El peligro de las altas expectativas

Nate Silver:

This disconnect between expectations and performance is potentially quite dangerous to Mr. Romney. Consider Iowa, for instance. Mr. Romney currently projects to about 22 percent of the vote there, but the history of Iowa is one of volatile polling right up to the last minute — and sometimes huge surprises on election night. Our state-by-state forecasts, which account for this uncertainty, say that Mr. Romney could finish with as much as 36 percent of the vote in Iowa, but also as little as 8 percent, which could drop him all the way down to fifth or sixth place.

That such scenarios are plausible does not mean they are likely. But there is not all that much margin separating the candidates, and Republicans with Mr. Romney’s profile have historically underachieved their polls on caucus night.

Meanwhile, expectations seem to have gotten a little ahead of themselves. “I don’t see any scenario where we’re not the nominee,” one of Mr. Romney’s strategists told New York magazine’s John Heilemann.

Actually, the scenario is pretty easy to articulate. As I frequently remind our readers, the momentum that candidates get out of the early states has historically had as much to do with expectations as the actual results. Even a third-place finish in Iowa, much less something worse, might now be viewed as disappointing for Mr. Romney, increasing the risk of either a loss in New Hampshire or a close call that made Mr. Romney vulnerable heading into South Carolina and Florida.

My view is that the probability of these scenarios is higher than is generally acknowledged. Both the news media and the campaigns are always surprised when things don’t go according to the polls in the early voting states, even though a quick glance at the historical ledger would remind them that this sort of thing happens all the time.

So why am I nevertheless fairly bullish on Mr. Romney’s campaign? Well, there’s still that issue of one of the other candidates actually having to defeat him. One of the more likely scenarios is that Mr. Romney does take some bruises in the early states, whether at the expense of Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Perry, Mr. Huntsman or even Mr. Paul. But then the other candidate runs out of steam. Mr. Romney recovers and wins, perhaps after a strong performance in Michigan on Feb. 28, on Super Tuesday.

Even candidates as strong as George W. Bush, who was in an absolutely dominant position in the Republican primary in 2000, normally lose a few states. The advantage of winning the prevoting phase of the nomination process known as the invisible primary is that you can give up a touchdown or two and then still come back to win the game in overtime.

But if expectations get too far ahead of themselves, Mr. Romney might be only one Howard Dean scream or one Ed Muskie teardrop from becoming genuinely vulnerable. Mr. Romney would be wise to ensure that he keeps them in check.