OK folks, we’ve all been watching debates, scouring polls, and otherwise reading tea leaves for months now. But on Monday evening, actual voting begins. The Iowa caucuses are a weird way to kick off the selection of a presidential nominee (read this and this for some details on how delegates are actually awarded), but, to paraphrase a certain former Secretary of Defense, you nominate a president with the delegate system you have, not the system you might want or wish you had at a later time.
So, have at it in the comments. Give us your top three finishers on both the Democratic and Republican sides, with expected percentages (don’t worry about allocating actual delegates – let’s leave that to Iowa party officials). Winner determined by getting the top-3 orders right, and then by getting closest to the actual percentages. Tiebreaker points for getting the correct order of Republicans further down the ballot. Best finisher gets, in addition to bragging rights, a beverage on me at Tom’s upcoming BMG Stammtisch gathering in Somerville on Wednesday. (Obviously, you have to be 21 to collect that prize. If you win but either you or I can’t make it Wednesday, we’ll work it out another time.) Entries close when the caucuses begin: 8 pm (Eastern time) on Monday.
I’ll start:
GOP
Trump: 30%
Cruz: 23
Rubio: 15
The rest: Carson, Bush, Paul, Christie, Huckabee, Kasich, Fiorina, Santorum.
Dem
Clinton: 49
Sanders: 46
O’Malley: 5
GOP DEMS
Trump : 35 CLINTON : 50
Cruz : 25 SANDERS : 45
Rubio : 20 O’Malley : 5
Good luck one and all. And may the best WOMAN win ! 🙂
Fred Rich LaRiccia
…but I would be inclined to go with whatever Nate Silver says. BTW, if someone is under 21 or doesn’t drink I’m sure you could buy them a soda instead.
D
Clinton 51
Sanders 47
O’Malley 2
Caucus rules lead a to an O’Malley collapse.
R
Trump 31
Rubio 28
Cruz 24
The Rubio surge is real.
because caucus, but:
Clinton 50
Sanders 45
O’Malley 5
Cruz 24
Trump 24
Rubio 19
Carson 9
Got both orders correct. Only one on here to do it. Bravo, trickle-up!
but here goes:
Democrats:
Clinton: 49%
Sanders: 44%
O’Malley: 5%
Uncommitted: 2%
Republicans:
Trump: 28%
Cruz: 27%
Rubio: 18%
Carson: 8%
Paul: 4%
Bush: 3%
Christie: 3%
Huckabee: 2%
Santorum: 2%
Fiorina: 2%
Kasich: 2%
Uncommitted: 1%
Gilmore: LOL
n/t
GOP
Cruz: 27
Trump: 24
Rubio: 20
The rest: Carson, Carly, Kasich, Jeb!, Huckabee, Santorum, Paul, Christie, Gilmore
Dem
Sanders: 49
Clinton: 48
O’Malley: 3
Cruz is in the lead, and so are you!
I misread your Democrat predictions. You got the GOP right though. The only one on here.
Hillary at 51%,
Sanders at 48‰
O’Malley at 1‰
—–
Trump at 30%,
Cruz at 24‰
Rubio at 22‰
Carson at 8‰
Bush at 4‰
Paul at 3‰
Kasich at 3‰
Huckabee at 2‰
Christie at 2‰
Santorum at 1‰
Fiorina at 1%
That is to say, these are completely unscientific predictions, based solely on what I’ve been seen, reading, and thinking. Here goes…
46% #Sanders
44% #Clinton
10% #OMalley
32% #Trump
22% #Cruz
20% #Rubio.
…that will be the story of the night, though even that ultimately won’t matter since it still isn’t 15%.
The 15% threshold is caucus by caucus. If O’Malley hits 10%, it will mean he dominated certain caucuses while in others didn’t make the threshold.
Expect Sanders to sweep the caucuses in college neighborhoods, for instance while Hillary does better in rural, agricultural areas. I have no idea where O’Malley would overperform.
…is that this works its way up to the statewide level. Yes he will be viable in some caucuses, but then I believe how it works is that precincts send delegates apportioned among viable candidates to county conventions and the process repeats. Even if certain precincts send O’Malley delegates he might be declared unviable at the county level so the county won’t send any to the state convention. (I forget if there is an intervening congressional district caucus between county and statewide levels.) If he manages to still be viable in a handful of counties I’m failing to see how he mathematically is viable at the state convention that will select delegates to the national convention if his statewide total is only 10%. I’m not at all confident about this so feel free to enlighten me about the nuances of caucus procedure.
