Here are the total candidate events so far, by state:
- Iowa: 1,240
- New Hampshire: 571
- South Carolina: 268
- California: 238
- D.C.: 174
- Florida: 146
- Nevada: 111
- New York: 103
- Texas: 93
- Illinois: 73
- Michigan: 55
- Virginia: 38
- Georgia: 37
- Pennsylvania: 37
- Massachusetts: 36
The candidates for President have made more trips to Iowa and New Hampshire, a combined 1,811, than every other state and territory combined. In fact, there have been more trips to Iowa than to every state other state, except New Hampshire and South Carolina, combined. Further, most of the trips outside Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina are fundraisers, not public campaign events. For example, looking at upcoming events in California, one can see that over 60% of all scheduled appearances in the state are fundraisers, and virtually every non-fundraiser campaign appearance in the state is accompanied with a fundraiser.
The point I want to again try to hammer home here is that the campaign is being waged, in significantly decreasing order, in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina (and the latter mainly on the Republican side). This simply is not a national campaign right now, not even close. As such, national polls are not a useful reflection of the campaign. What matter is where the polls stand, once again in significantly decreasing order or importance, in Iowa, New Hampshire South Carolina and nationally. Michigan, Florida and Nevada are wildcards that will probably have an impact on the campaign that is difficult to predict.
I apologize for saying something that many people who read this will find incredibly obvious, but the point is to use the early states to take the national lead entering Super Tuesday on February 5th. How much of an impact the early states will have on the national polls varies from campaign to campaign, but we can deduce the following:
- If Clinton wins either Iowa or New Hampshire, she will be the Democratic nominee
- If Obama wins both Iowa and New Hampshire, he will be the Democratic nominee
- If Edwards wins both Iowa and New Hampshire, he will almost certainly be the Democratic nominee
- If number three does not happen, and if Clinton defeats Obama in Iowa, regardless of what else happens she will almost certainly be the Democratic nominee
- If Richardson wins Iowa, and condition four is not met, then prepare for a real scramble that favors Clinton
- If none of the above conditions are met, and Edwards and Obama somehow split Iowa and New Hampshire, then prepare for an entirely unpredictable scramble that clearly favors no one.
Oh, and this is amusing. According to Pew, Republicans nationally think that the "energetic" most clearly applies to Rudy Giuliani. However, here is where Giuliani ranks in terms of campaign energy, as measured by the number of trips each candidate has taken to early states:
Iowa: 12th, including 6th among Republicans.
New Hampshire: 10th, including 4th among Republicans
South Carolina: 9th (tie), including 5th among Republicans<
Yeah, that is real energetic. Rudy Giuliani is running a lazy campaign, which is to be expected, As a result, the odds are against him winning the Republican nomination, which is fine by me. |
