It is essentially the eve of the Iowa caucuses and it is quite possible that the difference between the winner and the fourth-place finisher will be as little as ten points.
Such a result benefits two candidates: Gov. Romney and Sen. Santorum.
For the former, a win, however small, will leave him having taken a state he had not invested his campaign in going into another state in which he has a commanding lead. Two wins in the first two contests going into South Carolina and Florida will constitute a sense of inevitability the rest of the field will be hard-pressed to overcome. Gov. Romney will be the winner in a party desperate to win come November. That means a lot.
A third place/15-18% finish for Sen. Santorum will mean that, unlike the other anti-Romneys who have sizzled and then subsequently fizzled months before any votes were cast, he is peaking at just the right time. I doubt it would be enough to launch him past the apparent Romney coalescence, but it would position him to be the beneficiary should there be a late, desperate movement among conservatives to stop Gov. Romney. (It's much more likely that, at that point, Republicans will get in line and set their sights squarely on defeating President Obama next fall, but you never know.)
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