What Happened in Iowa?

by | Feb 2, 2016 | Carolina Strategic Analysis, Features, National Politics | 6 comments

What an interesting night! Here are what I consider a few of the things to take away from the Iowa caucus results:

North Carolina a player. Since this is an NC-politics related blog, we’ll start off with this first. The results of Iowa significantly increase the likelihood of North Carolina playing a prominent role in selecting the eventual GOP nominee. If Trump had won Iowa, and by a large amount, our state would be moot. As it stands now, we’re headed for a longer nomination fight, at least on the Republican side. That’s good news if you want your primary vote to matter.

Bernie ain’t Obama. Yes, he tied Hillary Clinton in Iowa where no one gave him a chance just six months ago. But expectations are everything and for him to be the nominee only a big Bernie win in the Hawkeye State would have sufficed. Moreover, on a demographic level Iowa is supposed to be Sanders’ third-best state. If he couldn’t even muster a solid win there, that doesn’t say much for his ability to compete elsewhere.

Clinton is supposedly “unnerved” by last night’s result. It means the nomination fight against Bernie will go on longer. But her chances of winning the Democratic nomination aren’t in peril.

Ground game matters. Ground game matters, and especially in caucus states. It looks like Trump found that out the hard way. Also, Cruz got so battered the past few weeks that most people thought he was on track to lose. Trump pretty much called him a foreigner, a liar, and the establishment Republican Party attacked him viciously.

What happened? Did the attacks roll off his back? No – he took the hits and they hurt him. But his organization in Iowa was enough to overcome those attacks. Had the caucus taken place a month earlier, he would have completely blown out his opponents.

Also, Hillary fought off Sanders by building up a solid organization of her own, proving that she’s learned her lessons from 2008 and is not about to let the quirky caucus system undermine her campaign.

A big win for Rubio. There’s no doubt who was the biggest winner last night; it was Marco Rubio. There will be pressure for the other establishment candidates to drop out and endorse him – but not as much pressure as one might think. After Trump’s poor performance last night, the situation doesn’t look so dire for the establishment and they’ll be content to let this go on a little longer – unless Trump scores a big win in New Hampshire. In that case, it starts to get serious again.

Trump stumped? It’s still too early to celebrate the demise of Donald Trump’s candidacy. First, Iowa is a poor state for him because of all the evangelicals and the caucus system. I would wait until New Hampshire before making any pronouncements about his candidacy. The interesting thing is how voters react to Trump now that his “winning” quality has been diminished. Is his appeal still there?

On to New Hampshire. Right now it looks like a Trump/Rubio race, with Trump having the edge. New Hampshirites tend to ignore whatever Iowa does, so Ted Cruz might find himself struggling to take third. John Kasich and Chris Christie both need to make solid showings, which at this point seems quite unlikely. If Kasich fails to do well, he’s out. That’s probably true for Christie too. Jeb might fight on until South Carolina.

6 Comments

  1. TY Thompson

    Wouldn’t count Cruz as being on the ropes just yet, for two reasons. One, he’s done a fine job anticipating what will happen and where along the twisted path of campaign 2016 and investing his resources accordingly. He appears to have realized months ago that NH would not be his finest showing, spending less time and effort there and like Hillary, has built a firewall in the south. In fact, he spent a lot of time last year building ground operations in the south similar to that in Iowa.

  2. dberwyn

    John, I”m going to take you to task the same way I took Thom to task on the Bernie ain’t Obama. 1 year ago, it would have been unfathomable that ‘anyone’ would take on the Clinton Murder Machine. Yesterday, a Socialist (albeit of the Democratic kind), garnered HALF the votes of otherwise rational Iowans. (within the limitations of being D’s in the first place). Half….not a third, or a quarter, half, 50%. Some 70,000 Iowa Democrats voted for an avowed Socialist. This is epic magnitude stuff. I think the tremors will be felt for a long time. This is literally another tipping point in our cultural and societal slide to hell. And all fingers point to 44. He fertilized the field in such a way that crop that grew in the ethanol soaked fields of a once glorious land would willingly and gladly give up God giving rights to a government official who is crystal clear in what he would do them. I believe a true watershed moment.

    • Norma Munn

      43% of Iowa Democrats describe themselves as “Socialists” — not sure your analysis takes that into account re what this means for the Clinton’s campaign, although I suppose you could consider that 43% already on the “slide to hell.” (Even a small percentage of GOP folks say they are socialists! Just don’t recall the %, but not tiny.)

      • A.D. Reed

        Norma, it’s probably not worth replying to a wingnut who makes reference to the “Clinton Murder Machine.” People who swallow the Vince Foster stry are beyond rational debate.

  3. Arthur Dent

    It’s interesting to look at the turnout numbers in Iowa. Although the Republicans had a record turnout of 185,000 (WaPo), only 51,060 voted for Cruz, whereas the Democrats split 171,000 votes with each candidate receiving 85,500 votes. If the “evangelical” vote is combined from Huckabee, Santorum and Carson voters, the total votes were about 74,000 – and this is for the (supposedly) passionate, motivated people on the “right.” On the whole, not a bad story for Democrats in this initial caucus.
    Will the followers of Trump, Rubio, Paul, Bush, Fiorina, Kasich and Christie, when voters pledge themselves to other candidates (or not) be as passionate as the evangelicals who turned out for Cruz? That’s the big question for Iowa and perhaps one of the big questions for the country.

    • dberwyn

      Are Iowa Democrats not Evangelical?

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