New Hampshire is Next: Who Will Win?

On Monday February 3rd, Iowa ran its first in the nation caucuses and Wednesday as I write this we still don’t have total results reported. What we do know, with something over 70% reported is that the story of the primary was Pete Buttigieg coming from back in the pack (according to the Real Clear Politics polling aggregator) to effectively tie Bernie Sanders for the lead. Sanders got more votes (by about a thousand) and Buttigieg will get approximately 1 more delegate than Sanders.

My pre-caucus predictions did not fare well against the final outcome, mostly because Joe Biden performed worse compared to his polling numbers than anyone expected, and Mayor Pete outperformed his numbers spectacularly. That scrambled the math for all the remaining candidates. Until Iowa finishes counting and makes a formal declaration of how the delegates will be awarded we can’t wrap up the analysis vs. actuals report for Iowa.

Going in to New Hampshire, how does that impact what we’re seeing in terms of pre-primary polling and analysis?

First, it’s important to note that caucuses are weird compared to primaries. A primary is a “regular election” where people go to a polling place, make a secret ballot, and leave; there’s no electioneering happening inside the polling station. Caucuses are a transparent process where you argue with your neighbors about your vote and everyone in the room knows who you supported (or didn’t). The way Iowa runs its caucus, there are two rounds of “voting”; first people self-assign to any candidate they wish, and then anyone who chose a candidate that didn’t get 15% or more of the support in that caucus must switch to one of the candidates who did, remain unassigned, or leave. That means that campaigns have an incentive to work hard to be people’s 2nd choice. In a primary like New Hampshire, candidates that don’t get 15% or more of the vote get nothing and the people who voted for them don’t have a chance to make a 2nd choice.

Second, there is a raging argument in the blogosphere about how important the Iowa “bounce” is historically and how the fizzled Iowa caucus this year might affect that “bounce”. The basic theory is that winning Iowa turbocharges your campaign going into New Hampshire as undecided New Hampshire voters take cues from the voters in Iowa. 538’s model gives Iowa an enormous multiplier effect; essentially their predictive engine is designed to capture the real-world impact that has appeared in numerous primary seasons since…