From June to Decem­ber, we gave you a run­down of the Repub­li­can field for the 2012 Pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion. These “Stam­ped­ing Ele­phant” fea­tures (see image at left) used to come about mid-​​month. For the next few weeks, or at least until the nom­i­nee becomes clear, we plan to update these weekly on Thurs­days (weakly stam­ped­ing ele­phants?), as the results from Sat­ur­day and Tues­day votes come in and are digested by the punditry.

The Iowa Cau­cuses didn’t change things much in terms of place­ment of Repub­li­can con­tenders, though it did whit­tle the num­ber down by one. For­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Mitt Rom­ney was the big ben­e­fi­ciary on Intrade. There is now a 75 point gap between Rom­ney, with an 81 per­cent chance of win­ning the nom­i­na­tion, and second-​​place for­mer House Speaker Newt Gin­grich, at six percent.

We started the monthly recaps in June with 11 can­di­dates and poten­tial can­di­dates judged by Intrade investors to have bet­ter than a one per­cent chance of secur­ing the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion. Nine can­di­dates met the one-​​percent thresh­old in July and August. In Sep­tem­ber, the num­ber of maybe-​​viable can­di­dates dropped to six. October’s run­down had seven can­di­dates at greater than one per­cent on Intrade. In Novem­ber, there were still seven can­di­dates, with Mitt Rom­ney and Newt Gin­grich in the first and sec­ond posi­tions, Texas Gov­er­nor Rick Perry fad­ing fast in third, and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ron Paul (R-​​Lake Jack­son, TX) and Jon Hunts­man tied for fourth. Her­man Cain was still in the race last month, but drop­ping fast in sixth place, and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Michele Bach­mann (R-​​Stillwater, MN) in seventh.

At the time of our last run­down, 21 days ago in mid-​​December, the “Not Rom­ney” was Gin­grich, but his “Not Rom­ney” surge lasted no longer than a month. For­mer Sen­a­tor Rick San­to­rum had the good sense to mount a “Not Rom­ney” surge in late Decem­ber, just in time for the Iowa Cau­cuses. That brought him into a tie with Rom­ney (who pre­sum­ably is unable to mount a “Not Rom­ney” surge). At last report, Rom­ney led by eight votes, 30,015 to 30,007, so I’m com­fort­able call­ing that a tie because it’s a mar­gin of 0.0066%, well within the mar­gin of error of any vot­ing sys­tem with over 100,000 votes cast.

This close to the cau­cus, Real Clear Pol­i­tics aggre­gated poll aver­ages aren’t going to help us much. RCP is cur­rently aggre­gat­ing polls from mid-​​December to Jan­u­ary 3, so there hasn’t been time for the aggre­gated polls to react to the news of the San­to­rum Sur­prise. How­ever, Intrade investor/​bettors have had time to digest and act on the Iowa news, so let’s once again focus on those numbers. 

I’ve listed the poten­tial Repub­li­can can­di­dates below, in order of their Intrade per­cent­ages, from high­est to low­est. In each case, the polling num­bers are given in paren­the­ses after the candidate’s name, rounded to the near­est whole num­ber, fol­lowed by the change from last month:

RCP = the most recent (though out­dated) avail­able Real Clear Pol­i­tics aggre­gated polling data.

In = Intrade Jan­u­ary 4.

I com­piled rank-​​order list­ings from the seven monthly sur­veys I’ve done plus this one.

Can­di­date May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan 5
Rom­ney 1 1
 1
 2
 1
 1
 1
 1
 1
Gin­grich 8 9
 none
 none
 8
 4 (tie)
 2
 2
 2
San­to­rum none none none none none none none none 3 (tie)
Hunts­man 4 3
 4
 4
 3
 4 (tie)
 4 (tie)
 4
 3 (tie)
Paul 9 10
 7
 7
 6
 4 (tie)
 4 (tie)
 3
 5
Perry none 4
 2
 1
 2
 2
 3
 6
 6

As a point of ref­er­ence: on Jan­u­ary 4, 2008, in RCP polling, New York Mayor Rudy Giu­liani (20 per­cent) was in first place, and Sen­a­tor John McCain (R-​​AZ) and Arkansas Gov­er­nor Mike Huck­abee were tied for sec­ond (17 per­cent). Mitt Rom­ney was in fourth (15 per­cent), fol­lowed by Sen­a­tor Fred Thomp­son (R-​​TN) in fifth (11 percent).

1.  For­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Mitt Rom­ney (RCP 26% +3; In 81% +33)

Mitt Romney’s Intrade per­cent­age odds in the 21 days since our last run­down (Dec 14).

As the front run­ner, Rom­ney didn’t change places with any­one as a result of the Iowa cau­cus, but he did have a big surge in his num­bers. Intrade investors are now quite con­fi­dent that Rom­ney will be the nom­i­nee. Note the huge gap that has now opened up between Rom­ney and Gin­grich. From the graph, we can see that Rom­ney has been on a tortoise-​​like climb since our last run­down. His climb, com­bined with Gingrich’s dead tortoise-​​like drop, has opened up a lot of space between them.

2.  For­mer House Speaker Newt Gin­grich (RCP 25% –9; In 6% –24%)

Romney’s rise was mir­rored by a cor­re­spond­ing Gin­grich fall. Gingrich’s drop was faster, and mostly occurred dur­ing the week between Decem­ber 15 and 19. Since then, he’s been bump­ing along the bot­tom, but his bot­tom is good enough for sec­ond place.

3 (tie).  For­mer Sen­a­tor Rick San­to­rum (RCP 5%; In 4% +3)

San­to­rum came out of nowhere with spec­tac­u­lar orga­ni­za­tion. If he gets the nod from the rumored Über-​​conservative sum­mit in Bren­ham, Texas this week­end, then you can expect to see his Intrade num­bers rise even fur­ther. If Gin­grich is the summit’s choice, then he should rise. Stay tuned for next week’s update, after the New Hamp­shire primary.

3 (tie). For­mer Utah Gov­er­nor, for­mer Obama Admin­is­tra­tion Ambas­sador to China, Jon Hunts­man (RCP 2% –1; In 4% –1)

Hunts­man shares cer­tain char­ac­ter­is­tics with Rom­ney (Mor­mon, thought to be moderate-​​to-​​liberal, prag­ma­tist, rich as Croe­sus), so he prob­a­bly will never catch on as a Not Rom­ney. It’s a shame, because some­one has to take the crown if/​when San­to­rum stum­bles. He has fal­tered on Intrade, but oth­ers have done worse, so in our stand­ings, he “rises” into a vir­tual tie with San­to­rum (4.1% vs 4.0% at this writing).

5. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ron Paul (R-​​Lake Jack­son, TX) (RCP 13% +3; In 3% –5)

Ron Paul just can’t catch a break; a strong third-​​place show­ing at the Iowa Cau­cuses was not enough to con­vince Intrade investors of his via­bil­ity as a can­di­date. He fell hard after Iowa, as can be seen from the graph at right. He is the biggest loser from the Iowa Caucuses.

6. Texas Gov­er­nor Rick Perry (RCP 6% –1; In 2% –1)

Dead man walk­ing.

∞.  Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Michele Bach­mann (R-​​Stillwater, MN)

Bach­mann announced the sus­pen­sion of her cam­paign Wednes­day. Last month, she was in fifth place in our standings.