New Hampshire Primary Predictions: Could You Have Imagined This Eight Months Ago? Trump and Sanders Will Win in New Hampshire, Rather Easily

We are back, fresh off our excellent prediction in Iowa (read all about it right here: http://www.borntorunthenumbers.com/2016/02/iowa-2016-results-good-night-for-cruz.html) with our fearless prediction of the New Hampshire primaries.  Let’s start with the GOP.

You have doubtless heard about all the late breaking movement in the race.  How Donald Trump is fading in the face of an indifferent debate on Saturday night and a few shaky performances on the campaign trail on Sunday.  How Marco Rubio, morphed into a repetitive droid in the face of a withering Chris Christie attack in the debate, has started to free fall.  How Christie, Bush and especially Kasich are rapidly filling the now vacated passing lane among the so-called moderates.

The problem with all that breaking news is that none of it is true.  The most recent polls, and there have been a bevy of them, including quite a few taken after the debate, add up to…no movement whatsoever.  Check out the chart below.  Donald Trump is steady as she goes in the 30%+ range.  Marco Rubio is still riding his mini-bump from a solid third place finish in Iowa.  The Governor’s Ball is showing no excitement at all, with no Bush, no Kasich and no Christie emerging.

This is not to say that the notoriously fickle and last-minute-deciding New Hampshire primary voters won’t have a few surprises up their sleeves; they might.  After all, 8% are still avowedly undecided, and the others are hardly bound to the answer they gave in the last poll they answered.  But one cannot divine any movement from the very latest polls.

NH	Jan 1 - 23	Jan 23 - 31	Feb 1 - 8
Trump	31	32	31
Rubio	13	11	15
Cruz	12	11	12
Kasich	11	12	12
Christie	8	6	5
Bush	8	11	10
Fiorina	4	3	4
Carson	4	3	3
Other/NA	9	11	8

As for the Democrats...is Hillary losing steam, gaining steam?  Nope.  The Democratic race, from a polling perspective, is as placid as a lovely New Hampshire lake, with Bernie continuing to hold the ~15-point lead he has had for the last three weeks.  The polls all are over the map:  CNN has Bernie at +26, the Boston Herald has him at +9.  But average them all out and you get that persistent +15.

NH	Jan 1-18	Jan 20 - Feb 4	Feb 4 - 7
Sanders	51	55	55
Clinton	41	39	40
Other/NA	8	6	5

That doesn’t leave too much room for a forecaster.  In Iowa, one could detect the slight upturn for Rubio, and bet on the vaunted Cruz organization over Trump.  At least we could here at BTRTN.  But if we thought the New Hampshire outcome would vary much from these latest polls, we would be guessing.

I find it hard to believe that Rubio wasn’t damaged on Saturday night, or that Kasich isn’t rising, but since when do New Hampshirites listen to the national media, or to me?

So here goes, our predictions for New Hampshire.  Stubbornly, I’m going with a slight Kasich bump, which, well, two of the last three polls showed, and for a Rubio stall.  But the winners of the New Hampshire primary will be the incredibly unlikely odd couple: Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

NH GOP	Prediction
Trump	32
Kasich	16
Rubio	15
Cruz	14
Bush	12
Fiorina	4
Christie	4
Carson	3

NH DEM	Prediction
Sanders	57
Clinton	43