crowd, which is a significant GOP voting bloc.
In Iowa, it looks like Romney and Huckabee will be neck and neck, distancing the rest of the field. The other candidates would probably be pretty happy if no clear winner emerged from the Iowa process.
In New Hampshire, Romney has long enjoyed a comfortable lead, but McCain is now moving up steadily, and could catch him. The latest Rasmussen poll out of NH has McCain at 27%, just four points behind Romney's 31%. This is consistent with our forecast a few weeks ago that a Huckabee surge in Iowa would sober up Yankee Republicans and get them to rally around McCain as a sober standard bearer.
After Iowa and New Hampshire, we'd expect Romney to do well in Michigan, Huckabee to do well in SC and Giuliani's lead in Florida to continue to slip. Nonetheless, Giuliani will carry a couple big states on Super Duper Tuesday--certainly NY and NJ.
By the end of the day on Feb. 5, we expect that Romney, Huckabee and Giuliani will all have a significant number of delegates, with McCain MAYBE having a few, especially if he makes a strong showing in New Hampshire. The odd man out will be Thompson, but the way forward to a deadlocked convention may be pretty clear by then. (Washington Times columnist Tony Blankley agrees on the risk of a brokered convention--see "None of the Above: GOP Heading To A Brokered Convention.")
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