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Iowa Predictions: For the Record
I just want it on the record.
I think Trump is going to get creamed. He has no ground game in Iowa. His lead poll captain thinks 9/11 was an inside job. He is too cheap to give said poll captain $500 to rent a hall. Iowa is a ground game state that requires an infrastructure. Trump doesn’t think he needs an infrastructure! He can win on sheer guts alone!
Oh, the polls say he’s in the lead, eh? These, the same polls that said Mitt Romney was neck-and-neck with Obama? The same polls that said that the Georgia governor was so unpopular in 2014 that he was going to sink the sitting senator with him? How did that turn out? The same polls that said McConnell was going to lose in Kentucky? He carried that state by 17 points!
I’m no expert in polling. My father is, though. Taught it in university for twenty years. A good, solid poll needs at least a thousand respondents. Most polls have half that, and +/- 3.5 is a 7-point swing. With fewer than 300, polls start getting +/- ratios of 5. That’s a ten-point swing!
My gut feeling is that come Tuesday morning, we’re going to have a bunch of pundits standing around talking about his dramatic loss and how no one could have seen it coming.
But I saw it coming, so nyah.
And if he wins? Well, I’m sure I’ll come up with something appropriate.
What’s everyone else’s prediction?
Published in Elections, General, Politics
Cruz’s ground game has been first-rate for some time; I think he wins by 3-5 points, then Trump, then Rubio.
For the Dems, Bernie’s problem is that his strongest support is among those with the shortest attention spans. His organization isn’t bad, but his supporters might not have the discipline required. I think the Bern will squeak out a 2 point win, but don’t be surprised if Herself sneaks in a win through the side door. O’Malley gets 1. Not 1 percent, 1 vote :)
Crossing my fingers that Cruz wins by a pretty wide margin, and that Rubio does well enough that the whole conversation shifts. I’m hoping that adding Cruz and Rubio’s numbers will reveal that Trump’s support is much thinner than it had looked, and trending down.
I second everything that Brian said in the first comment.
I’ve been saying (which is to say, hoping) that Trump’s poll numbers are overstated for a couple of weeks now.
Hanging my hope on lack of any increase in Iowa GOP registration to date to indicate a Trump surge, Cruz’s old school organization of the state,Trump’s remarkable cheapskate approach (no money for vans?), and the depth of Cruz’s values emphasis despite the flawed roll out.
Cruz by 5 points. Rubio in third hits 20 percent. And the conversation starts to change in South Carolina.
On the Democratic side, my forecast is a certainty: a socialist will win.
You are very hopeful.
Barring a crazy (unprecedented) turnout in number, I bet Ted wins it. That is to say, I’m hoping and praying he wins it.
I fear Trump’s allure is stronger than anyone wants to admit, but Iowa is the very toughest place for him to prove his popularity translates to votes.
I’ll tell you after the debate and Trump veterans rally tonight.
I agree, Trump will not win Iowa. The only way I can imagine it happening is if Chuck Laudner gets out the vote from “uge” numbers of low info voters who have never caucused before.
I guess my big problem is watching all these pundits who really should no better, mouth off about how close Trump is when he isn’t.
Cruz appears to be losing altitude and his unfavorables are going up in all the recent polls. Rubio is doing the opposite. I don’t think Rubio will catch Cruz, but if he outperforms Cruz tonight, I think the caucus result will be much closer between these two than most have thought up to this point. A good Cruz performance tonight may halt his slide, but he will still be in for a very tight finish next week, I think. I also think that Trump will do better than most here are saying. Trump supporters can register when they show up to caucus. Registration numbers aren’t really indicative of what turnout will look like this year, I suspect.
If the polls are wrong and Cruz scores a convincing win next week, he will be well positioned to make this a two man race. If the polls are correct and he underperforms the expectations he has created in Iowa, look for Rubio to start gaining altitude and making it a different kind of two man race, or at the very least a three man race among himself, Cruz and Trump where Rubio takes the number two position.
I have no freaking idea.
Well, okay, that’s not right. I know Jeb! doesn’t have a prayer. And that makes me just a little happy.
Trump wins big. High turnout, higher than expected.
We talk about how sorry the state of polling is, and maybe the Bradley Effect, how Trump defies everything we know, etc.
2012 really burned me on disregarding polls. I was certain that they were wrong and that Romney would win.
But then, Nate Silver just keeps being right…
I hope you’re right about this one.
This seems to me an often unappreciated factor, Trump draws quite a bit of support from voters who are not currently in the GOP. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cruz outperforms him rather strongly.
I agree with Brian’s sentiment in #1. If history is a guide, but unfortunately nothing has been a guide this cycle.
I still believe Brian is correct. Ted Cruz has the best ground game in the first four states and should be favored.
My two predictions:
Relevant quote from Nate on this (source):
Silver has good insights and is fairly open about the inaccuracy of the models and where and why they go wrong. Iowa will, if nothing else, give us a lot more data to work with. But Trump over-performing the models is a very real possibility, and all the more likely considering his unique candidacy.
Trump may have just insulted many Iowa caucus voters by ducking out of the debate. And everyone knows what Iowans can be like:
That is very interesting.
I wish Nate Silver was politically neutral (or leaned conservative). It’s too bad…
Ugh, don’t remind me. They led to a particularly painful prediction on my part.
My prediction: Cruz 25%, Trump 22%, Rubio 12%, Carson 11%, and the rest below 4 percent.
There is another thing to consider. The voting rules are fairly byzantine. I believe there is a threshold of support at each caucus. If your candidate doesn’t get something like 15%, you don’t even get to vote for that candidate. That could mean that only 4-5 candidates even meet the threshold to win votes in any significant number of caucuses. That will make the second place votes from the folks at the back of the pack very important. This will likely favor Rubio more than it does Trump or Cruz.
I have no idea, but I do have a question.
The media keeps saying that Cruz has the best ground game. How do you assess and measure a ground game before the event even happens? On what is this anecdote based on?
This is where I would’ve been a month or six weeks ago. Carson’s the “chaos candidate” now.
My prediction
Cruz-32%
Trump-28%
Rubio-20%
You know what would be interesting and helpful? (Claire, are you still reading this??)
A post that just gives a nice overview of how the primary voting process actually works. The difference between caucus-states and others, the various quirky laws… heck, even the brokered convention, and, later on, the electoral college.
I think many of us sometimes default to the knee-jerk assumptions about majority rule in a democracy. We see simply graphs and charts that say who is ahead in polls, and that’s all the more thought we put into it.
It would be interesting to have it all described in detail, especially since this stuff is immediately relevant, and we’re all using/reading this language pretty much non-stop for the next 9 months or so.
Please let this happen. Please, please, please. It will so restore my faith in us.
I think Trump wins but with less than we think. Cruz right behind. Rubio with a little more than we think. Total between then equals around 50% so the field holds out enough hope to hang on.
In other words, nothing decisive here and we can keep arguing.
I believe this is the way the Democrat caucus works, which won’t matter so much with a two-person race. They’ll be fighting over O’Malley’s scraps.
The GOP is less byzantine.