Betting tips / Paul Krishnamurty / 09 January 2012 / Leave a comment Bet Now View Market

A Mitt Romney failure in the coming New Hampshire primary would be a way out of left (or is that right) field political betting shock, so Paul Krishnamurty senses the story now is how the front-runner's rivals fare.

Round two in the race for the Republican Presidential Nomination takes place on Tuesday night in New Hampshire, with red-hot [1.25] favourite Mitt Romney widely expected to build further momentum after sneaking the opening Iowa Caucus by just eight votes.

As the former Governor of neighbouring Massachusetts, Romney is well-known in this part of America and has held a huge poll lead for months in the state. Only the bravest money-buyers will be interested in odds of just [1.03] about Romney winning this primary, although a more interesting betting angle concerns the margin of victory, and whether he can beat a 19.5 percentage points handicap.

So far as the wider contest is concerned, the key development to watch will be how Romney's rivals square up ahead of pivotal races in South Carolina and Florida, where the front-runner will face a much harder task to convince a sceptical Conservative electorate.

There are more delegates available to the winner in these states than Iowa and New Hampshire combined, and history confirms that early victories are no guarantor of later success. Four years ago, Hilary Clinton won the Democratic Primary in New Hampshire before losing the nomination race to Barack Obama. In Republican contests, both John McCain in 2000 and Pat Buchanan four years earlier failed to build on victories here, eventually losing to George W Bush and Bob Dole respectively.

The front-runner's opponents know the history and understand his weaknesses all too well, firing a series of attacks in recent days, with an eye to becoming the 'anti-Romney' candidate that Tea Party followers can unite behind. Any one of Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul could yet win the right to play that role, which will become clearer in the next few weeks as cash-strapped losing candidates exit the race. Michele Bachmann has already quit and Rick Perry is expected to follow suit soon.

Tuesday is also the moment of truth for the relatively moderate Jon Huntsman, who effectively skipped Iowa to bet his entire candidacy on New Hampshire. Current polls don't look good for the former Utah Governor, but with more than a third of Republican voters still reportedly undecided and back-to-back debates over the weekend, a game-changing late rally remains possible for anyone.