After a year of debates, campaigning, fundraising, attacks, polling surges, breakout stars, and disappointments, the first votes of the 2020 Democrat primary are a mere 29 hours away. Iowans will drive through the snowy prairie to one of over 1,500 caucuses across the state. Soon after 7 PM local time (8 PM eastern) we should begin to get some results. At 10 PM local time (11 PM eastern), the DNC will release the full results of the caucus, and the winner will be revealed. The majority of this article will be devoted to what I’ll be watching until then.
In the final days, I still believe any of the top four (Biden, Warren, Sanders, Buttigieg) could win Iowa, but there is reason to believe Buttigieg and Warren have fallen a little bit behind. Buttigieg is now in 5th place in national polling (behind Michael Bloomberg), and his fundraising has slowed down. Warren appears to be getting desperate after some bad polls as Sanders, her progressive rival, has been surging. Remember, at most caucus sites, if a candidate gets less than 15% of the vote on the first ballot, they risk not being on the second ballot (the one that counts) if they can’t form a coalition with more than 15% of voters in that caucus. They could get no votes from a caucus site. Buttigieg and Warren are at a much higher risk of this than Biden and Sanders, and if they fail to get 15% in too many Iowa caucus sites, their hopes at the nomination will quickly slip away. Both campaigns need this win to show they are still viable. Also, there’s an increasing chance Amy Klobuchar may not come in 5th place after all. She’s running an expansive grassroots campaign, and people may be turning to her after the frontrunners have weakened each other down. If Klobuchar gets 15% or more in many places, she could get a few delegates on her way to taking votes away from Warren (the other woman in the race) and Buttigieg (the other center-left Midwesterner in the race).
Entrance Polls
Certain news outlets will be releasing entrance polls for Iowa, where they interview actual voters at actual caucus sites. In my opinion, the organization that does this best is CNN. They should be available on CNN’s website at 8pm EST. I wouldn’t necessarily pay close attention to a candidate’s vote totals in the entrance poll, as people can still change their mind in an actual caucus, and many will go in undecided. Iowa isn’t a very diverse state, so the main thing to watch is the age of voters. If about 40% of caucusers are under the age of 45, it bodes well for Sanders, his polling numbers among young people are extraordinarily high. This age group is the backbone of his campaign. For the same reason, if people 45 and above make up 65% or more of the caucusgoers, then Joe Biden should be feeling good. The Sanders campaign has also said openly that if turnout is low, he’ll lose, but if it’s high, he’ll win.
Iowa’s 15 Regions
Based on political, cultural, and geographical boundaries, I’ve sorted Iowa’s counties into 15 different regions to watch on Caucus night. I did this to make it easier to see where candidates are doing better or worse compared to expectation as the results roll in.
As you can see, six “regions” only include one county. Here’s why I decided to do it like that: Iowa is a rural state with a few mid-size cities here or there. The one county regions are where those cities are. The political culture of these cities have diverged from the rural areas. All of the one-county regions voted for Hillary Clinton, while all of the multi-county regions voted for Trump. In fact, no county in any multi-county region voted for Clinton.
All one-county regions except for the Des Moines-based 12th region caucused for Bernie Sanders in 2016. Iowa was the closest caucus or primary margin-wise in 2016. In 2020, Sanders needs to do well again in the progressive college towns of Iowa City and Ames, located in regions 5 and 11. Biden needs to do well in Des Moines, Iowa’s largest city, which is the only Iowa city that could really be described as “cosmopolitan” that has a diverse population and economy. Biden has been polling stronger in more urban states. The swing cities will probably be Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, and Davenport, located in regions 3, 4, and 6 respectively. These cities have a large working-class and union-member population, and have about 130,000-160,000 people apiece, making them heavyweights in a state like Iowa. Several Obama-Trump voters can be found here. While they broke for Sanders in 2016, there have been conflicting reports as to who exactly these voters have warmer feelings towards now. Will they opt for Joe Biden, the VP of Obama who won Iowa twice, as the more “reasonable” option, or do they want a revolution in Bernie Sanders? And don’t forget about the other two. If Buttigieg, Klobuchar, or Warren are going to upset, it will probably happen in these semi-urban counties, because they can reach more people in less time there. Warren received a high-profile endorsement from the Des Moines Register, a local newspaper company, while Buttigieg was endorsed by congressman Dave Loebsack, who represents Davenport as well as the southeast part of the state in Congress.
