What to Watch For in New Hampshire Polling
Iowa voted Monday; Tuesday would be the first full day of polling that has the Iowa results "priced in" to the respondents' views. For example, Harper Polling's latest survey was conducted February 1 and 2, so only half of its sample was offering their responses after Iowa. (Also, 8 percent of the 425 likely Republican primary voters in their sample gave their party affiliation as . . . Democrat. If you're a registered Democrat, you can't vote in New Hampshire's Republican primary and vice versa; October 30 was the last day a voter could change their party affiliation.) We won't get poll results that have the Iowa effect until late this week, probably Friday. It's reasonable to suspect that with his winning aura at least temporarily dampened, we could see Trump's numbers dip. Having said that, a lot of people have predicted Trump's polling numbers to decline in the past year, and they rarely have. You would think some folks might jump on the Ted Cruz bandwagon after his big win, and probably some folks sign on with Rubio, too. Historically, the electorate clusters around the top two or three -- sometimes four -- candidates as the primary approaches; people don't want to "waste" their vote on a perceived long-shot. The bad news for Cruz is New Hampshire voters tend to see their role as refuting Iowa. If Iowa picks candidate A, New Hampshire is likely to pick candidate B, for reasons well beyond the different political cultures of the two states. If New Hampshire picks candidate A after Iowa did, they're just rubber-stamping Iowa's choice; Iowa is the real decision-maker in that scenario. New Hampshire Republicans, consciously or subconsciously, begin the process with an anybody-but-Cruz mindset. Ted Cruz is not a candidate who's ideal for winning in New Hampshire, but notice he's been in that crowd behind Trump, with 12, 13, 14 percent for a while. Second place isn't unthinkable. Based on Iowa, it seems likely that the data-driven Cruz operation will find a way to turn out every last potential Cruz supporter they can find. UMass Lowell is conducting a tracking poll, offering day-by-day results: Meanwhile, businessman and reality television personality Donald Trump leads his nearest Republican challenger by 21 points. Trump is garnering support from 36% of Republican primary voters; he is down 2 points from Wednesday's release. What has changed in the race for second place. Sen. Marco Rubio from Florida increased another 3 points on the Republican side to 15%, followed by Sen. Ted Cruz at 14% (no change), Gov. Jeb Bush at 8% (-1), Gov. John Kasich at 7% (no change), Gov. Chris Christie at 5% (-1), Dr. Ben Carson at 4% (+1) and Carly Fiorina is at 3% (no change). Rubio is the only candidate on either the Democratic or Republican side to increase his share of the vote every day in our tracking poll and his apparent increase is evidence that his strong third place finish in Iowa may have cemented his place in this race. Despite winning Iowa, Ted Cruz has held steady at 14%. The trends suggest that if anyone is to pose a challenge to Trump in New Hampshire, it is most likely to be the surging Rubio. There are two caveats to point out about this poll. The first is that today's results are from three days of polling -- including February 1. In other words, one day of the results are from Monday, before the Iowa caucus results came in. Tomorrow's tracking poll will be the first that has all responses from after Monday. The second caveat is that we know turnout in New Hampshire can bounce around quite a bit -- across both parties and unaffiliated registered voters, 29.9 percent voted in 2004 (where there was no serious GOP primary) 31.1 percent in 2012 (with no serious Democratic primary) and when both parties had competitive primaries, in 2008, 53.6 percent voted. In the UMass-Lowell tracking poll, the sample was 1,410 New Hampshire registered voters, with subsamples of a 420 Democratic Primary Likely Voters and 487 Republican Primary Likely Voters. That adds up to 907 out of 1410 registered voters participating . . . a turnout rate of 64 percent. Iowa had record turnout in the GOP caucus, about 185,000, so it's possible Republicans come out in droves in the Granite State, too. New Hampshire's Secretary of State is indeed predicting record turnout, "more than half." But do you think almost two-thirds of the state's voters are going to turn out? Finally, in Iowa, the final polls had Trump at 28.6 percent, and his final share of the vote was 24.3 percent. How much of that represented people who told the pollster they supported Trump, but who weren't motivated enough to attend a caucus Monday night? What if Trump is masterful at dominating news cycles, but just not that wise when it comes to the nuts-and-bolts of campaign decisions and resource allocation? Take this comment from Wednesday morning: "Well, I think we could have used a ground game, a term I wasn't even familiar with," he said. "You know, when you say ground game, I say what the