by WonkoKevin

On November 20 I wrote a blog “Do conservative bloggers even care who is running?” The premise was based on the fact that in that day’s current Wonkosphere buzz (which is an automatically-generated set of the most representative posts made that day), all twenty posts–every single one–was about Hillary Clinton. Many were from Against Hillary, and Below the Beltway had a prescient post (Will Iowa be Hillary’s Stumbling Block?). Today for the first time in memory the conservative buzz contains no posts about Clinton. It’s all about Huckabee and Romney and McCain, with a dash of Thompson (Rudy who?). The assassination of Bhutto, which was predicted to be favorable to McCain, has also been favorable to Romney, both gaining from Huckabee’s curious comments on illegal Pakastani immigrants. While national sentiment continues to swing to Huckabee, it lags by several weeks the sentiment in the blogs, and that doesn’t look good for Huck–the tone about him from conservative blogs has hit another low point. We continue to move to Minneapolis in “prefect storm” conditions. On the Democratic side, the polls and the buzz share data continue to predict Iowa as tied, with the mo on the side of Edwards. Jerome Armstrong at MyDD has some great data on how the three candidates have invested in an Iowa win.

by WonkoKevin

In previous posts we’ve discussed how changes in Wonkosphere buzz share are predictive of changes in national poll numbers 2-3 weeks hence.  With Iowa less than one week away, however, a 2-3 week-ahead prediction doesn’t do much good.  And because of the impending January 3 date, everything is in hyperspeed now.  So we need to look for other clues in the data.  What we find is that the buzz share numbers in the conservative blogosphere largely mimic the current national polling numbers, while the buzz share numbers in the liberal blogosphere largely mimic the current poll numbers coming out of New Hampshire. (more…)

by WonkoKevin

Two new polls from American Research Group are dominating people’s attention as we are now less than a week away from the Iowa caucuses.  According to the ARG poll, Hillary Clinton has a commanding lead over John Edwards 34 to 20 percent, with Barack Obama in third at 19% and Joe Biden at 8%.  In the Republican race, Mike Huckabee maintained a slim but diminishing lead over Mitt Romney 23 to 21 percent, with a surging John McCain at 17%, Rudy Giuliani at a surprising 14%, and Ron Paul at 10%, ahead of Fred Thompson. (more…)

by WonkoKevin

There’s only one person really moving in buzz share in the last two weeks, and it isn’t Mike Huckabee or Barack Obama.  The Wonkosphere buzz share graph for John Edwards shown below clearly shows attention to Edwards continuously increasing over the last two weeks amongst liberal bloggers (blue).  This is why we have given Edwards a 40% chance of a ten to fifteen percent win.  It will be interesting to see if one or more of the three Democrats might still have a surprise in store for us.

by WonkoKevin

We have consulted our Wonkosphere data base and looked at the buzz share trends, we have read the learned words of our peers, we have checked our gut instinct, and we have even bought a pair of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama playing cards so we could read the future.  We are ready to bring you our predictions for the Iowa Democratic primary.  We have identified four scenarios, and will discuss from most likely to least likely.  Each scenario assumes that the 4th+ place finishers take a collective 10%, thus there is 90% to split between Clinton, Edwards, and Obama. (more…)

by WonkoKevin

With only two weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses, there are subtle hints that momentum is shifting from Barack Obama to John Edwards.  Is Wonkosphere buzz share across all the internet still meaningful when it comes down to state-level opinions?  You bet–bloggers are the ones who are digesting the daily poll numbers and paying close attention to what each other are saying as well as what mainstream media is saying.  Buzz share at this point in the horse race relates to how bloggers are interpreting the buzz out of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.  Thus it is our belief that changes in buzz share over the last week or two may have predictive power concerning what will happen on January 3, in the same manner that buzz share has been predictive of poll numbers throughout the rest of the race.  Numbers are below the fold.

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by WonkoKevin

So who had a good week in Wonkosphere? I looked at buzz share changes from the week of December 1-7 to the week of December 8-14. Winners were Chris Dodd (because of his threatening to filibuster the FISA bill), Mike Huckabee, Barack Obama (no surprises), and hold your breathe, Fred Thompson. Yep, with a couple of evangelical endorsements, Thompson’s buzz share shot up to a more respectful 10% last week; we’ll see if it lasts. John Edwards and John McCain both lost buzz share, not a good indicator of positive movement. This upcoming week is really the start of the phase were television advertising starts coming into play big time, so look for a lot of buzz from Clinton, Obama and Romney, and we’ll see how much $$ Huck has been able to raise in the last month.

Wonkosphere.com reports that Mike Huckabee and John Edwards were the most likable presidential candidates amongst their constituents in the month of November, followed closely by Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Barack Obama, and Chris Dodd. Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton were the two leading candidates who had the most negative buzz from conservative and liberal bloggers, respectively.

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Image by Joe Crimmings, all rights reserved.

by WonkoKevin

Buzz share results from Wonkosphere confirm word on the street: while Hillary Clinton came out pretty well, the news was how relatively poorly John Edwards and Barack Obama did.  Obama loss 8% buzz share amongst liberal bloggers after the debate, the biggest drop.  This is a disturbing trend for Obama; even in the last debate where critics lauded his performance, hs buzz share dropped the following days.  Compare that to the 5-7 days of positive buzz share bump that John McCain has been getting post-debates, and it shows a fundamental weakness in Obama’s debating skills.  Meanwhile, Edwards only lost 2% buzz share after the debate, but that is with an asterisk: he’s lost 15% buzz share over the last 3 days, going from 25% to 10%.  As usual, the secondary candidates got positive buzz share bumps, but nothing large enough to note.

Changes in buzz share amongst liberal bloggers, post debate:

Joe Biden, +4%

Hillary Clinton, -4%  (note: from 50% to 46%)

Chris Dodd, +2%

John Edwards, -2% (note: -15% over last three days)

Dennis Kucinich, +2%

Barack Obama, -8%

Bill Richardson, +3%