Come Groundhog Day, we will be having our first caucus of the Election Season. Wait, what’s a caucus?, you ask. Well, NPR has an explainer.
The gist is that they put everybody in the gym at the local high school. Then they have people give the pledge of allegiance and people give impassioned speeches on behalf of their preferred candidates and then they have everybody mingle over into groups supporting particular candidates. If any group (for example, the group supporting Mike Gravel), has less than 15% of the people there, they break up the smallest group and they say “join one of the others!” and then the people in the other groups yell stuff like “join us, we have brownies!” and then they do a recount of the groups. If there are any sub-15% groups left, they play the game again until every group has at least 15% of the people in the gym in it.
And then they count up numbers, do proportional distribution of delegates, and then, among the groups, pick delegates who have to take a day off from work to go to the thing where they pick the person who will be going to the National Convention.
So here’s a link to Nate Silver, our Numbers Guy, and his take on the Iowa caucuses.
The thing I notice is that there are 3 people with numbers north of 15%. Two people just barely north of 20%. One just barely north of 15%. Everybody else, added together, is ~33%.
It’s that 33% (plus the undecideds!) that will decide the winner.
So my question, for you, is who wins Iowa? Who places? Who shows? (And remember: You can’t make fun of someone else’s picks without also posting your own!)
(Featured image is “Iowa” by ChrisYunker. Used under creative commons license.)
Okay, my take is boring.
Sure, Sanders is (barely) ahead right now, but look at that 33%! There’s no way that those people all go to Sanders too.
So here’s what I see happening:
1. Biden
2. Sanders
3. Warren
Buttigeig comes in 4th, drops out after NH, runs for VP (loses that too).Report
I realized at dinner that I’m thinking about this wrong.
What’s the dumbest thing that could possibly happen?
A tie.
Biden and Bernie have a tie.
Warren comes in 3rd.
CNN has headlines like “Biden ties for First Place, Warren comes in Third!”Report
I now realize that “the dumbest thing that could possibly happen” was not, in fact, a tie.Report
Personal life me would like Biden to win this and put the primary to bed so we can get on with other things.
Writer/commentor me thinks Bernie ecks it out and we get to play horserace till Super Tuesday, or maybe the week after before we get the result personal life me is hoping for in Iowa.Report
Boring me picks Biden… but I’m playing a hunch and pushing all my Democratic chips in for Bernie [which for the record, I’m entitled to and have exactly zero]. I’m buying the hype and the caucus mojo… building on his existing 2016 network will pay big dividends. (Plus, Biden sucks at Iowa).
1. Bernie
2. Biden
3. Klobuchar
4. Warren
My no-information gut says Klobuchar pushes Buttigieg under 15%…
If I were caucusing for Klobuchar, I’d totally serve our snacks with combs (in wrappers) as utensils… that’s the kind of self-deprecating humor we mid-westerners cotton to.Report
I honestly don’t think that anybody who isn’t within a standard deviation of us knows about the comb thing.Report
Nerf binders?Report
Hell, I’d pass the NYT endorsement (of which I’d have made hundreds of Xeroxes) to Warren supporters.Report
1. Bernie
2. Warren
3. Klobuchar
4. Biden.
Yang, Buttigieg, and anyone else still on the list drops off. Mayor Pete starts campaigning for one of the others.
I’m going to be really interested to see if Bill Weld does any good on the Republican side. He’s not getting a lot of press but he’s still actively running.Report
Yang is in this until at least Super Tuesday. He believes things.
One of them is that his presence is changing the debate.Report
I think Romney missed a big opportunity in Iowa. Nobody did more to give Obama a second term, and nobody has really done more to stop Trump or stab Republicans in the back. That could carry some weight with Democratic caucus goers and at least position him for a second or third place finish. But alas, he didn’t even campaign there.
So absent Romney, I’d have to go Bernie, Biden, Klobuchar, Warren, Buttigieg, though I’m not that confident Biden will come in second.
As for how the primaries end up, yesterday I read an interesting New Republic article,
Tom Perez stacks DNC deck against progressives. If I was a progressive I would find it highly disturbing. They might get a bit upset to find out that corrupt corporate anti-progressive shills get to run the convention.Report
this is not news to anyone who follows Democratic Politics.Report
And now Politico says DNC members discuss rules change to stop Sanders at convention.
They’re discussing a rule change to allow all the super delegates to once again vote in the first round. Boy, those long-overdue post-2016 reforms lasted almost a whole cycle!Report
Iowa has always reliably frustrated me so I’m gonna guess:
1. Uncle Bernie
2. Biden
3. Warren
4. Klobuchar
But I really hope it turns out different. And please not Bernie, the Berniacs will be intolerably smug until SC and super Tuesday bring them back to earth and that’ll take forevah!Report
I think it is very unlikely that any of the dropouts will go to Bernie’s camp. He’s a fairly strongly polarizing figure. For instance Nate Silver is showing Klobuchar at 10%. So her group is going to miss the cut. I can’t really see many of those people moving to Bernie.
So,
1. Biden
2. Sanders
3. WarrenReport
1. Sanders
2. Biden
3. Buttigieg
4. Warren
5. Klobuchar
6. The guard from the Northern Iowa team that upset Kansas in the NCAA’s a few years ago
7. A half-eaten ham sammich
8. Andrew Yang
9. BloombergReport
Sanders
(10point spread)
Biden
Warren
Buttigeig
Yang
Blah, blah, blah.
Special K and the… who’s left? drop out.Report
Well, given that I’ve donated nearly $1000 in the past few months to the Sanders campaign, you better believe I think it’ll be Bernie.Report
Bernie 1st, Biden 2nd, Warren 3rd, Mayor Pete 4thReport
Sanders could win Iowa and New Hampshire but this is going to kill in South Carolina:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/bernie-sanders-described-segregationist-george-wallace-as-sensitive-in-1972-article
I am not making predictions but my wish is for a Warren win. I admit it is a dark horse.Report
Here’s kind of where we are:
I’m kinda surprised that we *STILL* can’t point at someone and say “yeah, you got your guess right” but I’d like to give half a point to the people who suggested Biden would win and a quarter point to myself for suggesting that the dumbest thing possible would happen.Report