Rick Santorum in Iowa

[Mike Thick]

In 2016, conventional wisdom seems to have gone out the window

The field in 2012 was very weak, and dissatisfied voters coalesced around him as the "not Romney." This time, the field is much stronger, so he's having a hard time breaking away. Also, only a handful of candidates hold a huge amount of the support both in Iowa and nationally (Trump+Cruz+Rubio+Carson=79.1% in the Iowa RCP average) and this makes it hard to break away from the pack. There are several candidates (Huckabee, Cruz, Paul to an extent) splitting his base of evangelical voters and born-again Christians that make up over 50% of caucusgoers. Finally, at this time in 2012 Santorum had 18% support in Iowa and still only squeaked out a victory; now he has 0.5%. A Santorum surprise, whether a win or just placing in the top five, is unlikely.

[Mike Thick]

In 2016, conventional wisdom seems to have gone out the window

The field in 2012 was very weak, and dissatisfied voters coalesced around him as the "not Romney." This time, the field is much stronger, so he's having a hard time breaking away. Also, only a handful of candidates hold a huge amount of the support both in Iowa and nationally (Trump+Cruz+Rubio+Carson=79.1% in the Iowa RCP average) and this makes it hard to break away from the pack. There are several candidates (Huckabee, Cruz, Paul to an extent) splitting his base of evangelical voters and born-again Christians that make up over 50% of caucusgoers. Finally, at this time in 2012 Santorum had 18% support in Iowa and still only squeaked out a victory; now he has 0.5%. A Santorum surprise, whether a win or just placing in the top five, is unlikely.

You make a very good point. I don't expect Santorum to do well in Iowa, but perhaps a little better than 0.5%. He's still largely irrelevant this time around, though.  And you're definitely right about conventional wisdom going out the window... not many things about the 2016 election have been "normal" thus far!!

The way I could see him making a "comeback" in Iowa is if Cruz somehow collapses and Carson/Huckabee don't regain that support and instead it gets to Santorum. He hasn't really been campaigning much in Iowa lately though.

I suppose it's possible, but that's a pretty big "if." If that were to happen I think Cruz's support would go mostly back to Carson and Trump, with some scattered to Huckabee and Santorum.

[Mike Thick]

Finally, at this time in 2012 Santorum had 18% support in Iowa and still only squeaked out a victory; now he has 0.5%. A Santorum surprise, whether a win or just placing in the top five, is unlikely.

That was on the eve of the caucus. This year there's still a month to go. A month before the 2012 caucus, Santorum was only around 5%.

Still I don't think he'll surge this time. If anyone from the kiddie table is going to make a late surge in Iowa it's Huckabee, though still very unlikely.

I stand corrected. I incorrectly believed that the 2012 caucuses were on the same day as the 2016 caucuses. Thanks for pointing that out!