Prediction: Romney wins big, Santorum stonewalled

Washington & Lee’s Mock Convention predicts Mitt Romney will maintain his commanding lead in the First in the Nation New Hampshire Primary on Tuesday, January 10. Barring an unexpectedly dramatic last-minute surge, no candidate will come close to overtaking Romney in the primary. Unlike the Iowa Caucus, victory will be evident relatively early in the evening. Coming off a strong third place showing in the Iowa caucuses last week, Ron Paul will most likely finish a distant but respectable second place in the primary. We do not see any potential for Paul to overtake Romney, but Paul could be passed for second by a late developing Jon Huntsman surge.
While Romney is stable at the top and Paul has at least been consistently polling in second, third through fifth place are more volatile. Undecided voters and potential crossover voters are poised to leave their mark on the primary results, which could lead to chaos in the lower tier. What we can confidently predict, though, is that Rick Santorum’s impressive second place finish in Iowa—falling short by just eight votes—will likely not translate into a large bump in the much more independently minded electorate in New Hampshire. Heading into Tuesday’s primary, we see the most likely scenario placing Huntsman in third place, benefiting from the extensive time he spent in the state and recent strong debate performances, followed by Santorum and Newt Gingrich.

Rationale

Mitt Romney has weathered the attacks of the other Republican candidates during this primary cycle, and, as far as New Hampshire is considered, has emerged relatively unscathed. We predict he will win between 38-42% of the vote, topping his second place 31% share of the vote in 2008. We expect Romney to score a double-digit victory over Congressman Ron Paul, who will earn between 18-24% of the vote. Ron Paul nabbed fifth place in the 2008 primary, but his base support has ballooned in both size and enthusiasm in the interim four years.
Governor Huntsman has the strongest potential momentum going into the Tuesday primary to sway undecided voters. He is continuing his rigorous retail politicking throughout New Hampshire right up until the voting begins in Dixville Notch, NH at midnight. His appeal to independents and moderates should win him a respectable share of the currently undecided voters in New Hampshire, giving him 12-16% of the vote. Senator Santorum’s second place finish in Iowa has helped him mildly in New Hampshire, enough to probably outlast the down-trending Speaker Newt Gingrich.  Yet, as previously mentioned, the battle for fourth place is difficult to forecast definitively.
2008 drew 234,000 voters to the New Hampshire Republican Primary, which set the stage for John McCain’s eventual nomination. Between independent voters and clear weather predictions, the number of voters is likely to increase, which will help candidates like Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman.
Implications
The national media regard New Hampshire as a Romney stronghold, and he will fulfill their expectations by securing a sizeable victory. Since his win is already expected, it will not provide much of a relative momentum boost for the Romney campaign. However, due to recently heightened expectations, Santorum’s lackluster finish will prove damaging to his candidacy and cost him much needed momentum going into the bruising South Carolina primary.
Compounding the damage caused by his lackluster showing in Iowa, Newt Gingrich will suffer the embarrassment of falling below Ron Paul, and quite possibly Huntsman and Santorum, in the Granite State, making South Carolina a must win for the Gingrich camp. Rick Perry, by skipping ahead to South Carolina, will be relatively unaffected by a poor showing in New Hampshire. Unless, as some polls indicate, he actually falls below Buddy Roemer, in which case he leaves New Hampshire as a punch-line on late night talk shows rather than as a viable candidate for president.