Every week I’m on the radio with David Feldman and every week I try to explain why Iowa just cannot be accurately polled. The idea of Mayo Pete winning the caucuses is patently absurd, even if the RealClearPolitics polling average-- based on polls that are all over the map and far from showing any kind of consensus-- show him ahead:
• Mayo- 22.0%• Bernie- 20.0%• Status Quo Joe- 18.8%• Elizabeth- 16.0%• Klobuchar- 6.3%• Booker- 2.8%• Steyer- 2.5%• Yang- 2.3%• Tulsi- 2.0%• Bloomberg- 1.3%
On Saturday, Harry Enten reported for CNN.com readers that Iowa, is a little more than a month away and we don't really know who is ahead, let alone who is going to win. He’s completely correct-- but for all the wrong reasons. He wrote that we don’t know who’s winning because there aren’t enough polls and that the polls are too close.Is it somehow not dawning on people that polls only measure how caucus-goers feel when they go into a caucus, not how they will actually vote when the process is over? It isn’t like a primary. In New Hampshire, if the polling is accurate, this is how the primary should turn out (unless other factors intervene-- like the results in Iowa, or, just as likely, Status Quo Joe saying something as stupid as how he won't cooperate with a lawful congressional subpoena):
• Bernie- 19.0%• Mayo- 17.7%• Status Quo Joe- 14.3%• Elizabeth- 13.3%• Tulsi- 5.7%• Yang- 4.7%• Steyer- 2.7%• Klobuchar- 2.0%• Booker- 1.7%
But in Iowa, precinct caucuses work differently than primaries. Caucus goers go into a room and talk out the issues with their neighbors before they vote. A candidate with hard-core followers, like Bernie does, rather than followers who are unaware of the real world (like Biden followers) or whose allegience to their candidate is shallow (like Mayo’s followers) does much better. If a candidate doesn't poll at least 15% on the first ballot, they're out and their supporters can go home or vote for someone else. Most of the polling doesn’t measure this because it’s too expensive to measure accurately-- if it’s rally even possible at all.Enten was paid to conclude his piece by writing that “people will caucus soon enough, and we'll actually know who won.” OK. I have two main predictions for Iowa: Klobuchar will do badly enough for her to finally drop out of the race and go back to work in the Senate. (Michael Bennet may do the same thing; he's destroying his political career-- a good thing, since he sucks as a senator.) Billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg, a Republican pretending to be a Democrat, will misinterpret terrible results and conclude that they have to spend even more money on TV and internet ads that turn off more people than they persuade.