Duverger vs. Giuliani

Cross-posted at A Second Hand Conjecture.

It’s all up to the crackers now. Fred Thompson has left the building, leaving Rudy Giuliani the only candidate in the Republican race potentially capable of prevailing in November against either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama—or both. But Rudy may well have made a strategic error: having been the polling frontrunner for almost a year, Giuliani and his captains decided to forgo the smaller early state contests and focus on high-delegate states, beginning with Florida on January 29th. Giuliani's people have been bivouacked there for months. The effort has kept the candidate with a double-digit lead in the Sunshine State—until now.

Enter Duverger’s law, which states that district-based plurality elections favor a two party system due to voter polarization between the frontrunner and the strongest challenger. In the contests he skipped, Rudy finished most often in fourth or fifth place, with single-digit percentages. With John McCain and Mitt Romney now being perceived as the the top two candidates, Giuliani’s poll numbers have been plummeting in Florida, California, New Jersey, and even New York, the very delegate-rich states that he was counting on to elevate him to the nomination. In Florida, the latest polls now have Rudy in a three way tie for first place at best and losing to both McCain and Romney at worst.

But what makes it impossible to write Rudy off yet is the following: historically up to a third of Florida voters have taken advantage of the state’s liberal absentee/early voting rules to cast their ballots prior to actual elections. Giuliani’s team knew this going in, and assembled early voting and absentee voter “chase” teams that have been operating since before Iowa urging Rudy supporters to vote early. No other candidate has done this. With this being a four-way race, it's possible Rudy can absolutely stink on Tuesday yet still win due to early/absentee ballots cast for him back when he was fab.

What's more, given that the media has all but ruled it out, a Rudy win in Florida would turn the press upside down, making McCain's comeback in New Hampshire appear small and uninspired by comparison. The very trend that makes the chances of a Giuliani nomination currently appear hopeless contain the same forces required to make his big-state strategy work by making him the lead story one week before Super Tuesday. Duverger can giveth as well as taketh away.