Let’s look at the other regions. While most Americans imagine the entire state of Iowa as an agricultural society, the reality is that Iowa’s different regions have different economies. Region 1, for example, which straddles the Mississippi river has a lot of blue-collar workers in factories or plants as opposed to on the fields. It’s a socially conservative area that swung wildly to Donald Trump. The region barely caucused for Hillary Clinton. It’s also is the highest-populated region I drew outside of Des Moines.
Region 2 is a hilly region, the only place in Iowa you’re going to find mountains, so it’s not ideal for farming either. It also stampeded to Trump in 2016 and was very close in the 2016 Iowa caucuses. These two regions will test the candidate’s appeal among the white-working class voters they need. If Amy Klobuchar wants to receive delegates, she’ll need to do well in this region as well as regions 9 and 10, which are close to her home state of Minnesota, where she is extremely popular.
Regions 7, 8, 9, and 15 are more of your stereotypical farming-heavy areas in Iowa. Historically, these parts of the state have voted differently than the rest of the state, they voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. These regions caucused for Hillary Clinton in 2016, suggesting they won’t be as warm to Bernie Sanders. However, these areas have been some of the hardest hit by Chinese soybean tariffs. Perhaps they’ll vote for the candidate they believe can best negotiate with China. The campaigns of Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar all say they are competing for voters in this part of Iowa, so this is another place to watch for a Buttigieg/Klobuchar breakthrough. Maybe all of these regions should’ve been made into one “super-region”, but I felt subtle differences in geography and congressional representation warranted different regions.
Region 10 has been the most steadfastly Republican part of Iowa, but it caucused for Bernie Sanders in 2016. Bernie should win here again, but not many votes total are cast in these parts.
Region 13, the Des Moines suburbs, will probably vote for Joe Biden, like many well-to-do suburban areas are expected to as the primary goes on. Still, perhaps Buttigieg or Warren can win a county here on their way to an upset.
Alright I’m almost done, just one more. Region 15, which borders the Missouri river, contains the conservative-leaning cities of Council Bluffs and Sioux City. It caucused for Sanders in 2016. It’s culturally much more similar to Nebraska than Iowa, with conservative Republicans outnumbering progressive Democrats with few in between them. Sanders should be able to rely on this area to support him, but watch for a Klobuchar/Buttigieg/Warren breakthrough here.
The Final Prediction
Toss-Up Central’s final prediction for the winner of the Iowa Caucus is…
Bernie Sanders
Here’s my thinking. Before the 2016 Iowa caucus, Hillary Clinton led in the polls by 4 points. While she won the caucus, it was by less than half of a percentage point, Bernie Sanders made it closer than anyone expected. Now, Bernie Sanders is in a similar situation against another establishment figure, Joe Biden. But this time, he’s leading in the polls, by about 4 points. Yes, there are other candidates in the race, but they will probably fall below 15% in some caucuses, weighing them down. If it was Buttigieg or Warren that was behind Sanders by 4 points, I may not have gone with Sanders, because they have a more extensive library of policies and talking points and a grassroots army that could sway voters during a caucus. Joe Biden to many voters is very 2-dimesnional. Given the movement and “revolution” he has surrounded his campaign with, I expect Bernie to keep his polling lead and win the Iowa caucus.
However, given there are four possible candidates who could win, I’d say the chance of Sanders winning Iowa, quantitatively, is less than 50%. My fingers are crossed that this won’t be Toss-Up Central’s first miscall.
Equally as important as who wins is how many delegates each candidate gets. Delegates are given out proportionally based on popular vote. 14 are given out statewide, and 27 total are given out in each of the state’s four congressional districts. So Sanders winning with 35% of the vote is much different than if he wins with 25%. I’d be surprised if any candidate gets 30% or more of the vote in Iowa, because of the sheer number of viable candidates, so don’t freak out if your candidate is only getting 15-30%. But do freak out if he/she is under 15%, because that means that candidate can’t get delegates at the statewide level, severely reducing their ability to get them. The only way any candidate will get momentum or a polling boost from winning this Iowa caucus is if only 2 or 3 candidates get delegates, and that candidate wins the popular vote by a wide margin, giving him/her a majority of delegates. If 4 or 5 candidates get delegates, they will all be close to each other, so whoever wins will do so unconvincingly.
Generally, I think Warren and Buttigieg will barely get above 15% statewide, while Klobuchar will barely fall below 15%. Biden and Sanders will almost certainly get more than 15%. The other candidates will almost certainly not get 15%.
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