Although 5% of the precincts have not yet reported their numbers, I think it’s early enough to look at the data. At the NY Times Politics section, you can see where candidates have had campaign events throughout the country. Here is campaign event data for Iowa (01 Aug – 03 Jan):

- Paul – 27 Appearances, 11,598 votes

- Giuliani – 35 Appearances, 4,013 votes

- McCain – 38 Appearances, 15,248 votes

- Thompson – 75 Appearances, 15,521 votes

- Huckabee – 86 Appearances, 39,814 votes

- Romney – 109 Appearances, 29,405 votes

Based on that data, the candidates got the following number of votes per official campaign appearance:

- Huckabee – 463 votes

- Paul – 429.5 votes

- McCain – 401.3 votes

- Romney – 269.8 votes

- Thompson – 207 votes

- Giuliani – 114.6 votes

If the time window is expanded to include all dates in 2007, Romney’s voter:event ratio drops precipitously. But the data shows us how poorly Benito truly performed: he did not skip Iowa (as he claims), but spent about the same amount of time there as McCain. Looking at the Benito’s Poll numbers, it’s almost “Florida or Bust” at this point — he’s trailing in every state between now and Super Tuesday except for Florida and Nevada, and the negative momentum from losing IA, NH, MI, and SC is sure to hurt his numbers in those states. I think James Ostrowski may be right: Benito could drop out once the money runs dry, or “gracefully” exits if he doesn’t win Florida.

Paul’s numbers are quite encouraging: if he had held a few more events, started his Iowa Campaign in July instead of August, or if turnout hadn’t been so high (turnout was almost 50% higher for the GOP vote than the pundits expected, which was about 75,000) he would have captured 3rd place or better. This tells me that time is the most critical factor for the Paul campaign: his support is steadily increasing over time, without many hiccups.

If Paul does well in tomorrow’s Wyoming caucus, a state where Paul has recieved significant financial support per capita (9th in donors per capita), he could receive a nice boost into the top three in New Hampshire — major momentum for the January 15th Michigan Primary and the SC/NV primary/caucus on the 19th.