The Daily Background

Longtime readers will remember that my predictions for the 2006 midterm elections were spot on, even predicting the margins of Democratic majority in both the House and Senate. That said, I feel much less sure about predicting the results of the Iowa caucus than I did of the midterms.

Winning order- Democrats
1. Obama
2. Edwards
3. Clinton

I think the key factor that will propel Obama to win is turnout (my formal turnout prediction is below). All signs point to a greater turnout this year than in previous years, plus the weather will be relatively good for this time of year. The smaller the crowd is, the more it will benefit Edwards (and to a lesser extent Clinton), but would be really shocked if turnout is as low as it was in 2004 (124,000) or 2000 (61,000). As for margin of Obama’s win, I predict it will be medium sized (whatever that means), but that won’t really matter since the media will pump it up going into New Hampshire. Also note that I’ve switched the #2 and #3 slots around several times before publishing this.

Winning order- Republicans
1. Romney
2. Huckabee
3. Who really cares after that on the Republican side?

As for Huckabee, his campaign seems to be doing well despite itself. Although he does well in the Hawkeye state polls among Republicans, I have no reason to believe that his coalition’s GOTV apparatus will be any stronger than his ability to stay on top of the day’s news (whether that be the NIE, the writer’s strike, Pakistan’s geography and political state, or Jamie Lynn Spears’ pregnancy). Romney’s machine is far stronger and will do a better job of getting voters to caucus, but I suspect Romney’s margin of victory will not be satisfying as his campaign partisans had hoped. If McCain comes in third, the media will pump it up a lot since he hardly campaigned there.

Turnout
I think turnout on the Democratic side will be higher than many bloggers anticipate, with it ranging between 150K and 200K, with 160K being about the sweet spot. There is the potential for turnout being significantly higher than that however. The weather is not bad, and all signs point to record turnout. On the Republican side, I anticipate turnout will be less than or around 100K.

Drop-outs
Dennis Kucinich has signaled he won’t drop out after Iowa no matter what his numbers are, and Mike Gravel probably won’t either (same with Alan Keyes). Odds are that we may see Duncan Hunter leave the race on Friday, and if Fred Thompson does worse than 4th place (3rd? 2nd?) then there is a medium likelihood he will quit as well. The media pressure on Biden, Dodd and Richardson to drop out of the race if they do poorly will be intense because the only question they’ll probably be asked is “when will you be calling it quits?” or “with an Iowa lose like this, how do you even see a path to the nomination?” Richardson will probably place forth on the Democratic side. Even if Ron Paul comes in last on the GOP side (and he won’t), there’s no way he’d drop out with the cash he’s got in the bank.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog