Iowa Caucus Predictions
2 January 2008To voters in primary states the Iowa Caucus is not well understood. That’s because a caucus doesn’t work the way a primary works. In a primary everyone comes out and votes for their candidate and the one with the most votes wins. In some states if no one gets a majority of votes there may be a runoff to pick the candidate. The big difference in a caucus is that something like a runoff occurs as part of the caucus itself. Here’s how it works.
Caucuses don’t exactly involve votes per se. Instead caucus goers gather in a large room around their candidate. Any candidate that doesn’t have at least 15% of the caucus goers is ruled not viable and their supporters physically move to the area of their second choice. That’s where it gets interesting and it’s what causes pundit predictions to sometimes be incredibly wrong. Predicting who will have less than 15% isn’t too difficult but predicting where their supporters will go is not so easy.
On the Democrat side Dennis Kucinich has already told his supporters to support Obama should he not make the first cut, which is likely. Indeed on both sides there will be a number of candidates who will not meet the 15% threshold and all their supporters will move to someone else. That makes predictions difficult.
I don’t plan to make predictions on the Democrat side, primarily because I don’t really care. I’m much more interested in the Republican caucus.
Mitt Romney has spent a boat load of money to buy the Iowa caucus and a couple of months ago the conventional wisdom was that he would walk away with it. Today Romney finds himself in a dead heat with Mike Huckabee even though he’s outspent Huckabee by something like 20 to 1. The pundits are pretty much universally saying everything depends on turnout. Which candidates can get their voters out to the caucus will determine the outcome. I agree with that to a point but I think there is more at play here.
The Iowa Straw Poll in August was an eye opener for many. Romney was widely expected to win, as he did, but no one predicted Huckabee to come in second. Since the Iowa Straw Poll is mostly about buying votes Romney clearly had the edge. No one could compete with the money he could spend on the effort. Huckabee, on the other hand, had virtually no money to spend, yet he came in a strong second. There were a couple of reasons for that showing and keep in mind that Huckabee supporters pretty much had to pay their own way to the poll unlike Romney supporters.
First, Huckabee’s very outspoken support of the FairTax was probably the primary reason he showed so well. FairTax supporters are well organized and they mostly support Huckabee because he supports the FairTax so strongly and articulately. While there has been some acknowledgement of the roll of the FairTax by the pundits in the media, I believe they broadly underestimate how big that roll actually is.
Second, Huckabee unapologetically supports the issues so called “values voters” care about. He is pro life, pro family, pro second amendment and against gay marriage. He’s also an outspoken Christian and makes no bones about it. That scares some people who think any Christian will usher in a theocracy but evangelicals by and large are behind him.
The latest polls all have Romney and Huckabee in a tie while no one else has even 15% in the polls. So Romney and Huckabee will certainly make the first cut. Who will be out after the first round?
Giuliani and Paul will not make the first cut. Predicting where their supporters will go is somewhat difficult. Giuliani supporters will likely split between McCain (should he make the first cut) and Romney but Paul supporters are anyone’s guess. As rabid as those folks are they could pack up and go home, not moving to any candidate. If Thompson does not make the first cut his supporters will almost universally go to Huckabee. Romney is viewed as a RINO and Thompson supporters are real conservatives. They will not support the RINO.
McCain has more than 15% in only one poll but I think it likely he will make the first round. If he does not his supporters likely will not go for Romney because Romney has now gone after McCain in some of his ads. That gives most of those supporters to Huckabee if it comes to that in the first round.
Back to the turnout question. Remember how FairTax supporters buoyed Huckabee in the Iowa Straw Poll? I predict the same thing will happen in the caucus. I believe that in the first round Huckabee will have a significant lead over Romney. That will have some impact on the second round as the supporters whose candidates don’t make the first cut decide where to move their support.
Thompson is really the wild card. If he makes the first cut Huckabee could be hurt in the second round and it is then possible that Romney or even McCain could take the lead. I consider than an unlikely but possible outcome.
I predict the first round goes to Huckabee by a fairly wide margin. Romney will be second and McCain third in the first round. All of Thompson’s supporters will go to Huckabee, Giuliani’s supporters will split between McCain and Romney and Paul’s supporters (those who stay) will go to McCain.
In the second round Huckabee’s support grows the most because he gets all of Thompson’s supporters. Romney gains the least in the second round and McCain ends up in the middle.
The end result will be Huckabee first, McCain second and Romney third. That will leave the Romney campaign shell shocked and scrambling to regroup for New Hampshire. Romney will dramatically increase spending in New Hampshire and the number of negative attack ads he runs will increase dramatically as well.
These are, of course, only predictions. They could be wrong and indeed, almost certainly will be wrong in some details. I chose to be pretty specific about how this will go which increases the opportunities to be wrong. But I think the analysis is pretty sound and it will be interesting on Thursday to see how it turns out and how close I come to the actually results.
Stay tuned for caucus results analysis.
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Tags: Conservatives, Elections, Fred Thompson, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Political Ads, Politicians, Politics, Republicans, RINOsRelated Posts
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:32 pm
i didn’t know how a caucus works. Now I do. Thanks.
January 2nd, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Glad to be of assistance!