At the county level, people jump ship with no integrity. Edwards gained a bunch of Dean delegates in ’04 because he was surging and Dean wasn’t when those were held. There are a lot of faithless caucusgoers — partially because “getting” to go to the county-level is a main inducement to bring wavering people into your camp.
Why do have election night coverage on in the background then?
at Princeton Election Consortium.
Clinton 48%
Sanders 45%
O’Malley 5%
Three of O’Malley’s 5% gets assigned to Sanders, and the other 2% go to Clinton for a final of Clinton 50% to Sanders 48%. The remaining 2% float into space or a margin of error. Wang says, “Iowa is a high-water mark for Sanders, at least for now. My guess is that Sanders has to win by 5 to 10 percentage points in Iowa to be competitive for the nomination.”
For the GOP:
Trump 31.0%
Ted Cruz 24.0%
Marco Rubio 15.0%
Ben Carson 8.5
Wang estimates “that to get a majority of delegates by Super Tuesday, Trump needs to get at least 30% of the popular vote in the early states (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina). He’s at 33% in New Hampshire and 38% in South Carolina. Trump seems likely to come close to 30% in Iowa as well.”
He also notes that veteran Iowa pollster “Ann Selzer of the Des Moines Register, has twice gotten results that show Trump with about 5 percentage points less support than other surveys taken at the same time. If she is accurate, then Trump is actually at around 26% among people who will vote on Monday.”
Also “working in Trump’s favor, primary voters tend to commit fairly late in the process, and they appear to be moving in his direction.”
I’m more interested in the spin of the results. If Bernie doesn’t win, does he lose? Would a win be canceled out by a NH win? Is it a bad sign? I can’t believe Hilary doesn’t have organization in her favor in Iowa, but enthusiasm for Bernie is certainly strong.
I think a loss is worse for him than for HRC, because these first two (Iowa and NH) are theoretically right in his wheelhouse of white liberals. So if he drops one or the other of those, it starts to look like it just isn’t going to happen. In other words, the path for him is to win in IA and NH, and then pick up enough steam for the next few weeks of “Clinton Campaign Panic OMG!!!” coverage for something to break his way in SC or in the March 1 states.
But that doesn’t happen if he loses today, which I think would probably mean that things stay in their present status quo, under which things look increasingly bleak for him as time goes on.
My prediction is couched in a way that makes me ineligible for the tiebreakers: I think Hillary wins narrowly and that Trump under-performs.
GOP:
Trump: 45
Rubio: 20
Cruz: 10
Carson: 10
Dems:
Sanders: 50
Clinton: 50 (a tie)
O’Malley: 0 (Zero!)
Wow, good call with the virtual tie! You were off on the Republicans though 🙁
I guess I just don’t understand those Republikans.
GOP:
Trump: 32
Rubio: 28
Cruz: 34
Carson: 6
Dems:
Sanders: 48
Clinton: 46
O’Malley: 6 (the pox on both your houses vote)
He’s listed third, but has the highest number. Was 34 a typo? Or did you call him to win? Honor system. 🙂
I copy/pasted blue watch’s list and changed the numbers. So the numbers were close if not the order.
And I did think Bern would win. And after they find the missing precincts, maybe he did! Years ago, some miscalculation took victory away from Gingrich and gave it to Santorum.
Democrats:
Clinton: 45%
Sanders: 48%
O’Malley: 5%
Uncommitted: 2%
Republicans:
Cruz: 26%
Rubio: 23%
Trump: 22%
Bush: 7%
Carson: 6%
Paul: 4%
Christie: 3%
Huckabee: 2%
Santorum: 2%
Fiorina: 2%
Kasich: 2%
Uncommitted: 1%
Gilmore: who?
Clinton wins, according to 538.
Ok, here goes:
Us:
Sanders 48
Clinton 47
O’Malley 3
Them:
Trump 27
Rubio 23
Cruz 22
Bush 7
Paul 5
Christie 5
Kasich 4
Fiorina 3
Huckabee 2
Santorum 1
uncommittee 1
No one got the race perfect. Jconway was spot on the GOP, but he wasn’t expecting a tie on the Democratic side like blue watch was. Bluewatch got the GOP order very wrong.