But alas, the climax of this particular primary battle will be delayed because there are widespread balloting problems in Illinois, where an important primary is being put to bed as we speak. According to the Washington Post, “About a quarter of the state’s counties were experiencing problems with their printed ballots, a Board of Elections official said, explaining they were too wide to fit…” in the scanning machines.

Romney’s lead over Santorum has been sizable in several recent polls, but there has been some last minute softening in his lead, according to polls at Real Clear Politics. Nonetheless, the size of the lead will matter in today’s primary, and it is unlikely that Santorum will achieve his goal.

Let’s have a look at the details.

PPP makes the point that 16% of Michiganonians have already voted in the primary, and among these, Romney has a 62-29% advantage over Santorum, making Tuesday’s vote an uphill battle for the latter. Among those who are likely to vote, according to this poll, Santorum leads Romney 39-34%. This indicates an upward move for Santorum, but the pollsters claim that it is not enough to put Santorum in the lead. The PPP poll predicts that Romney will yield 39% and Santorum 37%, and the margin of error for that poll is 4.8%.

PPP points out that during the days leading up to last weekend, Santorum’s favorability declined from 44% to 15%, while Santorum’s negative attacks on Romney has not affected Romney’s favorability rating very much.

The Mitchell Research poll is more recent. Apparently, Santorum has made significant inroads with Michigan voters. In Mitchel’s Thursday evning poll, Romney had reduced Santorum’s 16% lead among Tea Party voters, but over the weekend, the numbers have shifted to give Santorum a 6% lead in that group. Romney had reduced Santorum’s lead among Evangelic ls for 16 to 7%, but over the weekend Santorum’s lead has improved to 19%. A similar pattern was seen in other demographic groups. Polling finished yesterday puts Santorum at 37%, up from 30% last Monday, with Romney at 35%, having registered 32% on Monday and 36% on Thursday.

During this time, since last Monday, the percentage of undecideds according to the Mitchell Poll has gone from 22% to 10%.

So, according to the Mitchell Poll, Santorum now leads Romney by 2% in a poll with a margin of error of 3.34%, with 10% undecided, and with a disproportionate member of those undecideds having broken towards Santorum over the last few days, and a general shift towards Santorum and away from Romney in most demographic groups.

While the Mitchell poll is inconclusive and technically shows the contest as a two-candidate horse race, it is not inconceivable that even as we speak Santorum support has gained a couple of percentage points to move beyond statistical uncertainty. As 12% of undecided voters melted away, Santorum moved ahead 7% while Romney moved ahead 3%. Assuming a 2:1 ratio, the remaining 10% of undecided voters could give Santorum (conservatively) a 5% or more increase and Romney a 3% increase. This would predict that the final outcome will be Santorum at 42%, Romney at 38%, with Gingrich and Ron Paul in a virtual tie for third.

I should also mention that while Gingrich’s support remained steady at 9% in the Mitchell Poll since Monday, Paul’s numbers jumped form 7 to 12 to 8% during this time. It is possible that some of Romney’s loss was from Paul supporters shifting towards Santorum as well.

Going into Tuesday’s poll, I’m going to have to predict a Santorum victory in Michigan. Since Michigan is Romney’s “home state” this will be extra-significant.

This all assumes an equivalence between PPP and Mitchel polling, and accuracy of polling that is reasonable to expect much, but not all, of the time.

The polling data is available via Real Clear Politics (download the PDFs there)

… starting out we had this …

Iowa: Romney Santorum
New Hampshire: Romney
South Carolina: Gingrich

Headlines: Romney winning
Reality: Three way horse race

… then we had this for a while …
Florida: Romney
Nevada: Romney
Colorado: Santorum
Minnesota: Santorum
Missouri: Santorum

Headlines: Romney Winning
Reality: Santorum has taken half the contests, Romney a close second

… right now this seems to be happening …
Maine: Romney Paul

Headlines: Romney may have a Santorum Problem
Reality: Uh huh.

… the near future …
Arizona: Romney ahead in polls, Santorum closing in fast, Gingrich becoming irrelevant
Michigan: Santorum maintains a firm lead over Romney

Headlines?: Ohio is where the real contest will be!
Reality?: Are we having fun yet?

… the distant future …

Ohio: Santorum leading
General Election: Santorum and Romney equally matched against Obama

Headlines?: Gingrich and Paul leave race, Bachmann reenters Presidential Contest?!!?
Reality?: Reality hardly applies, thought, does it?

Polling from RCP

Notably, Romney’s lead has varied across recent polls from a bump of over 41 to a still strong 35 percent, depending on which polls you look at. One might argue that this kind of variation is meaningless, and Romney is still in a commanding lead with any of those numbers, but that would actually be an irrational argument. It does not matter how close another candidate is to the leader, variation of 6 points in a candidate’s numbers, especailly in a place like New Hampshire, has meaning even if it does not cause a swap in position. The reason for this is the way things play out in New Hampshire.

