Nate Silver: Romney Looks Strong in South Carolina and Beyond

[racaulk]

Last edited Thu Jan 12, 2012, 10:10 PM - Edit history (1)

The conventional wisdom holds that South Carolina is likely to be the toughest test yet for Mitt Romney’s campaign. But I’m not so sure that’s true. From my vantage point, Mr. Romney’s position there looks fairly robust.

Let’s start by looking at what our polling-based forecasts of South Carolina said prior to the New Hampshire primary:



The forecasts had Mr. Romney with 32 percent of the vote in South Carolina, Newt Gingrich with 24 percent and Rick Santorum with 20 percent. That didn’t appear to be all that safe a lead for Mr. Romney, and the model gave him only a 55 percent chance of winning.

However, these results will probably be affected by what happened in New Hampshire.

<---snip--->

Link: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/romney-looks-strong-in-south-carolina-and-beyond/

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On edit: Nate Silver has altered his analysis significantly and is now more cautious about Romney's chances in South Carolina. I have created a new OP to show the article where he outlines his analysis and makes some new predictions. Please do not reply to this thread, but see the new thread here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251926

[WI_DEM]

1. except that the latest poll of SC has him essentially tied with Newt

23-21 points. And Gingrich is going to spend a lot of $$ taking Mittens down in SC. Too early to say how SC will go. So far Mitt is a guy who 'won' Iowa by 8 votes and won one of his home states (NH).

[racaulk]

3. I think you do have a point.

IIRC, Silver uses more of a rolling poll average in his analysis as opposed to any single poll. I don't think Romney is going to win SC as easily as Silver thinks, and especially not by a 7% margin over the second place candidate. When the votes are tallied, the social conservatives in that state will have given a boost to Gingrich and Santorum, I think.

[SlimJimmy]

4. 23-21 points

The other issue to look at in that poll is that Democrats prefer Gingrich to Romney 27% to 16%. That alone could have skewed the polling data. Sometimes it pays to dig into the numbers a bit.

[emulatorloo]

5. Agreed. It is still early in SC.

[racaulk]

6. Nate Silver appears to have updated his analysis.

See here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251926

[earthside]

2. Just wait.

If "When Mitt Romney Came to Town" gets wide play in South Carolina -- and the nation -- well, the Romney candidacy could just collapse.

Too bad for the poor Repuglicans, though ... they have nobody to turn to in the current field that has any potential to win the general election.

I am beginning to see the possibility that the Repuglican presidential nomination will be determined at a brokered convention.

After the 'Bain' exposé, the next point has got to be to demand that Willard release his tax returns -- that will be the coup de grace for his campaign.