I don’t know if you have been following Chris Bower’s Nomination At a Glance series at OpenLeft, but he has his final projections in. And he’s calling for double wins in Iowa and New Hampshire for Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. His methodology is solid, but it doesn’t take into account the very short time between the Iowa and New Hampshire contests and it is, by necessity, a victim of the tightness and unpredictability of the Iowa polls.
I’ll be honest…Iowa is too close to call on both sides. I’ve followed the polls, the national media, the local media, and the history. But my projections are more from the gut than a result of any systematic analysis.
I am comfortable saying right now that Hillary Clinton winning tomorrow is the least likely outcome in the Democratic caucuses. What I’m looking for is hidden support. Obama’s hidden support is big turnout, particularly among independents and young people, and Kucinich’s endorsement on second choices. A big turnout will favor Obama (and it could favor Edwards vis-a-vis Clinton). Edwards has several potential sources of hidden support. First, he is polling stronger in rural areas, which are weighted more heavily than urban and suburban areas in the caucus system. In other words, Edwards will get more than one vote for every vote he receives, while Obama and Clinton will get less.
Second, Edwards is doing well as a second choice. In each caucus a candidate must pull 15% to get a delegate. If they get 30%, they get two delegates, etc. Some people are focusing on candidates that can’t reach 15%, but it is more complicated than that. Here’s an example.
In a hypothetical caucus, let’s say there are 100 participants. Using the current RCP average let’s say that the original tally is as follows: Obama (29 votes), Clinton (29 votes), Edwards (26 votes), Richardson (5 votes), Biden (4 votes), Kucinich (2 votes), Dodd (2 votes), and Undecided (3 votes). In this scenario, no one has 30 votes. Obama, Edwards, and Clinton will all be awarded one delegate (33.3%). It then becomes a contest between the three frontrunners to get to 30 votes and get that second delegate. In this case, there are 16 votes available. If Obama or Clinton can get 15 of them they will be awarded a third delegate. If Edwards can get a four votes, he will get a second delegate and tie Obama and Clinton.
As you can see, second choices can be critical. With the polls this close, any marginal advantage can be critical. Simply put, Clinton is going to lose hundreds of little battles over single delegates. Let’s use another example to make this clear.
Let’s say that we have a different caucus location (still 100 participants) with the following initial results: Obama (35), Edwards (22), Clinton (22), Other (21). If the ‘others’ split evenly (seven a piece) in second choices, Obama would have 42, Edwards 29, and Clinton 29…and Edwards and Clinton would get only one delegate to Obama’s 2. But if Edwards can get one more undecided than Hillary, he will get 2 delegates and tie Obama.
If all that makes your head hurt, it gets even more complicated. In the above example, Obama has 42 votes. Forty-two votes aren’t any better than thirty votes. Obama can send twelve of his votes to help another candidate reach a 15% plateau. If he wants to make sure Hillary loses, he may send those votes to Edwards. Or, he may send them to Kucinich if they will get him a delegate.
Clinton might get some second choices votes from Richardson and Biden supporters and she might do well among women, but she is going to lose the overall battle. I predict that Edwards will make up any narrow initial preferences deficit with a combination of rural weighting and his second choices advantage. However, I think he will end up essentially tied with Obama. Clinton will come in a close third.
In that scenario, I believe Obama will win New Hampshire, followed by Edwards, and Clinton again finishing third.
On the Republican side, I predict that Mike Huckabee will win in Iowa quite comfortably. John McCain will win New Hampshire in a landslide. And I don’t think McCain will really have to break a sweat after that…he’ll be the nominee.
I know Richardson claims he’s still in it to win it, but theoretically he could still throw all his supporters towards Hillary, right?
I’m thinking that’s Hillary’s ace in the hole; that she’ll offer Richardson something like SecState in exchange for his endorsement and support.
That’s my guess, although in my version, Richardson wants to be VP.
I think Edwards might surprise Obama tomorrow, but not by much.
And I think Huckabee will win Iowa in a walk.
I think Richardson wants VP too, but figured Hillary might bargain him down to a cabinet position. Not that I think Richardson would make a bad VP choice, mind you.
Barring that scenario, I think you’re right. Edwards scoots by Obama with Hillary in third. On the Republican side Huckabee wins easily, with Willard solidly in 2nd and McCain and r0n p4u1 fighing for third.
