Cómo desatascar el atasco Bachmann-Perry-Santorum

Nate Silver:

The most interesting thing about the latest polls in Iowa (which are the basis for our forecasts) is that they essentially show a four-way tie for third place among the Republican presidential contenders, with Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry all projected to receive between 11 and 14 percent of the vote.

This is especially interesting because these candidates, with the partial exception of Mr. Gingrich, have very similar platforms to one another. They are hoping for support from many of the same demographic groups, especially evangelical voters, and have struck many of the same themes in their attempts to appeal to caucus-goers.

If these candidates could somehow combine forces, they could very easily win the caucuses. Even if you exclude Mr. Gingrich from the group, Mr. Santorum, Mrs. Bachmann and Mr. Perry collectively have about 34 percent of the vote, well above the projected figure for either Ron Paul or Mitt Romney, the candidates leading the polls.

I cannot recall another instance in which you had a configuration of candidates quite like this one. I’m sure there have been cases in the past where you had a multi-way tie for second or third place in advance of a primary or caucus. But probably not one in which the candidates involved in the deadlock were so similar, or when they were each within striking distance of first place.

Is there any way to break the tie between them? That’s exactly what the conservative group The Family Leader was trying to do last week: pick one of these candidates and hope to build some momentum behind them. However, the group hedged on its endorsement, failing to throw its full support behind any of the candidates, although two influential members of the group later endorsed Mr. Santorum.

(...) There are extremely strong incentives for supporters of Mrs. Bachmann, Mr. Santorum and Mr. Perry to behave tactically, throwing their weight behind whichever one appears to have the best chance of finishing in the top two. What that means is that if any of these candidates appear to have any momentum at all during the final week of the campaign, their support could grow quite quickly as other voters jump on the bandwagon.

This is also a case in which the polling may actually influence voter behavior. In particular, if one of these candidates does well in the highly influential Des Moines Register poll that should be published on New Year’s Eve or thereabouts, that candidate might be a pretty good bet to over-perform polling as voters use that as a cue on caucus night to determine which one is most viable.