By Kieron Hazell — January 4, 2012

The importance of these Iowa caucuses lies not in projecting who will ultimately win the nomination but in thinning the field ahead of the primaries.

With the start of a new year the US Republican presidential nominee contest is about to further intensify with the Iowa caucus on January 3. Widely regarded as a significant indicator of the fortunes of the candidates, just under half the winners of the caucuses in the Republican contest have gone on to secure the nomination for the presidential election.

Having finished second in Iowa in 2008, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney now narrowly leads the field with a 23% share of the Iowa vote according to RealClearPolitics’s poll of polls. He will be aiming to stamp his authority on the race on January 3rd. The tightness of this year’s caucuses is illustrated by his low share of the vote – in losing out to Mick Huckabee four years ago in Iowa he still succeeded in gaining 25% of the vote, higher than his projected total for this year.

Currently second in the polls with a 22% share of the vote, libertarian Ron Paul is the other candidate that has pulled away from the main pack, but must hope for a low turnout in the Hawkeye state in order to win, due to much of his support coming from independents instead of registered Republicans. Also a candidate in 2008 when John McCain was the eventual victor, this is a considerable improvement for the former Texas congressman who finished fifth that year with a tenth of the vote.

However, in a spectacularly volatile race that has seen the frontrunner frequently change, often based on who has committed the latest public faux pas, the significance of this year’s result could be limited in projecting who will ultimately gain the nomination. The caucuses will potentially be more important in determining which candidates subsequently withdraw from the race. In particular, former frontrunners Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann, as well as the surging Rick Santorum, will probably reconsider their campaigns if they fall outside the top four.

Now projected to earn a mere 14% of the vote in Iowa, Gingrich has quickly faded from a month ago when he appeared to be the preferred candidate among conservative Americans. A particularly resilient politician, Gingrich’s recent contention is remarkable considering a large number of senior aides quit his campaign last June, but negative advertising by his rivals seems to have deterred Iowans; support for him has fallen 17% in three weeks.

Rick Perry’s campaign has similarly faltered since late September, when he was leading the field, due to a series of blunders. Perhaps most damagingly of all, the name of the third government department he proposed to abolish eluded him for an excruciating 53 seconds during a debate in New Hampshire back in November. This spelled the end of his campaign at the end of a month in which a string of poor debate performances had seen his support in Iowa fall from 25% to 7.5%.

Possibly benefitting from the precipitous fall of both candidates, Rick Santorum is now experiencing a surge in the polls. He has more than double his support in a week, with an estimated 16% vote share positioning him in third place. Much of Santorum’s support is from evangelical and born-again Christians, a key constituency in Iowa.
So whilst focus will be on the top tier of candidates, tonight’s caucuses might be most interesting in starting the process of reducing the field to an ever decreasing list of potential candidates to challenge Obama in November this year.