I’d like to see Ron Paul push McCain to 4th, but I doubt it.
I think the possibility exists that Thompson could take enough of the establishment conservative support away from McCain to open the door for Paul…he polls better in Iowa than he does nationally.
I guess we’ll just have to watch and find out. Hopefully my cable will be back up by then (we’re having high winds).
Yeah, you guys are probably getting the rest of the storm that dumped about 12 inches of snow here on New Year’s Eve. Fun.
I think he knows this game better than any of the others, even though they have old caucus hand organizers as well.
Even Edwards’ money deficit is forcing him to work from the bottom up, rather than top down. I mean, how many people can one or two ads convince, even if they’re run 24/7? Big money/top down can turn people off. Care for a fridge magnet and bumper sticker? How about nine?
He’s visited every county, twice. Been there longer than anyone. Good, old fashioned fire ’em up speeches and pressing the flesh wins Iowa.
OpenLeft is reporting several rumors that both the Biden and Richardson camps may be throwing their unviables to Obama: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3032
Personally I would have thought both of them were playing nice with Hillary for table scraps later, but if not then that’s a potentially big chunk of caucus-goers being tossed to Obama.
Of course, since one vote isn’t equal to one vote in an Iowa Dem caucus, who knows how the math stacks up. Edwards’ strength in the rural counties may more than make up for it…makes my head spin, honestly.
BooMan’s story is a great example of why Iowa is stupid and undeserving of all of the attention (and MONEY) it gets every 4 years. Votes for sale, strong-arming people supporting candidates, incomprehensible math – the whole thing is a bunch of crap. And then, this mess ends up disproportionately influencing who our nominee is. It’s ridiculous, and I’d like to see a few candidates skip it next time.
I like that Iowa gets the love they do. I live in MN, and Iowans are pretty likable folk. They like the earth to stay clean and want the schools to get funded.
Obama/Biden. You heard it here first.
Iowa:Obama takes first with surging independent masses (TM)
Edwards takes second with the coutryside.
NH: Obama cruises to a surprisingly easy first, sweeps into SC and the rest, as they say, is history.
Repubs: McCain gets the nomination after stomping inNH,and then proves a bit batty after all. I personally can’t wait for the YouTube of “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” to become number 2 or 3 in views during some point in the general.
I thought that Barbara Ann would do McCain in NH. BooMan disagreed. BooMan was right. I bow down to his prognosticating superiority. But I do think that song of his will resurrect itself in the general, if he does become the nominee. But the Repuke race is tight. No R candidate is uniting the party yet. Even if it is McCain, it will be by default, and they will be a fractured foe. Unless Hillary gets nominated…
Damn it all, my head does hurt!
l predict that friday there are going to be a lot of surprised…and subsequently unhappy…people, and a lot of them are going to be clitonistas.
1. edwards: populist message and grassroots and rural ground work puts it away
big gap
lTMF’sA
My Predictions:
DEM
1. Edwards
2. Clinton
3. Obama
Edwards: he has been campaigning in Iowa since 2003. Has a lot of carry-over of support and a solid, in place precinct organization with experience of and working within the caucuses . He is the largest 2nd choice Candidate and so will gather votes when Obama isn’t viable from the ‘Not Clinton’ people and from the Clinton people when Hillary isn’t viable. That’s a major, major, advantage and I think will put him over the top.
Clinton: She is the establishment candidate. The Clinton DLC faction will pull in enough 1st Choice votes to bring her into 2nd. She has little 2nd choice support & that’s why she won’t win.
Obama: he will get some votes but the expectation of a mass turn-out of young people won’t happen. He lacks the precinct organizations of Clinton and Edwards. He lacks the backing of the Establishment Democrats in Iowa. He comes in 2nd in 2nd Choice preference and that’s not enough to kick him over the top.
GOP
Huckabee — he is exactly the candidate that will appeal to the southern and northern tier of counties. He won’t do all that great along the I-80 corridor but the western counties will pitch in to help him take it.
Romney — The ‘eh?’ candidate. People aren’t thrilled about him but he has spent the bucks and has a sufficient precinct organization to carry him to second place. The I-80 corridor will go heavy for him & that’s how he gets to be #2.
McCain — The ‘Aw-heck’ candidate. He will come in third because he’s not one of the other guys. He is enough ‘Not the Other Guys’ and has the name recognition to pick-up enough scattered support to eke out a 3rd.