Caucus Countdown: Day 2

My 2016 Iowa Caucus “Predictions”

On the eve of the 2016 Iowa Caucuses I have decided to offer my “predictions” for the results. (Nothing like waiting until the last minute!) I put “predictions” in quotes partly because I don’t generally make predictions but also because, as you will see below, I’m going to cheat a bit about some of the places.

Democrats

The Democrats’ race should be easier because of the small number of candidates. That’s particularly true given that O’Malley will certainly finish a distant third. Despite only two candidates remaining, Clinton and Sanders, I think the race is very close. The big question between the two is whether the better ground game for Clinton will beat the superior enthusiasm for Sanders. It seems a cliché to say that turnout will determine the winner, but because turnout is generally low for a caucus (as opposed to a primary) determining who and how many will show up at the caucuses is an important question.

Sanders has relied heavily on the support of younger voters. Such younger voters tend to not be as reliable as older voters and those who have caucused before, but, based on my own experience, you can get them to turn out if you have a well-organized ground game. They will also turn out if they are very enthusiastic about a candidate. We saw that in 2008 with Barack Obama and in 2012 with Ron Paul. Clinton may have the better ground game overall, but Sanders supporters are more enthusiastic and he has been working them hard using new technology (texts, social media, etc.).

A wrinkle here is the O’Malley supporters. The Democrats require that a candidate reach 15% support in a precinct before that candidate is considered viable. If that percentage isn’t reached the candidate’s supporters can try to lure supporters of other candidates to their group or they can be lured to other groups. O’Malley is currently polling very low, so it’s unlikely he will be even close to viability in most precincts. That means his supporters are more likely to need to go to their second choice. A poll I saw a few weeks ago suggested that O’Malley supporters would be more likely to have Sanders as their second choice. That might give Sanders the edge in some precincts.

On the whole, however, Clinton seems to have broader support across the state. That’s important because of the way the Democrats tally the support and award delegates in the precincts. I would give her the edge of winning, but I wouldn’t be overly surprised if Sanders is able to manage an upset.

Republicans

We’ve started to see some separation on the Republican side in the last few weeks, though not enough to say for certain who will win or what the overall order will be. Nevertheless, I’ll give it my best guess.

I expect Trump, Cruz, and Rubio to be the top three finishers, but not necessarily in that order. The huge question will be whether Trump’s supporters actually turn out for the caucuses. A good portion of Trump’s supporters have not attended a caucus before and may not even be registered Republicans yet (though they can register as Republicans on caucus night). That means they are less likely to attend the caucus. A good ground game would help ensure they do, but it doesn’t seem that Trump has one. He certainly hasn’t run a traditional caucus campaign, but like other aspects of his campaign it may be that he’s breaking the mold here as well. I’m doubtful. Most campaigns with a strong ground game are happy to talk about it, but Trump’s campaign has been overly secretive.

Cruz’s campaign, on the other hand, is generally seen as having the best ground game on the Republican side. The last DMR/Bloomberg poll showed him only five points behind Trump, which is certainly within striking distance with a strong turnout effort. Trump supporters seem to have a lot of enthusiasm, but many attending his events were apparently there only for the entertainment value. In addition, Cruz has enthusiastic supporters too.

I think that Cruz will likely edge out Trump, unless Trump’s secretive ground game really is as good as he thinks. One wrinkle here is that the Cruz campaign seems to have stalled a bit. It didn’t help that he didn’t have a good final pre-caucus debate performance which was followed the next day by the misstep over the “shaming” mailer. I think the Cruz ground game should overcome those problems, but it might be close.

The final pre-caucus poll didn’t seem to suggest that Rubio was surging in a significant way. Nevertheless, there did seem to be more movement to him than for some other candidates. If he’s on the rise and Trump and Cruz underperform their last poll results it could be possible for Rubio to pull into second. At the very least I would expect a solid third with good separation from the fourth place finisher.

Carson was a solid fourth in the final DMR/Bloomberg poll and Paul was a somewhat distant fifth. I’ve long thought that Paul would perform better than his poll results because his campaign is very well-organized. There was some suggestion that Carson was fading, but it didn’t come across in the poll. Even so, the Paul campaign’s better organization has a very good chance to pull him ahead of Carson.

Bush and Christie might have the best chance to come in sixth, maybe even fifth if Carson’s ground game isn’t sufficient. Christie has been working hard and has some solid staffers familiar with Iowa working for him. Bush has been working hard in Iowa too, but he hasn’t been as strong on the campaign trail as several others and I think the negative advertising of one of the SuperPACs supporting him has backfired, making him look bad by attacking Rubio so hard. As a result, I’d give the edge to Christie between the two of them.

Excepting Gilmore who failed to register in the poll (peg him for last place in the caucus results), the rest of the candidates were in the 2–3% range. Statistically that’s all a muddle. I suspect that Kasich will probably be in eleventh place largely because he has hardly campaigned in Iowa.

That leaves Santorum, Huckabee, and Fiorina. Santorum and Huckabee are former caucus winners, but neither is getting all that much traction. Both are primarily competing for the same social conservative voters as are several others, including Cruz and Carson in particular. Santorum has come across as a bit too angry in the debates and Huckabee’s smoother style will likely give him the edge between the two.

That leaves Fiorina. She had a moment after the first few debates, but her momentum stalled and support seems to have faded. She still offers an important perspective in a variety of ways, including, of course, being the only woman in the Republican field, but it doesn’t seem to be moving her numbers. I suspect she’d finish ahead of Santorum, but probably not Huckabee.

Sometimes the separation between candidates counts as much as if not more than the order of the finish. The order of the bottom six won’t matter as they will likely be all bunched together. More important is the amount of separation between the top three and then the next two or three.