The Rubio Gamble There’s a method to his unusual strategy. It all depends on a strong showing in Iowa. By Kimberley A. Strassel
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rubio-gamble-1454022759
Marco Rubio is suddenly everywhere in Iowa. He’s campaigning alongside Joni Ernst, the state’s popular senator. He’s in the headlines of the Des Moines Register and Sioux City Journal, both of which endorsed him. He’s playing to standing-room-only crowds, jamming in three or four events a day.
That is a change for the Florida senator—and a carefully planned one. Of all the Republican candidates, none is playing a more complex (or longer) game than Mr. Rubio. Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz are following the conventional route of betting that big early victories will lock in the nomination. Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich are using another classic approach—putting all their chips on one state, hoping to jump-start a move.
Mr. Rubio by contrast is flouting the usual rules, playing everywhere at once and nowhere on top. It’s the Wait Them Out strategy. The plan hinges on edgy calculations and big risks. Yet given the unusual nature of this primary cycle, the approach may prove as plausible as any other.
The first of those Rubio calculations is that he has the ability to finish strong in Iowa. The Rubio team has bided its time in the state, convinced that it is possible to peak too soon. And Iowa voters do tend to be last-minute deciders. Rick Santorum, a few weeks from the 2012 Iowa caucuses, was averaging about 7%; he finished with nearly 25% of the vote. Newt Gingrich, by contrast, saw his numbers tank in the homestretch.
Mr. Rubio’s relatively low-key approach to early campaigning in Iowa all but guaranteed he would never match Trump-Cruz heights. His final, feisty Iowa push is instead designed to produce a surprisingly strong finish that gives him momentum out of the state.
The follow-on Rubio calculation is that the loser of Monday’s Trump-Cruz death match goes into New Hampshire wounded. A Trump loss would certainly inspire a rethink of the real-estate mogul. Mr. Cruz, meanwhile, has based his candidacy on a strong pitch to Iowa’s evangelicals and activists that he is the only true conservative in the race. Yet if Mr. Cruz can’t win in Iowa, of all places, where does he win? He would limp into New Hampshire, where even now he is only polling in the middle of the pack.
Cue the next Rubio calculation—that after Iowa, a lot more votes will be up for grabs. Surveys show that both Mr. Rubio and Mr. Cruz are vying for the same voters. Any Cruz pain is potentially Rubio gain. Meanwhile, a poor showing by Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee will likely knock them out of the race. Iowa also might spell the end for Ben Carson or Rand Paul or Carly Fiorina. Collectively, this latter group commands about 12% of New Hampshire voters—who would be looking for a new candidate.
An Iowa boost for Mr. Rubio would separate him from the Bush/Christie/Kasich scrum, allowing him to present himself as the viable alternative to Mr. Trump or Mr. Cruz, assuming one of them is the front-runner. And the calculation would hold from there on out. Mr. Rubio has been building his presence in all the states that follow Iowa, ready to scoop up voters as other candidates drop out, until it’s a two-man race between him and either Mr. Trump or Mr. Cruz.
If all this sounds tenuous, it is. And plenty can go wrong. Mr. Cruz and Mr. Trump could both finish strong in Iowa, leaving Mr. Rubio an afterthought. The Florida senator is facing an onslaught of negative advertising from his rivals in New Hampshire (Jeb Bush’s super PAC has spent about $20 million attacking him). The barrage will only increase, and weathering it may prove impossible.
Some of Mr. Rubio’s mainstream competitors might stay in the race longer than expected, muddying his two-man hopes. The longer the field stays crowded, the harder it will be for Mr. Rubio to raise the money needed to keep fighting. Even if he gets the two-man race he wants, the specifics matter. Many Republicans think Mr. Trump—given his high negatives—is beatable in a one-on-one match. A Rubio-Cruz face-off, however, could prove a longer, harder battle over who has the better conservative credentials.
What Mr. Rubio may have going for him is time, and timing. This primary cycle is truncated—starting late, moving briskly, ending early. Yet the early section, including the March 1 Super Tuesday voting in more than a dozen states, is stacked with contests that award only “proportional” delegates—the states aren’t winner-take-all. That makes it harder for any one candidate to stand out quickly in the delegate count. The real crunch comes on March 15, when the first winner-take-all states kick in.
And so back to Iowa, where the latest polls show Mr. Rubio inching up, and where his team is fervently hoping that anything in this race is still possible.
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