Unlike larger and more populous states, a very large percentage of the people who will be voting in the primaries actually get to either see one or more candidates in person or see key operatives and impressive supporters of those candidates (local elected officials, etc). Or, at least, they get to feel like this is true given the tradition of the primaries. The theory is that his sort of more immediate contact between candidates and voters can have larger short term effects. A candidate that was previously low in the polls, and low on name recognition, that everybody in Moultonborough New Hapmshire (for example) has pretty much ignored, can suddenly become a factor in that small town if he shows up and shares a box of donuts with the guys at the Legion Post. This can happen, village by village, town by town, step by step until that person goes from 1% to 3%. Or single digits to double digits. Romney’s (minor but possibly not insignificant) variation in the polls is not because people are getting to know him (see below) but rather, because people are getting to know John Huntsman.

Huntsman’s numbers are high in New Hampshire (for him … over 10 percent, easily) and seem to be the numbers that go up or down most in relation to Romney’s (though Gingrich’s do as well). He’s been trying to get his numbers up in New Hampshire and this is indeed exactly what it looks like. Huntsman’s 1% has gone to as much as 16%. It is quite possible that these numbers will increase still. New Hampshire is exactly the kind of place where someone like John Huntsman can have a strong last minute showing. Doing a little well in New Hampsire, however, would probably be wiped out soon after by doing poorly in some of the southern states where much of the focus shifts next. And he likely will do poorly there, where he is currently showing only a slight improvement over his consistent 1% take of the poll numbers. But if he shows very strongly, perhaps getting second place a few points ahead of third place, there will be funding, there will be support, and he may survive the upcoming sweep through Dixie (South Carolina and Florida) before heading to Nevada then Michigan.

Why is name recognition for Romney not a factor in New Hampshire? This is obvious to most people watching these things, but just in case you are only now tuning in to the action: Romney was well known as a candidate running against Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy years ago, and then subsequently, he became Governor of Massachusetts. What you may not realize is that the geographical center for much of the 1.3 million or so people who live in New Hampshire is actually Boston. Boston Massachusetts (and surrounds). I’m not sure what the number is, but a very large percentage of the people who live in New Hampshire a) work in Massachusetts; b) are from Massachusetts; c) are members of families split between New Hampshire and Massachusetts; d) actually live in Massachusetts but pretend to live in New Hampshire for tax reasons; or e) whatever.

This is why, as I’ve said before, a Romney win in New Hampshire is meaningless. The distribution of the other candidates, among themselves, is much more meaningful. But really, that may not be very meaningful for all of the lower echelon candidates; By most polls this seems to be a Paul-Huntsman-Santorum horse race, and if Paul either wins (second) or has a good show, that will be ignored because we have all, Democrats, Independents and Republicans alike, learned to ignore Ron Paul a very long time ago. The real question will be which of the two other candidates … Hunstman vs. Santourm, but let’s not totally forget Gingrich yet … will come in closest behind Romney, regardless of where Paul places.

And it will be very interesting if Santorum and Huntsman both place, remain in the race, and become meaningful elements in the debates and discussions. The two represent very different places (I hesitate to say “opposite ends of the spectrum” but maybe) in that party. For the most part, Republican party politics is like a narrow coastal strip on which everybody lives with a vast mostly unpopulated hinterland (much like New Hamphsire itself!) which is always ignored. Huntsman is a guy from the hinterland allowed to sit at the table for a while, before he finishes his milk and cookies, picks up his musket and raccoon cap, and heads back off into the wilderness. But if Hunstman places fair with Santorum, say within two percentage points, he may be invited to stay for lunch.

Then the Republican Party may actually have to engage in a conversation about its own internal philosophy. I’m not sure if that’s ever happened before . No one knows that that will look like. It could be interesting.

It is … difficult to see such a path for Bachmann, given her last-place finish and the fact that her campaign strategy had been premised on a strong launch in Iowa, the state where she was born and where she won the GOP straw poll in Ames in August.

At first her campaign manager, Keith Nahigian, said Bachmann is going ahead “full steam.”*

But hours later she dropped out of the race. And speaking of the race, let’s have a quick look at the final tallies:

Mitt Romney 30,015 (25%)
Rick Santorum 30,007 (25%)
Ron Paul 26,219 (21%)
Newt Gingrich 16,251 (13%)
Rick Perry 12,604 (10%)
Michele Bachmann 6,073 (5%)

John Huntsman also relieved a few votes, so technically, he came in last behind Michele. (See this insightful analysis of the numbers by Pharngula’s PZ Myers.)

