Similar to 2008 results. MN had also had four candidates. In 2008, Ron took four counties. This time he could take Benton County, nice name, lol. Also: Clay, Mahnomen, McLeod, Pine, and Stearns. He got second is all these counties. Romney won them. From what I understand, Ron held all of his counties from 2008 and only expanded them in 2012. In Iowa, Ron took several counties that Romney won in 2008. I think he won less of the counties that Huckabee won in IA. However, the MN counties that Huckabee won were smaller. So that is good news. I wonder how Santorum is polling so well when Romney took the majority of the counties last time. Did the people suddenly shift from Romney in 2008 to Santorum 2012? Seems unlikely. I wonder if the IA win for Santorum got coverage etc...and people are voting off of that. Or is Santorum playing the blocker of Paul again somehow.
PPP Poll Results:
Santorum = 33%
Romney = 24% -17%
Newt = 22%
Paul = 20% +4
2008 Final Results:
Romney = 41%
25,990
McCain = 22%
13,826
Huckabee = 20%
12,493
Paul = 16%
9,852
Assuming turnout is identical, the vote total with current polling looks like this:
Santorum = 20,513
Romney = 14,918
Newt = 13,675
Paul = 12,432
This leaves roughly 2,500 between 4th and 2nd place. If you assume slightly lower turnout and Ron's average increase in support for caucus including Nevada it would be 60% (IA +120%, NV 0% of total votes) or in MN's case another 7500 votes. Roughly 600 votes shy of 1st place.
It would look like this:
Santorum = 20,513 33.3%
Paul = 19,932 32.3%
Romney = 14,918 24.2%
Newt = 6,175 10%
Lower turnout I would assume we would win here. That would mean a 12.3 increase relative to what the polls are purporting.
I am going to predict a much tighter 3-way race for 1st. With Newt doing slightly better than 10%. I'd peg Ron at 25.5%. The question is from whom those votes come from. Ideally, you want soft santorum and gingrich supporters so that Ron is the anti-Romney. However, that means that Romney would hold his votes and likely win. Therefore, it seems plausible that Romney supporters defected among the rest. In Iowa, the last PPP poll reported that 16% of John McCain voters went to Paul. That would account for another 3.5% of the vote in MN. Anyway, it surely is going to be close based on everything we've seen in 2012 so far. MN could look much like IA if you ask me.
Worse case scenerio I predict is would look like this:
Santorum 29.9%
Romney 27.6%
Paul 25.5%
Newt 17%