Goooo McCain, Beeeeat Romney

The Appalachian State Michigan primary is today, and various anecdotal reports suggest that turnout is low. The conventional wisdom is that low turnout helps Mitt Romney, who gets more support from the more committed, rock-ribbed Republicans (whereas McCain is counting on some crossover votes from independents and Democrats). Then again, the conventional wisdom was that high turnout in New Hampshire favored Obama, and we all know how that turned out. (Besides, the Daily Kos "Democrats for Mitt" campaign may screw up this calculus.)

Anyway, I'm thinking that the reports of low turnout, and the CW that Mitt would benefit from same, probably account for Romney's InTrade surge this afternoon. Or maybe the bettors know something we don't -- but I wouldn't, er, bet on that. InTrade doesn't have a great track record this election season so far: "The price movement tends to respond to conventional wisdom and polling data; it doesn't lead them."

Meanwhile, as Romney and McCain battle it out for the Republican/netroots vote, the question on the Democratic side -- with the Boyz 4 Change off the ballot, and zero delegates at stake -- is what percentage of the vote Hillary Clinton must get to avoid embarrassment. Her chief opponent, "Uncommitted," has been polling above 30 percent. (Kucinich, Gravel and Dodd are also on the ballot, along with a space for write-ins.)

Anyway... predictions? On the theory that "conventional wisdom is always wrong," I'm saying it'll be McCain 31%, Romney 28%, Huckabee 20%, Fredmentum 10%, Giuliani 6%, Paul 4%, others 1%... and, on the Dem side, Clinton 59%, Uncommitted 27%, Write-Ins 7%, Kucinich 6.3%, Dodd 0.5%, Gravel 0.2%. (Write-in votes for Edwards and Obama don't actually count -- those supporters would be better off voting "Uncommitted" -- but a lot of voters won't know that.)

Comments

[Derek]

Very rapid-fire.

-Exit polls show 68% R, 25% I, 9% D. Romney's camp pegged 20% for non-GOP voters; most polling at 15%-20%. 55% were non-GOP in '00, but McCain wasn't playing to the base (which he snagged a sizeable share of in NH).

-Slightly depressed turnout helps Romney. Absentee ballots were cutting 3-to-1 in his favor.

-44% decided in the last week; cuts McCain's way, who's had the momentum.

-"Dems for Mitt" should be negligible. Really, how many Democrats would (a) read Kos, (b) oppose Clinton, (c) oppose Clinton not enough to vote "uncommitted" in the Dem race, (d) acknowledge they're a Republican for the day, and (e) pick Romney? Small, small.

-Romney spin machine is win, McCain is lose. But that just reflects their internals.

[Derek]

Oh, so what does the non-GOP % mean? McCain has gotten a bigger share of the GOP now, so he relies less on non-GOP. That said, anything over 20% (per last week's polls showing a close race) non-GOP is basically gravy for him; that is, it's most likely to break this tie. Of course, that's not including the absentees. But even though it's MUCH less than '00 (55% v. 32%), McCain was polling better among GOP (and, alternatively, there are more GOP choices for the anti-McCain folks, e.g., Thompson, Paul, Huckabee).

And, FYI, Romney internals show him up, FWIW.

[Dave]

Hoping for a McCain win... but not optimistic.

The good news is that, given the low turnout and ballot issues in Michigan, Romney's unlikely to get a big bounce from it unless the margin is double digits.

I disagree that the 44% that decided in the last week cuts for McCain, because from what I've heard a lot of these voters are the casual kind that bought into the "Michigan native" line Romney's been spinning this week. Most of these voters weren't tuned into NH.

On the other hand, the phone calls I've been making this afternoon for McCain have been pretty positive, on the whole. In NH, about 1 in 7 of the folks we had down as McCain supporters switched sides on the last day for whatever reason; I only had 1 in about 100 today. (These are "get out the vote" calls to folks we'd identified in previous calling rounds as McCain supporters.)

Also, the buzz has been that McCain has been drawing crowds in the thousands the last couple of days... which also bodes well. We'll see how it turns out.

[Andrew]

The futures trading makes a lot more sense for a general election than it does a wide open primary.