State of the Campaign Part 2

This is a continuation of my previous post on the state of the campaign. So far, things are going fairly well for John as far as strategy goes. While a win in Michigan didn't happen, wins in New Hampshire and South Carolina more than make up for it, as both are far more important to the overall GOP race. Florida is next, where John currently leads the RCP average. Note that all of those polls are before South Carolina (and Nevada too), and thus before whatever surge in support John might experience, and whatever negative effect a 2% showing by Rudy Giuliani might have in a state where he lead or was tied for the lead two months ago.

So what will a Post-South Carolina and Nevada GOP race look like? Well, right now in the RCP average John has 23.2% support, Rudy has 20.3%, Mitt has 18%, Mike has 17.3% and Fred 8.5%. Ron Paul's 5% support probably is in isolation to everything else.

I expect that Rudy Giuliani's numbers will continue their steady drop, along with Mike Huckabee's to a small extent, and Fred Thompson's as well. I believe that John will enjoy a nice uptick in support, and Mitt Romney to a small extent as well. Why?

Rudy Giuliani's support in Florida is "soft", in my opinion. He has been aggressively campaigning there the past few months with little to no opposition. No other candidate has made any significant face time there. Once the others start to actively campaign in Florida, I expect his support there to erode further, as those candidates start to impress. Also, Rudy's poor showing in South Carolina and John's success will also cause a shift in support from Rudy to John. How much I can't say for sure, but I expect a point or two at least. A lot of Republicans supported Rudy because they saw him as the most electable candidate; now that John has been shown to be the most electable Republican I suspect much of his increased support lately has been shifting Rudy supporters. I see this continuing.

Mike Huckabee will lose a little support as some of his leaning supporters see he hasn't gained support among non-Evangelicals, and believe his chances of winning the nomination are effectively zero. I figure John and Romney pick up these voters.

Fred Thompson has been losing support for a while now, I expect him to keep on gradually losing support much like Rudy has. His disenchanted voters will likely switch over to Mitt or simply not vote at all.

Mitt Romney will benefit from the loss in support among Huckabee and Thompson supporters, and probably pick up a couple of points in the next poll. Also, his name recognition has been slowly increasing over time, so that will factor in as well.

We will know more once the first polls after South Carolina come out.