And now, the meaning of it all…

Mitt Romney won about the same percentage in the 2008 Iowa Caucuses, though he was beaten by Mike Huckabee (34%), and fourth place John McCain (13%) won the nomination. As I’ve mentioned before, the main pattern seen in this political contest since 1976 has been that the higher up you are in the count, the more likely you are to win the nomination, which is probably a simple matter of correlation between major factors such as money, political experience, and what the people of that party are currently looking for.

But there is another factor that may play out in the Iowa Caucuses: Negative effects related to electability, generally produced by the candidate, have had a higher effect on certain people as the race progresses. For example, last time around, Huckabee and Fred Thompson both became less electable over the course of the election cycle because of their increasingly apparent adherence to narrow doctrine which became more clear as time went on. In 1988, the previous time that a non front-runner gained the nomination in the Republican party, those leading the eventual nominee coming out of Iowa were Dole and Robertson. Robertson is now widely understood to be a nut case, and Dole was … well, he was Bob Dole. Dole eventually gained the nomination (two rounds later) but was widely seen by people in both parties as a throwaway, running against Clinton, then a sitting president. Democrats who came out ahead of the eventual nominee in Iowa include Tom Harkin, Paul Tsongas, Dick Gephardt, Paul Simon, and Ed Muskie. This is quite a diverse group but among them are some who were either too Eastern, too Libral, or otherwise, perhaps, definable (by the other candidates later in the race) as too narrow in some way or another, or were not culturally well matched with the broader electorate.

So what does this mean for Mitt and Rick, who essentially share the lead? Possibly nothing, because whatever tendency had existed in previous years to define a set of issues for all party members (except Huntsman and Paul) to follow in lockstep has become de jure de facto, and Mitt and Rick are already on message. But there is a difference between the two. Mitt Romney comes to the race as one of the only non-Senators to run for the nomination who has spectacularly well documented, shall we say, variation over time in his policy record. Senators have a hard time running in these races because procedural votes create a history of flip flopping for them (falsely and fallaciously but us-ably in electiony ways). Romney, who did in fact come to politics as a grown-up from the business world (several years ago) and who is, after all, a New England Republican running in the most conservative times ever for that party, has it worse than John Kerry ever had it. Remember that advertisement with John Kerry tacking back and forth (changing directions with the wind) on a cartoon sailboard (which was lost on the entire middle of the country because we don’t have them here)? I hope they didn’t throw it out, because it can be revived, Kerry’s head replaced with Romney, and former Massachusetts Governor is done.

Which leaves Santorum, who fits ideologically with the current flow of the Tea Party and Republican electorate very well, making him very nominate-able and possibly even electable. (It remains to be seen if Santorum will have difficulties because of this.)

And now on to New Hampshire.

In a way, the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary are like a workable and possibly even good marriage; Two individuals who are fundamentally similar but with important differences each get their say on an important decision, but one usually goes first, and the other either goes along or modifies the initial decision, as part of their traditional process. New Hampshire and Iowa have had the conversation about what candidate to put forth, much like they might have talked about what movie to see or where to get dinner, many times. Now, we may ask, on which occasions has one or the other had the opportunity later in the evening to say “I told you so”?

In 1980, Iowa suggested Bush over Reagan (who finished close) and New Hampshire chose Reagan, and later, so did the party and so did the country. New Hampshire, the older half of this couple, was right. In 1988, Iowa picked Dole and gave George H. W. Bush the thumbs down, but Hew Hampshire, possibly for family reasons, picked the Vice President, as did the rest of the country. Years later, though, Iowa was heard to whisper “I told you he’d be a one-termer.”

In 1996, Iowa suggested Dole or Pat Buchanan and expressed a preference for Dole, but was not too happy about any of the choices. New Hampshire had the same feelings but went for Buchanan. The rest of the party picked Dole, and the rest of the country went to a totally different movie that year. Chagrin all around.

In 2000, Iowa went for George W. Bush but New Hampshire differed and suggested McCain. The party later picked Bush, and so did the country. Iowa was getting better at this.

In 2008, Iowa chose Huckabee, and New Hampshire strongly disagreed, choosing McCain instead. The rest of the party went with New Hampshire. They all should have stayed home that night.

Historically, New Hampshire has been pretty good at picking a winner. This could be because she is longer established, more contacted with the politics of the populous east, but perhaps simply because she always chooses second, having tricked the younger Iowa at the start of this relationship into thinking she should always prefer to go first. Relationships often work better if these sorts of things are established. Having said that, during the years it really mattered most, Iowa was increasingly right, preferring the candidate that won the party’s nomination in ’96 and picking the President in 2000. And that is why, when we consider the two of them, we may openly defer to New Hampshire but we never take their eyes off that younger and less traditional Midwestern girl, Iowa.