Alabama, Mississppi, and Hawaii: Playing to a draw

It is going to be a very interesting primary day. For the sake of argument, we will give Hawaii to Mitt Romney. He has won every Blue state that Barack Obama won in 2008, so despite Rick Santorum sending his daughter to campaign there this week, I am assuming that trend holds.

For Alabama and Mississippi it gets more uncertain. Mitt Romney is leading in the polls for both states. The leads, however, are within each poll's margin of error. This is relevant because of the earlier Tennessee primary which showed a similar small lead for Mitt Romney in the last poll before the voting began but broke significantly for Rick Santorum. The demographics of the voters in Tennessee are similar to those in today’s races in Alabama and Mississippi, so the polls may again be deceiving.

The issues are these:

As previously written about, Mitt Romney has lost every state that went for John McCain/Sarah Palin except Arizona and Alaska, the home states of the 2008 nominees. I do not count Virginia as only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul were on the ballot so it is not a relevant argument. Both Alabama and Mississippi went for John McCain/Sarah Palin in 2008, so it would be a huge upset to the pattern to date if Mitt Romney carried either of them. Also, Mitt Romney has only carried states with significant voting blocks of $100K plus income voters, which does not apply to Alabama and Mississippi. Mitt Romney has also only carried states where the electorate had at least 50% with college degrees. Both Alabama and Mississippi fall short of that mark, topping out in the high 48% range.

A statistic that cannot be ignored: Mitt Romney has not carried any states where the electorate has a significant percentage that identify as born-again or evangelical Christians. Both Alabama and Mississippi are heavy with those voters.  Finally, however, we come to the issue of money. Mitt Romney has not lost any state where he has significantly outspent his rivals. In both Alabama and Mississippi, Mitt Romney has outspent Newt Gingrich 3 to 1 and Rick Santorum 4 to 1.

So we are left with a pair of southern, religious, lower-income Red states that should go to Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum. But we have Mitt Romney outspending his opponents by the millions, and leading in the polls. Each time in this campaign Mitt Romney has had a chance to score a knockout, he has been upset. And each time one of his opponents has needed a big day to turn the tide, Mitt Romney has bounced back to re-establish control. So something has to give tonight. Does Mitt Romney finally find a way to leverage the money and party support and win a critical Red state? Does Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich overcome the money Mitt Romney has spent by continuing to connect with the base? Does tonight solve anything?

My prediction is a stalemate. As I started with, Mitt Romney will win Hawaii. I think Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum will split Alabama and Mississippi, although it is not entirely out of the question for one of them to win both states, or for Mitt Romney to steal one by a tiny margin. It is also a strong likelihood that someone will WIN one or both without really accomplishing anything.

If the states go 33% to the winner, 31% to the runner-up, and 30% to the person in 3^rd, someone will certainly get bragging rights (and someone else might get knocked from the race) but no one will reap a significant plurality of delegates. This helps Mitt Romney. He is a team leading by several touchdowns playing prevent defense. Yes, the other team might score, and they might make the final score look closer than it really was all game, but if he makes it as difficult a road as possible, the clock will run out before any significant comeback can be mounted.

As has happened before, Mitt Romney likely wins just one of the three states today, but may just come away with more delegates on the day than Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich. He will take that sort of day all the way to the convention.