Polling for the GOP field, at current, is essentially showing the same clusterfuck that it showed four years ago at this time, only in this case, instead of a candidate like Romney, who was perpetually stuck at right around 23%, no one is really getting much over 18%, because there are
just so many of them.
The point I made on a number of other threads still remains: it is very, very possible that no clear frontronner will emerge, even as late as the mega-primary date of March 15th, 2016, when Florida, Ohio and Missouri (all WTA states) will be up for grabs. With Florida looking to be a major battleground between Bush (Jeb) and Rubio and if Kasich announces, then he has an easy shot of taking his home state of Ohio, that leaves Missouri as prime pickings, especially for another candidate from the South, like Huckabee or Graham (don't laugh, it could happen, but I consider it highly unlikely). Santorum, a Pennyslvanian, swept Missouri in 2012, in lieu of the lack of a Southern candidate, but in 2008, McCain just barely edged out Huckabee by about 1 point. In 2000, Bush easily won Missouri, with about the same topline percentage and the same margin as Santorum won in 2012. In 1996, Buchanan won Missouri - back then, it was a set of caucuses and not a primary.
So, the pattern we see in Missouri is that it tends to go with the GOP candidate it considers the more Conservative of the bunch for that particular year. In 2000, Bush was considered more Conservative than McCain, but in 2008, McCain was considered more Conservative than Romney. Ditto in 2012, where Santorum was considered more Conservative than Romney. And there is no doubt that Buchanan was far more to the Right than Bob Dole in 1996, a year where Dole swept almost all of the primaries save Missouri, New Hampshire (also for Buchanan), the Louisiana Caucuses (also for Buchanan) but not the Louisiana primaries, and Arizona (Forbes won in Arizona).
So, it's very possible that March 15th brings the GOP no front-runner at all.
And there there is the 2nd-3rd tier candidate factor: A Carly Fiorina type of candidate can play the role of spoiler, especially in a huge state like California, rich in delegates.Ben Carson could maybe take Michigan or tilt it to a candidate like Rand Paul or Ted Cruz quite unexpectedly. Even to Marco Rubio.
So, right now, in my book all bets are off. Ted Cruz is raking in money and is the odds-on favorite in Texas, regardless of the Bush family standing there. Rand Paul is very likely, in spite of a sputtering campaign, to win his home state of Kentucky and should do well in Tennessee, also in very Libertarian-leaning states like the Dakotas, Montana, Alaska and Vermont, maybe Washington State or Oregon - not enough to win a nomination, but enough to keep anyone else from getting a majority of delegates.
More than ever before in my lifetime, I see a REAL possibility of a hung convention on the GOP side.
On the DEM side, it's already decided. More than 2 weeks after Chafee's official announcement and 6 weeks after Sander's announcement, Hillary is still towering over the other three declared DEM candidates, at between 57-60% nationally among Democrats and in most states, excepting New Hampshire. She is the odds-on favorite to sweep the DEM primaries quite easily and it would take a disaster of epic proportions to upend her campaign this time, seeing that there is no Obama-like figure to challenger her on the Democratic side. In a way, we are seeing a 1976-1980 redux, but this time, on the Democratic side, 2008-2016.
I am personally wondering if the first two GOP debates will help to winnow the field, or if will muddy it up even more.
Researching, I see that this is the most crowded GOP field of
SERIOUS candidates since 1940, where Thomas Dewey went into the convention having won the most primaries (5 of 12 primaries in that year), but dark-horse Wendell Willkie was nominated on essentially the SEVENTH ballot (called the "6th ballot, after shifts"):
Republican Party presidential primaries 1940 - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
1940 Republican National Convention - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
There were more candidates than in 1940 in 2012, but not all of them were really serious candidates and by the time the primaries came along, a number of them had dropped out.
