Last Dance For Huckabee And Santorum
Welcome to our live blog of the Fox News undercard debate, featuring Carly Fiorina, Jim Gilmore, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. If you’re a sentimentalist, pay special attention to Huckabee and Santorum: Tonight may be the last time you see either on a national stage this campaign (although they’re going to Donald Trump’s event afterward).
Santorum and Huckabee have bet it all on Iowa: They’re No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in the number of campaign events held in the state. Their all-in-on-Iowa strategy is perfectly reasonable; Santorum won the caucuses in 2012, and Huckabee carried the state in 2008. But neither has caught on this cycle. Huckabee has only 2.6 percent support, according to the FiveThirtyEight Iowa polling average, while Santorum has less than 1 percent and so doesn’t even appear on our chart.
It would take something miraculous in tonight’s debate, or in the few days before Monday’s caucuses, for either to have a chance of winning or even coming close.
Meanwhile, neither is doing well in New Hampshire or South Carolina. Santorum and Huckabee are polling at about 2 percent or worse in both states. So there’s really no path for them after Iowa.
Huckabee has said that he’ll drop out if he finishes outside the top three in Iowa; the same is probably true for Santorum.
Enjoy their company while you can.
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