hell is that? Now I'm familiar with it. I think in retrospect we should have had a better ground game. I would have funded a better ground game, but you know, people told me that my ground game was fine, and by most standards it was." (You're running for president, and you hadn't heard of the term "ground game" to describe get-out-the-vote operations?) "People told me my ground game was fine" -- presumably, Trump means Chuck Laudner, the man who ran Rick Santorum's winning get-out-the-vote operation in Iowa in 2012. Here's NBC News back in October: Rockford, though, is the humble childhood and current home of Chuck Laudner, the man that has turned the Iowa campaign of Donald Trump -- the big city developer -- into a legitimate grassroots organization with the boots on the ground required to win the Iowa caucuses next February. So, did Laudner lose his abilities overnight? Or did Trump not take Laudner's advice? Rush: I Do Not Believe Marco Rubio Represents the Establishment Rush mentioned yesterday that he spoke to Marco Rubio Monday morning: I'm not saying Marco Rubio is perfect. I'm just saying that I do not believe that Marco Rubio is representative of what we all mean when we talk about "the establishment." I know he's got a lot of things to explain on immigration and amnesty. I know it's something he may never be able to get past because the issue is too important and people don't want to take a chance on it. I understand that. But I'm not . . . I just don't want to sit by . . . I don't like throwing people overboard. I don't like throwing people out and getting rid of them on the basis that somehow they're impure. The guy is not a liberal! He's not a squish moderate. He's not the kind of person that's responsible for the messes we're in. Not even close. But I also am not seeking perfection because, aside from me, it doesn't exist. And I say that flippantly with attempted humor, too. I watch the forces here that are attempting to take Rubio and plug him into that hole. I don't think he's seeking it. Look, I had a conversation with him Monday morning for a half hour here, and I asked him if I could talk about the conversation. He said I could. And he didn't put anything off the record or any disclaimers. One thing he told me was how frustrating it is to be in the Senate, and I've heard the exact thing from Ted Cruz. Not word-for-word, but thematically I've heard the same thing, how frustrating it is that the only thing anybody in the Senate cares about from morning to night is reelection and maintaining their position. He said, "I'm not staying there. I'm out. If I don't win the presidency, I'm going to the private sector. Not politics. I don't want to stay in the Senate 30 years. I don't want to have to stay there that long to acquire any power. The place is just not built for somebody that wants to move as quickly as I do." It's what he told me. Now, there isn't an establishment person in the world that wants out of it. There isn't an establishment power broker that wants out. The reason for their existence is to be in the club and to climb the ladder of success in the club and to be anointed by your betters and elders in the club and be given a hand up. And Cruz has told me the same thing. Cruz has talked about it publicly. Cruz took it public with his direct criticism of McConnell and the claim that McConnell lied to his face about a number of things. They can't get anything done there. "The guy is not a liberal! He's not a squish moderate." Indeed, and some of us have been saying this for a while. 'Please Clap'? No, I'm Sorry, Governor. How About, 'Please Stop'? Oh, no. You don't have to love Jeb Bush to not want to see him reaching this point: . . . there are signs Mr. Bush may still have some work to do to finish in the top tier here. Speaking to a crowd at the Hanover Inn near the Vermont border during his final stop of the day, Mr. Bush finished a fiery riff about protecting the country as commander in chief -- "I won't be out here blowharding, talking a big game without backing it up," he said -- and was met with total silence. "Please clap," he said, sounding defeated. The crowd laughed -- and then, finally, clapped. That . . . is just about the saddest thing I've seen this cycle. Jeb Bush is a decent man, who was a good governor, who just happened to be out of step with his party's base on two key issues. He shouldn't be forced to ask for applause. He's better than this. This is the saddest thing I've seen since those Sarah McLachlan commercials for the ASPCA, with "In the Arms of an Angel" playing in the background, and -- oh, no, I spoke too soon. She just taped one for the Bush campaign.
Please clap? No, no. Please stop. ADDENDA: I still have beefs with Reince Priebus and the Republican National Committee's debate set-up, but boy, you can't find a much better selection as a debate questioner than Mary Katharine Ham. The problem is that afterwards the polling will show her as the new front-runner.  | 
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