What the Iowa results mean for New Hampshire

Here’s a candidate-by-candidate look at the effect the Iowa caucuses results will have next week in the New Hampshire first-in-the-nation primary.

Mitt Romney
Yes, he can say as a matter of fact that he won Iowa, and, yes, the former Massachusetts governor is sitting pretty to win in New Hampshire too.

But the dynamic of winning by only eight votes over Rick Santorum blunts his hoped-for mandate. The Iowa results continues to raise doubts about him within what remains a very divided Republican party.

But in assessing Iowa, remember that Romney didn’t really begin to take Iowa all that seriously until early fall.

The conventional wisdom was that Iowa was too conservative, too evangelical for Romney. But his campaign saw an opportunity when none of the other candidates managed to take advantage of their early momentum.

Rick Santorum
The real winner in Iowa is the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania. But the question is whether the momentum will continue here in the Granite State. The answer is yes, but not enough to beat Romney.

Santorum is the latest to surge, and the surge happened to coalesce at the time of the caucuses. He was rewarded for being in Iowa, staying in Iowa, and working hard to visit each of the 99 counties there.

He says he’ll campaign hard this week in New Hampshire in advance of the Jan. 10 primary. His budget may have been weakened by his Iowa blitz but will be emboldened by his Iowa results.

Now that he’s the new GOP flavor of the month, expect him to be on the receiving end of some blistering attack ads courtesy of super PACs not aligned with any particular candidate … wink, wink.

Ron Paul
Paul’s showing in third place in Iowa means the Texas congressman is going to stick around and be a factor right through the primary season.

He won’t win in New Hampshire -- or anywhere else, for that matter -- but he’ll always be close enough to the top to feel the need to to keep on trucking.

Newt Gingrich
New Hampshire represents a chance for the former speaker of the U.S. House to reestablish himself in the top tier of GOP contenders after a drubbing in Iowa.

He surged in Iowa but then got beaten back by the negative ads from the super PACs that, going forward, will become a larger and larger factor in the 2012 presidential election.

He’s expected to start campaigning more aggressively and you’ll see some attack ads toward others launched on his behalf.

Jon Huntsman
He was a non-factor in Iowa, but the former Utah governor will be a big factor in New Hampshire because, for about six weeks, he’s had the state all to himself and the effort is paying off.

He’s surging in New Hampshire in a manner similar to Santorum’s surge in Iowa.

He won’t beat Romney but he’ll have a good second or third place showing.

Huntsman’s problem is what happens after next Tuesday. He’s so heavily vested in the Granite State he has little infrastructure elsewhere to do as well in the subsequent primaries in South Carolina, Nevada, Florida and in particular Super Tuesday.

Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann
Iowa means that the Texas governor and Minnesota congresswoman have become afterthoughts in the Granite State.

Voters here will give the pair about as much thought as Perry and Bachmann are giving New Hampshire right now -- zero.

Perry has gone home to Texas to rethink his campaign.

They wee both scheduled to make cursory visits to the state later this week, but the visits are necessitated only by the two televised debates here on the 7th and 8th.

Perry at least recognizes he’s got no where to go now but home.

Bachmann will eventually come to that realization too.