2024 Iowa Caucus: Expectations, Guarantees and Predictions

It is game day in the 2024 Iowa Republican Caucus.  After over a year of direct campaigning and hundreds of media polls and analysis, we will have actual voters show up and vote to kick the process off.  The forecast is for a temperature at, below or just above 0°F at 7 pm, depending on where you are.  Oh, and there is snow everywhere, but that is Iowa in January.

Polling of the Iowa Caucus is in reasonable agreement.  No candidate varies in any one poll from their average by more than 4.8%.  The expectations are that Trump will win a massive victory, a majority of the votes cast and together with a win in New Hampshire, will end the primary race after the first two states.  Haley is expected to surge and finish above DeSantis for second place, allowing her to move to New Hampshire and try and upset Trump there.  DeSantis is expected to match his polling slide, finish third and essentially end his campaign, whether he makes it official or not.  The current RCP polling average is as follows:

Trump – 52.5%

Haley – 18.8%

DeSantis – 15.7%

Others – 7.6%

 

It is important to note that good polling is very difficult.  Most public polling is cheaply and lazily and done for the purpose of generating content by the media, not for accuracy.  Primary polling is even more difficult than general election polling.  Caucus polling is even more difficult than primary polling because people have to show up at a set time, publicly declare who they support, participate in the process that can last 30 minutes to 2 hours and do so in bitterly cold, snowy conditions.  To put this into perspective, the 2012 turnout was 121,000 people, setting a new GOP record and representing just 4% of Iowans.  The 2016 turnout set another record with 187,000 people, representing just 6% of Iowans.  Regardless of turnout, this is a very small subset of Iowans participating in this process.

I will point out a few things in the latest Des Moines Register poll, which is generally considered the most accurate Iowa Caucus poll.

• Their sample has 75% Republicans, 23% Independents and 5% Democrats.
• A full 50% of Haley’s support is from independents and Democrats.
• 34% of those saying that they will definitely or probably caucus are first time caucus goers.  Trump has a 4 to 1 advantage over these voters.
• Trump leads in enthusiasm with DeSantis a close second.  Haley is way down the list in the enthusiasm of her supporters.

DeSantis is reported to have the best ground game ever assembled in Iowa, besting the previous two of Ted Cruz and Barack Obama.  On a bitterly cold night, I don’t see 34% of the caucus goers being people who have never done it before.  I don’t see a surge of Democrats and independents rushing out to vote for Haley, who they aren’t enthusiastic about anyway.  Older voters break heavy toward Trump, with DeSantis being in third among them.  They are more apt to decide to stay home with Trump expected to win big rather than to deal with the cold and travel to the caucus site.  Families with small children will break DeSantis and might also be less likely to show up in the weather.  I’m going to put on my sports betting commentator hat and give you some guarantees that directly rebut the expected results due to these factors.

1. Donald Trump will finish below 50%.
2. Ron DeSantis will finish above 25%.
3. Nikki Haley will finish in third place, double digits behind DeSantis.

 

And now for my predictions of what will happen, based on these guarantees, the ground game, candidates, campaigns, logic, weather, polling, endorsements and all the other factors that will influence the vote totals.

Trump – 44%

DeSantis – 32%

Haley – 18%

Others – 6%

I’ll be back tomorrow to either spike the football or eat crow.

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