James Forsyth James Forsyth

The shape of the race

As America tucks into turkey sandwiches now seems as good a time as any to assess the state of the presidential race. The first contests are now only a little over a month away with the Iowa caucuses on January 3rd and then the New Hampshire primary five days later.

Iowa will determine the shape of the nominating contest for both parties. On the Democratic side, if Hillary wins Iowa then she’ll cruise to the nomination: the combination of momentum and a national poll lead will make her unstoppable. If she fails to win, she’ll be in a real contest—albeit one in which she’s still the favourite—as the sense of inevitability around her candidacy will have been punctured. At the moment, Iowa is essentially a three way tie but with Obama slightly favoured as he’s likely to pick up more second preferences.

The question about Obama is whether he can string together a series of good performance.

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