Voters Will Soon Have Fewer Choices

Charlie Cook: “Iowa should win­now the more con­ser­vat­ive half of the GOP field, likely end­ing the cam­paigns of Mike Hucka­bee, Rand Paul, and Rick San­tor­um and al­low­ing Ted Cruz to con­sol­id­ate the more strongly ideo­lo­gic­al wing of the party. Con­versely, New Hamp­shire is likely to cull the herd of con­ven­tion­al Re­pub­lic­an can­did­ates—Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Marco Ru­bio. All are not likely to re­main con­tenders after the Gran­ite State votes.”

“The only ques­tion is wheth­er New Hamp­shire will push one or two of the con­ven­tion­al can­did­ates from the race, or even three if there is a big gap between the first-place es­tab­lish­ment can­did­ate and the run­ner-up. Thus the res­ults and fal­lout from Iowa and New Hamp­shire should provide a lot more clar­ity to a race in which Re­pub­lic­ans were faced with a dizzy­ing ar­ray of choices, much like a kid walk­ing in­to Baskin-Rob­bins for the first time.”