Amidst the chaos that is the GOP race right now, it’s interesting to see one pattern repeating itself over and over again: candidates with single-state strategies beating candidates with multiple-state strategies.
Huckabee emphasized Iowa over New Hampshire and he won.
Romney was the only one to play in Wyoming and he won.
McCain emphasized New Hampshire over Iowa and he won.
Romney emphasized Michigan over South Carolina and he won.
Romney is the only one campaigning in Nevada, and ARG had him up 7 today and a Las Vegas Review-Journal poll to be released tomorrow has him up 15 (note that there is a heavy Mormon population in NV).
The converse is also true:
Romney ran a multi-state campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire and lost.
McCain ran a multi-state campaign in Michigan and South Carolina, and lost Michigan.
The trend also seems to apply on a micro-level to Rudy and Fred. We see how abysmally Rudy and Fred perform when they barely set foot in a state, despite polling in the mid-teens nationally. Where he has campaigned, Fred has placed or polled between 10% and 15%. Where he hasn’t, he’s barely ahead of Duncan Hunter.
We also see this with Rudy, though of course we don’t have results for a state where he’s campaigned in earnest for comparison purposes. But looking ahead, Florida is probably his #1 or #2 state in the country right now because he’s campaigned there — though it is no better than a tie.
Are early state voters such zealous guardians of their local prerogatives that 60-80% of support a candidate would have otherwise gotten simply peels away once the candidate leaves? Does local earned media matter that much? Or do voters just gravitate towards the two top horses in any horserace — regardless of what national polls or other states may say?