The Republican presidential race was scrambled over the weekend when businessman Herman Cain, a one-time front-runner, suspended his campaign, but the field is likely to remain set at seven until voting in the 2012 contest begins a month from now.
At least three candidates — Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum — are each counting on a miraculous surge of support in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses to keep their campaigns alive. But the caucuses have ended more campaigns than they’ve launched.
“What the caucuses do is winnow the field, because Iowa is a relatively inexpensive state where candidates who are less well known can try out their message and try out their candidacy and see how they play,” said Dennis J. Goldford, author of the book, “The Iowa Precinct Caucuses: The Making of a Media Event.”
A failure by Perry, Bachmann and Santorum to finish strongly in Iowa could force any of them from the race before the New Hampshire primaries a week later, analyst said.
“All three of them are in grave danger after Iowa because they don’t have much of a chance in New Hampshire,” said Douglas E. Gross, a Republican strategist in Iowa and former chief of staff to Gov. Terry Branstad.
Cain, who surged in popularity with a charismatic campaign and a “9-9-9” tax reform plan that would radically alter the way Americans pay taxes, suspended his campaign Saturday following allegations from an Atlanta woman that she and Cain had carried on a 13-year affair. That allegation followed earlier charges from women who claim Cain sexually harassed them or acted sexually aggressively toward them.
Perry, Bachmann and Santorum have all focused their time and resources on Iowa, but none has been able to rise above single digits in statewide polling and it’s not clear that Cain’s departure is going to change that.
The trio’s problems are due in part to the fact they are all targeting the same powerful constituency of socially conservative voters, effectively undercutting each other in a state where six in 10 caucus-goers are evangelical Christians.
Gross said Perry, in particular, has little chance of surviving a poor showing in Iowa, where he was once enthusiastically welcomed as the conservative alternative to front-runner Mitt Romney. Still, Perry has done little to help his chances with a strategy that focused too little on retail politics.
“He has only run a media campaign, which is incredibly ineffective when you are trying to get people to go to the caucuses,” Gross said. “He had a great roll-out and has fallen flat ever since.”
Santorum, meanwhile, has met more Iowa voters than any other candidate, but his efforts have yet to pay off in the polls.
While his socially-conservative values line up with most of Iowa’s caucus-goers, his lack of resources has limited his influence and name recognition, making him appear unelectable.
Santorum has virtually no campaign structure outside Iowa and he was nearly $72,000 in the red at the end of September, according to Federal Election Commission reports.
Bachmann is in a similar position, after her entire New Hampshire staff quit in early October. Though she won the Iowa straw poll in August, Bachmann is now low on campaign funds and a half-million dollars in debt.
If the dynamics of the last primary season are any indication, the current Republican field could end up a two-man race by the Florida primary on Jan. 31, analysts said.
One of those is likely to be Romney, a consistent front-runner. Who would be left to contend with him is less certain.
