Ron Paul can win. History proves it.

[Legend1104]

I am posting this out of anger due to the amount of times I have heard, “Ron Paul may win Iowa but he will not win the Presidential nomination.” This is simply not true. I have provide some study I have done using the past 4 nominations for the Republican Presidential primaries. The conclusions I do admit that the conclusions that I draw are very broad, but my main point is not to post statistical data that should be taken as black and white facts that will come to pass. Rather, it is simply meant to show that Ron Paul does have a chance to win the nomination, even if he is seen as a “weak candidate”, based solely on historical data. Below are a series of charts that show results from the past 4 nominations (1988, 1996, 2000, and 2008). These are very simple figures and I admit that there are a lot of details that could drastically change my results, but once again this is simply to prove a point, not provide presidential forecasting.

1. What is the likelihood of the winner of Iowa winning the nomination?
Year Iowa Nomination Likelihood
1988 Dole Bush
1996 Dole Dole
2000 Bush Bush
2008 Huckabee McCain 50%

2. What is the likelihood of a candidate not winning Iowa or New Hampshire going on to win the nomination?
Year Iowa New Hampshire Nomination Likelihood
1988 Dole Bush Bush
1996 Dole Buchannan Dole
2000 Bush McCain Bush
2008 Huckabee McCain McCain 0%

3. What is the likelihood of a person winning Iowa and South Carolina?
Year Iowa South Carolina Likelihood
1988 Dole Bush
1996 Dole Dole
2000 Bush Bush
2008 Huckabee McCain 50%

4. What is the likelihood of a person winning New Hampshire and Florida?
Year New Hampshire Florida Likelihood
1988 Bush Bush
1996 Buchannan Dole
2000 McCain Bush
2008 McCain McCain 50%

5. What is the likelihood of a person winning the nomination with 3 of the first states?
Year Iowa New Hampshire South Carolina Florida Nomination Likelihood
1988 Dole Bush Bush Bush Bush
1996 Dole Buchannan Dole Dole Dole
2000 Bush McCain Bush Bush Bush
2008 Huckabee McCain McCain McCain McCain 100%

6. What is the likelihood of a person winning Iowa and winning any of the next 3 states?
Year Iowa New Hampshire Florida South Carolina Likelihood
1988 Dole Bush Bush Bush
1996 Dole Buchannan Dole Dole
2000 Bush McCain Bush Bush
2008 Huckabee McCain McCain McCain 50%
7. What is the likelihood of a person winning South Carolina or Florida and winning the nomination?
Year Florida South Carolina Nomination Likelihood
1988 Bush Bush Bush
1996 Dole Dole Dole
2000 Bush Bush Bush
2008 McCain McCain McCain 100%
After observing the previous data we can draw a number of conclusions. Some are good for us, but some are very bad for us. I will briefly state them and make a few observations.

1. A person winning Iowa has a 50% chance of winning the nomination, but if a person does not win either Iowa or New Hampshire they are done. This is a very key piece of information. First, we can assume that if we don’t win Iowa, then we have no chance of winning the nomination. Iowa is key because based on polling alone, we cannot win New Hampshire. Therefore, we must secure a win in Iowa to stay in contention. Odds are Romney will win New Hampshire. That means that it has traditionally come down to the winners of Iowa or New Hampshire. The way it looks now, the nominee will either be Paul, Romney, or Gingrich.
2. Ron Paul has to win South Carolina. Every nominee in the past 25 years has won 3 of the first 4 states. As a matter of fact, every candidate that has won South Carolina by it self has won the nomination since 1988. If we assume Dr. Paul cannot win New Hampshire (remember no one in the past 25 years has won both Iowa and New Hampshire) then he has to win South Carolina. If he secures South Carolina then historically speaking he will win the nomination. In 2000 the person that won Florida did so with a 62% victory, and the winner in 1996 did it with a 56% with second place coming in with only 20% of the vote. McCain was considered to be a weak candidate in 2008. He won New Hampshire and South Carolina with very slim margins (37% to 31% in New Hampshire and 33% to 29% in South Carolina). Even he was able to claim Florida after a victory in South Carolina. Even though Ron Paul would be seen as a weak candidate (because the amount of Republicans that would not have him as their first choice may be small) he will still win as long as he has a victory in Iowa and South Carolina.
3. Side note. I do not exactly understand what the changes have been this year to the nomination process, so that may have a major impact on the race and change these dynamics. I will leave that up to others to decide.

[braane]

Just need to win Iowa + New Hampshire, from there they would have a very hard time mounting a come back.

[Legend1104]

sorry about the formatting. I cannot get my tables to convert and line up.

[trey4sports]

The bar has been constantly slid....


first it was straw polls, now they say we can win small caucuses (cauci?), next it will be the nom. and then it will be the general.

[KingNothing]

Meh. The sample size is unbelievably tiny. You can't really say anything definitively with so few elections to draw from.

[gerryb]

The election rules and schedules are so much different this year than in the past 40 years.

We're going to see a brokered convention if Ron Paul doesn't sweep it.

[CplKoontz]

Ron Paul has to win my state (South Carolina) if we go by History....

I think Ron can take IA, and NH.......SC has a ton of Newt Support for some reason.......

[69360]

Past performance is no guarantee of future results

[aSwedishSupporter]

Well, if someone wins 2 of the first 4 states, then noone will win three of them! So winning two would be enough according to that logic. I'd say that it's coincidence that during the last 25 years, the nominated guy won 3 of the first 4 states, and that South Carolina happened to be one of them each time. When there is a clear frontrunner, it is more likely to be like that than when the race is more even. One can conclude from recent history that the first states seem to be important, but that should come as no surprise. And of course, as you say, there's nothing in recent history that shows that someone in a similar situation as Ron Paul "has no chance".