Iowa Throws the 2016 Race Into Turmoil — Cruz Beats Trump, Rubio Surprises, Clinton & Sanders in a Virtual Tie

 

FEBRUARY 2, 2016

Iowa1Photo:  AP

It has finally begun.  Yesterday, voters in Iowa went to the polls and took the first step in the election of the new 45th President of the United States.

In many ways, Iowa is a weird place to start the voting process.  First of all, it’s not even a primary but a caucus, and Republicans have completely different rules than Democrats.  Republican rules are much more straightforward.  You show up by 7pm at a gym, let’s say, and you listen to an hour’s worth of speeches from candidate representatives, then you cast your ballot and leave.

A Democratic caucus, however, more closely resembles a grammar-school game of dodgeball.  After the speeches, voters have to gather in groups depending on your choice of candidate.  Clinton voters huddle in this corner of the gym, Sanders voters in that corner, both O’Malley voters over here, and undecided voters over there.  If, after the first round, your candidate has not gathered at least 15% of the vote, you have to move to one of the surviving candidates’ groups or undecided.  When a candidate finally gets a majority, a winner is declared for that district.  Absolutely nuts.

That is why it is so difficult to get accurate polling numbers prior to the caucuses and how it explains last night’s unexpected results.

REPUBLICANS

Ted Cruz (28%) — The uncontested winner of the GOP caucus.  While all the noise in the contest was being made by Donald Trump, who polling indicated was going to be the easy winner, Cruz organized a superb “get-out-the-vote” effort across the entire state.  He made the effort to visit all 99 counties, and all that personal hand-shaking obviously got results.  He also overwhelmingly won the state’s evangelical voters, who are a significant voting bloc, which also helped expand his margin of victory.  There are far fewer evangelicals voting in New Hampshire, whose demographics don’t make a comfortable fit for Cruz.  He’s behind Trump there by double digits, but if Cruz out-organized Trump in Iowa, maybe he can do it again in New Hampshire.

Donald Trump (24%) — For a candidate whose entire campaign was built around the perception that he was a winner, Donald Trump is now officially a loser.  Favored by most polls to take last night’s contest, Trump barely held on to second place, just ahead of a surging Marco Rubio.  He gave a short, gracious concession speech last night, but how he campaigns over the next 24 hours will be very telling as to whether he actually heard the Iowa voters’ message.  (One way we can tell that Trump is upset — he actually stopped tweeting for 15 hours!!)  New Hampshire should be a much better fit for Trump, and he’s currently leading there by double digits.  But for a campaign based on winning, last night’s loss could cause that lead to disappear quickly.

Marco Rubio (23%) — For me, this was the big story of the night.  Expected to get no more than 15% in polling, the FL senator seriously over-performed last night, almost catching Trump and finishing way ahead of all the other candidates in the so-called “establishment” lane.  Like Cruz, Rubio had a top-notch ground game, and his willingness to show up anywhere to campaign is the kind of retail politics that plays well in Iowa.  What to look for before New Hampshire?  Watch where the money goes.  The establishment-class donors who had been expected to jump in for Jeb Bush have (wisely) held back their donations to see to what candidate the voters respond.  It’s clear from last night that Rubio has a major leg up on the other establishment candidates, and if their money starts flowing to him, look out.

Two other candidates to watch in New Hampshire:

John Kasich & Chris Christie (both 2%) — Both Kasich & Christie had terrible nights in Iowa, but that was expected.  Both men have basically been living in New Hampshire for the past year and have banked their entire campaigns on doing well there.  Kasich has been running the kind of serious issue-oriented campaign that often does well in New Hampshire.  And now that Rubio has painted a big target on his back, look for Christie to go into attack-dog mode.  (Already today, Christie, citing Rubio’s reluctance to hold press conferences, has repeatedly referred to him as “the boy in the bubble.”)  If anyone can slow Rubio down, it will be one of these two.

In Memoriam:

Mike Huckabee — Suspended his campaign yesterday even before the polls closed.  Bye bye, Mike.

 

DEMOCRATS

Hillary Clinton (701 delegate equivalents) — The Democratic race was supposed to be close, but not this close.  In the early hours of this morning, Clinton was finally announced as the winner, edging Bernie Sanders by 1/2 of 1%.  (Iowa Democrats don’t select delegates to the national convention but instead select delegate equivalents to the state conventions for reasons that don’t interest me in the slightest.)  The good news for Clinton is that she won, thus avoiding the personal nightmare of choking in Iowa in both 2008 and 2016, as well as avoiding the political nightmare of losing here, then likely losing in New Hampshire where she trails Sanders by double digits.  Zero-for-two is not the way to begin a winning campaign.  One statistic that should set off alarm bells in the Clinton camp — last night, she was walloped by Sanders 84%-14% among young voters aged 17-29.  She’s still likely to lose New Hampshire, and she has a lot of work to do to avoid being embarrassed.

Bernie Sanders (697 delegate equivalents) — Though he just barely lost Iowa, the Sanders camp has been treating it as a victory, as well they should.  It gives the Vermont Senator extra momentum heading into New Hampshire, which should help him keep his significant lead over Clinton by a margin of double digits.  Where this leaves Sanders after New Hampshire, however, is far more problematic.  The caucuses in Nevada hold some hope for Sanders, but then he hits South Carolina, followed by several more primaries in the South, with voters who are largely African-American Democrats, a group for whom Sanders has shown limited appeal.  Just like Clinton, Sanders has a huge task ahead in order to stay viable.

In Memoriam:

Martin O’Malley — Suspended his campaign yesterday.  So long, Governor.  We’ll miss you and your dad jeans.

Next up:  the newly-scheduled Democratic debate, now just between Clinton and Sanders, this Thursday on MSNBC.  Be there or be square.