William Quill

I was wrong in my assumption that states that voted for Mitt Romney in 2008 would be likely to vote for him again this year. At the outset of the primary and caucus season, I had thought that with wins in all states bar South Carolina, the race could finish up even before Super Tuesday on 6 March. However, his positioning in the race relative to the other candidates is different; where in 2008, he was a conservative to the right of perceived moderate frontrunner John McCain, this year he is the one perceived as the moderate frontrunner. So it eventually emerged that Romney had lost very narrowly in Iowa to socially conservative former Senator Rick Santorum, and lost night lost in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado, putting the current score at 4–3–1, to Santorum–Romney–Gingrich.

So between the two candidates who also contested in 2008, here’s how they compared:

There is at best then quite an imperfect correlation between these candidates’ support between the two years. Perhaps the biggest difference for Romney is the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, modelled in part on the health care plan implemented by Mitt Romney while Governor of Massachusetts.

The victories yesterday did not allocate convention delegates, but were yet an indicator of Mitt Romney’s waning fortune in his position as frontrunner. He’s still most likely to be the nominee, but it will take longer to establish this than I presumed at the start of the year.

Are the victories by Rick Santorum an indication that cultural issues are playing a bigger role in Republican voters’ minds? Some recent events may shift their minds to such issue, between the Ninth Circuit ruling invalidating Proposition 8 in California (which I obviously welcome), and the mandate requiring all employers, including religious organizations, to provide contraceptive services (which I would be less enthusiastic about). While these issues may make Romney feel required to have a clearly conservative running mate, but I can’t see it gaining the party many votes this year.

This is not 2004. In that year, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in favour of allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry, the first US state to allow this. It was only a year after Lawrence v. Texas, in which the US Supreme Court overturned sodomy laws in 14 states. In that year’s presidential election, the Republican incumbent George W. Bush proposed a Federal Marriage Amendment to amend the US Constitution to define marriage as between a man and and a woman, prohibiting states from enacting laws to contrary effect. It would have been the second Amendment to restrict the freedoms of US citizens, the first being the 18th Amendment in 1919, introducing prohibition (repealed in 1933). President Bush’s Democratic opponent, John Kerry, a Senator from Massachusetts, supported civil unions, while opposing both equal marriage and any proposal to define marriage at a federal level. Referendums to amend state constitutions to define marriage as only between a man and a woman appeared on the ballot in a number of states in November 2004, driving up conservative turnout, and contributing to the vote of Bush against Kerry, in what was a close election.

But a lot has changed in those eight years on the issue of gay marriage. Then it seemed destined to be a nice feature of certain liberal enclaves, whether in the US or in Europe. Now it seems an inevitability, only a matter of time across most of the developed world. Last year, public tracking polling by Gallup showed for the first time that a majority of Americans supported legal gay marriage, with 53% in favour and 45% against. The figures in 2004 were 55% in favour, and 42% against. The figures in 2004 were 42% in favour and 55% against, and they remained steady till last year. An annual tracking poll should be reliable, but in case it looks too sudden to be credible, it was corroborated by similar figures from the Washington Post (53%) and CNN (51%).

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States that support a candidate in one nomination cycle tend to support them again four years later, especially if the candidate is in a stronger position the second time around. On this alone, Mitt Romney should be expected to be more likely than not to win in Michigan (where his father was governor), Nevada, Wyoming, Maine, Massachusetts (his home state), Montana, Utah, Minnesota, Colorado, North Dakota and Alaska. I may have missed a particular reason he won’t win a particular one of these again (while Huntsman would probably win in Utah if it were an early primary, it’s unlikely to factor in at all, scheduled for June).

With this and current polling trends in mind, Mitt Romney should fare quite well in the primary and caucuses before Super Tuesday on 6 March:

• 3 January – Iowa: Romney polling ahead
• 10 January – New Hampshire: Romney polling ahead

quite comfortably

• 21 January – South Carolina: Gingrich polling ahead
• 31 January – Florida: Romney marginally ahead in latest poll; predicting him rather than Gingrich, polling second, assuming Gingrich loses steam after poor IA and NH finishes
• 4 February – Nevada: Romney, based on 2008
• 7 February – Colorado: Romney, based on 2008
• 7 February – Minnesota: Romney, based on 2008; even if it is Bachmann’s home state, she’s faring very poorly
• 11 February – Maine: Romney, based on 2008
• 28 February – Michigan: Romney, based on 2008
• 28 February – Arizona: no lead
• 3 March – Washington: no lead

This is unscientific, so if you have better clues on any of these, let me know. And I don’t mean to suggest either that he would lock out any contenders before 6 March, even if he wins all these, as he could win them only marginally, with rivals taking plenty of delegates from these contests too. And there are ten contests on Super Tuesday that could change things a lot. But if he wins both Iowa and New Hampshire, he will be the first Republican since Ronald Reagan in 1980 to do so. Not a bad start at all so.

Edit: But Romney is only marginally ahead in the Iowa polls. If Rick Santorum or Ron Paul win, I’d still see most of the above panning out the same, except with Romney in a weaker position against Gingrich in Florida.

Were I a resident of Iowa, I would caucus tomorrow for Jon Huntsman (and I could do so without having been a long-term registered Republican). I would like to able to have a genuine choice for between the two main party candidates in November’s election, and Huntsman is the only Republican who I can now envisage myself supporting. Even if I were to support President Barack Obama for re-election, I think he would be better served by debating Huntsman than any of the other candidates. Such a debate would be the one most likely to be fought on issues of substance.

Jon Huntsman served as ambassador to Singapore from 1992 to 1993, worked in business till he was appointed Deputy United States Trade Representative in 2001 by President Bush, and in this role helped bring the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People’s Republic of China into the WTO. He served as governor of Utah from 2005 to 2009, and as Ambassador to China from 2009 to 2011, appointed by President Obama. Through these positions, he has an understanding of international relations, and the role the US plays, already more developed than most presidential candidates, in this season or in past years. He showed patriotism by accepting an ambassadorial position under this current Democratic administration, when it would have been better for his prospects in the Republican primaries to have continued as governor.

Though very much the most moderate of the Republican candidates, he is a fiscal hawk. In 2008, the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank, ranked Huntsman in fifth place among governors on fiscal policy, on level with Republicans Rick Perry of Texas and Jim Gibbons of Nevada. His economic and taxation policy is focused on reducing corporate welfare and other tax expenditures. Yet in August, he was the only one of the Republican candidates to approve of the deal between the president and the House on the debt ceiling, calling it “a positive step toward cutting our nation’s crippling debt.”

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In 1976, Ronald Reagan challenged President Gerald Ford for the Republican Party nomination, winning 23 states to Ford’s 27. Then in 1980, Reagan was the nominee.

In 1980, George H. W. Bush won 6 states, with Ronald Reagan winning the remaining 44. Bush was selected as Reagan’s Vice President, and after Reagan’s two terms was the nominee in 1988.

In 1988, Bob Dole won 5 states and Pat Robertson won 4 states, with Vice President Bush winning the remaining 41 states. Bush was elected president, contesting again in 1992. In 1996, Bob Dole was the nominee.

The pattern doesn’t hold between 1996 and 2000. Bob Dole win 44 states, Bat Buchanan won 4, and Steve Forbes won 2, whereas George W. Bush was the nominee in 2000.

In 2000, John McCain won 7 states to Bush’s 43. Bush was elected president, contesting again in 2004. Then in 2008, McCain was the nominee.

In 2008, Mitt Romney won 11 states, Mike Huckabee won 7, with McCain winning the remaining 31. Now Romney looks the most likely to win this year’s nomination, though it is by no means secure for him.