Back to the future.

We all got a sur­prise this week. Newt Gin­grich won the South Car­olina pri­mary going away, and that scram­bled the Repub­li­can pri­mary field, and returned us to five can­di­dates trad­ing at or above one per­cent on Intrade…one of whom is new to the series.

The tur­moil even prompted the ascent of for­mer Sen­a­tor Rick San­to­rum (R-​​PA) and a faint heart­beat from Indi­ana Gov­er­nor Mitch Daniels, who deliv­ered the State of the Union rebut­tal. Recall that Daniels was one of the summer’s early Not Rom­neys, before being Not Rom­ney was cool.

We’re once again post­ing Real Clear Pol­i­tics aggre­gated poll aver­ages. RCP is cur­rently aggre­gat­ing polls from Jan­u­ary 12 to 24, so the aggre­gated polls will not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the South Car­olina pri­mary results, and in any case are national num­bers. How­ever, Intrade investor/​bettors have had time to digest and act on the news, so we’ll con­cen­trate on those num­bers once again.

Story Prob­lem

Speak­ing of num­bers, a cer­tain high-​​level Pres­i­den­tial advi­sor noted the dis­crep­ancy between the amount of money spent by the Rom­ney cam­paign and the num­ber of del­e­gates Rom­ney gained in South Car­olina, and tweeted Nate Sil­ver a math problem.

(The num­ber was later revised upward to $5.5 mil­lion, but I think the answer is the same.)

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:

RCPn = the most recent (Jan­u­ary 12–24) avail­able Real Clear Pol­i­tics national aggre­gated polling data.

In = Intrade Jan­u­ary 25.

RCPf = the most recent avail­able (Jan­u­ary 22–25) Real Clear Pol­i­tics Florida aggre­gated polling data.

In the inter­est of space and clar­ity, I’ve dropped the May-​​October monthly stand­ings columns. The horser­ace stand­ings now start in Novem­ber, but you can go to the Jan­u­ary 5 arti­cle to see the entire set going back to May, 2011.

Can­di­date Nov Dec Jan 5 Jan 12 Jan 19 Jan 25
Rom­ney 1
 1
 1
 1
 1
 1
Gin­grich 2
 2
 2
 2
 2
 2
Paul 4 (tie)
 3
 5
 3
 3
 3
San­to­rum none
 none
 3 (tie)
 4 (tie)
 fughed­d­a­boutit
 4
Daniels none
 none
 none
 none
 none
 5

 

1. For­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov­er­nor Mitt Rom­ney (RCPn 28% –5; In 77% –14; RCPf 36% −5)

Price for a Mitt Rom­ney con­tract on Intrade, Jan 19–25

It was a ter­ri­ble, hor­ri­ble, no good, very bad week for Rom­ney. He lost badly in South Car­olina, and Axel­rod made fun of him. There was a movie call­ing him the “King of Bain” (not a bad pun, really), and he was forced to release his tax returns that showed what we knew already: he’s filthy rich, and because so much of his income is cap­i­tal gains (and because he tithes, um … reli­giously to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-​​day Saints), his effec­tive tax rate is a rock-​​bottom 14 per­cent. Every­one hates him, even more than before, and now almost as much as Newt Gin­grich. Only 31 per­cent have a favor­able view of him, ver­sus 49 per­cent who don’t.

2. For­mer House Speaker Newt Gin­grich (RCPn 29% +11; In 13% +9; RCPf 34% +12)

Gin­grich Jan 19 to 25

Newt Gin­grich appar­ently ran the del­e­gate table in South Car­olina, and that revived his campaign’s flag­ging hopes, once again. Polls show him even with, or ahead of, Rom­ney in Florida. He’s ahead in the Real Clear Pol­i­tics polling aver­ages, and although his Intrade con­tract is way up, it’s still just about 1⁄5 of the Rom­ney contract.

3.  Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ron Paul (R-​​Lake Jack­son, TX) (RCPn 12% –2; In 3% 0; RCPf 9% 0)

Paul Jan 19 to 25

Paul remains stuck at 3% on Intrade. He con­tin­ues to enjoy the sup­port of a large group of deeply com­mit­ted sup­port­ers, and may well pick up some del­e­gates in the cau­cus states where those com­mit­ted Paulis­tas will be able to swing the process to his advan­tage, as did Obama’s sup­port­ers in 2008.

 

4.  For­mer Sen­a­tor Rick San­to­rum (R-​​PA) (RCPn 15% +1; In 2% +2; RCPf 11% −4)

San­to­rum Jan 19 to 25

The return of Rick San­to­rum. Whodathunkit?

 

 

 

 

 

5.  Indi­ana Gov­er­nor Mitch Daniels (RCPn N/​A; In 1% +1; RCPf N/​A)

Daniels Jan 19 to 25

Daniels gave the State of the Union rebut­tal Tues­day night. His cur­rent Intrade per­cent­age is just barely enough to meet our one per­cent thresh­old. The Repub­li­can estab­lish­ment is so des­per­ate for a Not Rom­ney that they’re will­ing to recruit from the ranks of the non-​​candidates.

 

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