Reply #5: Results in Iowa and New Hampshire historically cause such shifts in the later states that trying to

[Stop Cornyn]

project beyond New Hampshire is fruitless, and even trying to forecast New Hampshire requires the predictive model to make significant assumptions about how the Iowa caucus will play out.

Plus, the playing field will change dramatically as some candidates drop out after Iowa and New Hampshire and support consolidates behind other candidates. I cannot imagine that Richardson, Dodd, and Biden will all be in the race after mid-January; I suspect two or all three will have dropped out by then and, perhaps, even made an endorsement, but certainly at least one of them will be gone.

In the end, Obama, Edwards, or Hillary could win Iowa and gain sufficient momentum from that win to do better than expected in New Hampshire and, based on those two early strong showings, they could ride into the remaining primaries and caucuses with loads of momentum.

The odds favor Hillary at the moment, but the trends seem to be against her. All anyone can say with certainty is that as the race enters Nevada and South Carolina it will look very different than it looks today.