Republicans:

1) Cruz wins against all odds - battered over the last week, attacked by the sitting Republican Governor of Iowa and Trump, showed his amazing ground game

2) Rubio surprises everyone - he over-preformed by about 6-9% at the expense of Trump, takes the momentum into New Hampshire, wins the endorsement of the only Black Senator in the US (Tim Scott)

3) Trump falls flat - didn't generate the working class and youth vote that he expected

4) Mike Huckabee drops out

5) Establishment competition doesn't exist - Christie, Bush, and Kasich all under-preformed leaving it a 3 way race between Rubio, Cruz, and Trump

6) Carson maintains solid support - 9% is pretty solid for a man people thought would disintegrate, look like Cruz won't take his voters

Edited 2/2/2016 03:46:55

1) and 2) are important; Cruz and Rubio both outperformed their polling averages, but Cruz had a lead in Iowa the whole time until last month. The big thing is that turnout was supposed to be good for Trump, but high turnout instead helped Cruz and Rubio. I think Iowa's simplified things into a three-way race now, between Cruz/Rubio/Trump; most of the weaker candidates underperformed and don't look like they're going to gain ground.

5) is arguable; Rubio is somewhat establishment and might end up being the "Establishment Candidate" since we're not looking at the same Establishment we had in '12 but one that's been thoroughly molded by the Tea Party.

6) 9% outperformed his polling average of 8%, but it's not enough to make him a real contender when his polling averages have been declining for months.

I predicted a Cruz victory, I also predicted it would boil down to Rubio, Cruz, trump. The only thing I got wrong was how high Paul got

^ It's not that big of a surprise, Rand Paul is a fairly popular candidate it's just that he's not accurately represented in the polls or in the media.

Yes, interesting results. I guess ultimately Trump appealed to voters like a celebrity, people were willing to voice their support for him and follow him around but weren't really willing to make the effort to actually vote for him. Cruz and his strong conservative values managed to appeal to the evangelicals and people that actually bothered to participate in the voting process.

Sanders not winning this one was a big setback for him imo. He's devoted a lot of resources, and he's desperately needed the headlines to improve his poor electability reputation. He will win NH but after that it will be tough for him.

I don't see why y'all are treating the caucus as some accurate representation of popular will. This one in particular had an unusually high level of turnout driven by mainline GOP and first-timers who just wanted to keep Trump out- so it's not a lack of support for Trump but instead a lot of opposition.

Beyond that, the caucus structure doesn't have things like a secret ballot. It disenfranchises a lot of people- you can't be busy at that timeframe, and you have to be there at the beginning and sit through an hour of talks and a group therapy-like session. This isn't normal voting; it's not very directly indicative of how things are going to turn out in states with more normal voting methods.

Sanders is far from screwed; he just really narrowed Clinton's lead and is going to follow this up with a win in New Hampshire. Clinton is failing at expectations management, too, so this is far from Sanders' tomb.

I don't see why y'all are treating the caucus as some accurate representation of popular will.

It's not that the caucus itself is that important, it's that people think it's important that matters. How a candidate performs in Iowa can seriously effect their campaign because it'll alter how the general public and political elite view their chances of winning. But yeah, it's not prophecy or anything, just a test to see which way the wind is currently blowing.

Cruz wins against all odds

Cruz was ahead in Iowa for most of the race, because there is a lot of evangelicals in Iowa. Losing there would have been the end for him. Rubio probably was the biggest winner of the republican caucus. Trump took a real blow, and could really suffer from it, but who knows what'll happen, you can't predict anything with Trump. Although i think that Trump will either stay strong till the end or break completely, no bending.

Sanders not winning this one was a big setback for him imo. He's devoted a lot of resources, and he's desperately needed the headlines to improve his poor electability reputation. He will win NH but after that it will be tough for him.

I agree, but a tie is still good overall for him, he'll still get some momentum out of it. Not nearly as much as if he had won though

Edited 2/2/2016 18:23:48

Interesting: If those three coin tosses had flipped the other way, Sanders would have won by one vote. There was a 1 in 8 probability that he would have been the winner last night. Another 3 in 8 probability that they would have tied exactly. (Would that have required a fourth tie-breaker coin flip? Crazy crazy.)

What do you guys think it would be like if the final election came to be Sanders vs. Rubio?

Edited 2/2/2016 20:38:07

I'm not sure, but i think Bernie had 50/50 chance of winning or tie, same as Clinton, since she won all 6 coin flips and ended up with 3 more delegates than Sanders (i'm not sure, i haven't checked tbh)


rubio is probably the best shot for the republican to win the elections, if it is against Hillary.

edit: nevermind, apparently these coin tosses were for convention delegates, not state delegates, so it didn't impact the overall results of the election apparently

Edited 2/2/2016 20:48:18