Troianii

As I'm sure many of you have seen, Mitt Romney and John Edwards have surged to the lead in Iowa. I haven't heard this in the discourse on this website, so I wanted to touch on "second choices". As multiple sources have said, Mitt Romney is the most popular second choice amongst Republicans, and John Edwards is the most popular second choice amongst Democrats.

As the Republican race in Iowa has come down to just Romney and Huckabee, supporters for other candidates are starting to pick between the two, and Romney is getting most of those picks. This will also help Romney in other states, as he isn't just the top second pick in Iowa, he's the top second pick in the nation.

The same holds true for the Democrat race. Voters have noticed that it really is just a race, in Iowa and the nation, between Clinton, Obama, and Edwards. Edwards holds the most sway as a second pick candidate, in Iowa and across the nation, so Edwards is quickly picking up votes from those who have supported Biden, Dodd, Gravel, Kucinich, and Richardson. Anyone who stopped supporting Hillary or Obama likely threw their support behind Edwards.

I think that, in the future, we should be paying close attention to these candidates. Neither of them are the top picks nationally, or even in second place, but they both hold the most sway as second pick candidates, and this will help them in almost all state primaries when it comes down to the wire.

Sebelius for VP, not Hillary

I thought Obama was the favorite pick for second choice. I thought that only the Democratic caucus had the second choice option, and the Republicans didn't have second choice options.

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Troianii

No, I'm not familiar with Democratic second choices options, I thought that you only voted for one candidate.

Anyways, what I'm talking about, at the very least in the case of the Republicans, is that when people see that their favorite isn't going to win their state they vote for someone else, usually Romney.

I'll have to look up links when I get a chance.

SamInTheSouth

Iowa doesn't have a primary; they have a caucus. It's very different and really weird. I don't understand how it works.

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Sam

Albinonewt

Long story short for the caucus:

There are several rounds of voting. THe process takes hours, so its much more involved then a primary. For the first round you go in and "vote" for your favorite candidate. After that round the candidates with the least votes (I beleive it works on a threshold) are eliminated, and then you have either the choice of going home or picking a different candidate. This process repeats until there is a winner.

And Edwards had been the second choice candidate of roughly 50% of the Democratic electorate just a couple weeks ago. I assume that's still true.

Troianii

I think everyone knows that. For convenience, we don't ever say things like "the Republican primaries and caucuses", we just say primaries.