US Election Thread - Is this heaven? No, it's Iowa

[Kalbear]

Who will Carson and Paul endorse? Those guys may determine the outcome of the race as they may have voter / delegate support large enough to tip the balance. 

 

 

You think? Polling nationwide is pretty blah for them and they got nothing in iowa.

They'll endorse Rubio if anyone, but it matters about as much as an O'Malley endorsement does.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

6 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It's surprising for people who have been flooded with polls saying Sanders is leading in Iowa for the last two weeks. I agree - if you're a Sanders supporter who apparently hasn't been near the internet for the last year this is a Big Momentous Thing.

It's otherwise surprising given that the polls had been so positive for Sanders recently.

But I suspect you know this and are just trying to spin this to make yourself a bit more optimistic.

You're a piece of work. There have been a handful of polls showing Sanders leading and a ton showing Clinton leading. Fivethirtyeight had Clinton as the overwhelming favorite. Everyone knows you're bullshitting, give it up.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

You think? Polling nationwide is pretty blah for them and they got nothing in iowa.

They'll endorse Rubio if anyone, but it matters about as much as an O'Malley endorsement does.

If they get out early enough then getting the lion's share of several % of voters in a 3-way race that is within 5% can make a difference. If they hang around and just soak up votes until mid-way through the primaries then their endorsement will mean less.

[Kalbear]

I'm not. Sorry. But I'm sure saying 'lol' makes it better.

538 has forecast Clinton for a while. They also forecast trump. Her doing this well - especially with this much widespread support - is surprising to me, pleasantly so.

Ask Bonesy how many articles he liked on Facebook that had Sanders winning.

[Mudguard]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It's surprising for people who have been flooded with polls saying Sanders is leading in Iowa for the last two weeks. I agree - if you're a Sanders supporter who apparently hasn't been near the internet for the last year this is a Big Momentous Thing.

It's otherwise surprising given that the polls had been so positive for Sanders recently.

But I suspect you know this and are just trying to spin this to make yourself a bit more optimistic.

No idea what polls you rely on, but poll aggregates, such as the 538 blog, have always shown Clinton as the favorite in Iowa.  Sanders has closed the gap recently, but still trailed going into today.

[Kalbear]

As to Rubio and endorsements I think that it mostly comes down to demographics. Iowa was his weakest state and he still came out well. He's got a lot better shot in the richer states later, but staying in now is pretty good.

[Kalbear]

As I said, poll aggregates also showed trump winning.

You can believe me or not. It doesn't really matter. It was surprising that she did as well as she did to me.

[Mudguard]

Just now, Kalbear said:

As I said, poll aggregates also showed trump winning.

You can believe me or not. It doesn't really matter. It was surprising that she did as well as she did to me.

Based on the aggregate polling, it's surprising that Cruz won and Trump lost.  Likewise, based on the polling, it wouldn't be surprising that Clinton won.  No idea how you are interpreting the polling data.

[Tears of Lys]

9 minutes ago, Triskan said:

Probably not.  Any Republican would likely be a disaster.  If Sean Penn , the most embarrassing leftist I can think of, was running against Rubio, I'd hold my nose and vote for Penn.

I'm ABR (Anyone But Rubio) all the way, but between him and Penn, I'd have to emigrate. 

[Kalbear]

I was skeptical of 538, honestly. And inundated by bonesy and his Facebook feed.

[Shryke]

26 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

The Democratic side is so close that no one is really going to "win" when it comes down to delegates, but it would mean a lot more for Sanders than for Clinton to be able to declare victory in the "vote" tally. Either way, this is a stunning result in the scheme of things. Clinton was supposed to be near untouchable, and if anyone was going to seriously challenge her it was supposed to be a comparatively big name like Biden, not a little known Senator from Vermont.

It's not really stunning. It's Iowa. It's whiter then white. And the polls have been fairly close lately. Maybe if you'd missed the past 6 months or something?

I mean, the media spin might be whatever they decide, but this is not necesarily bad for Sanders but not necessarily that great either in that Iowa should be some of his best ground. 538 had a good graph for illustrating this idea awhile back: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/bernie-sanders-could-win-iowa-and-new-hampshire-then-lose-everywhere-else/

Message wise it depends on whether the narrative becomes "Clinton should have won big because she's Clinton" or "Sanders should have done better because it's white-as-fuck Iowa".

[OnionAhaiReborn]

Another amazingly prescient Clinton supporter! Bizarre that basically no one voiced the expectation that Sanders would mount a serious challenge to Clinton before a month ago, but they all secretly knew it.

[Shryke]

13 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

You're a piece of work. There have been a handful of polls showing Sanders leading and a ton showing Clinton leading. Fivethirtyeight had Clinton as the overwhelming favorite. Everyone knows you're bullshitting, give it up.

Clinton is still winning as of me checking right now (though god knows how quickly that's updating)

None of your links project by how much though, which is why these comments seem rather strange. I mean, even Selzer, the best poll out of Iowa, only had Clinton up 3% as of this weekend.

[Shryke]

8 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

Another amazingly prescient Clinton supporter! Bizarre that basically no one voiced the expectation that Sanders would mount a serious challenge to Clinton before a month ago, but they all secretly knew it.

Uh, I posted the Selzer poll literally 2 days ago showing a 3% lead for Clinton (45% to 42%).

So, um, what are you talking about dude?

EDIT: I mean, I literally just linked a 538 story from July of last year who's headline is "Bernie Sanders Could Win Iowa And New Hampshire. Then Lose Everywhere Else" in one of my posts this page.
 

[Kalbear]

I said a month ago that Sanders could easily win iowa and NH. Sorry you didn't believe me then.

I also said that it's likely he's fucked after that.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

3 minutes ago, Shryke said:

Uh, I posted the Selzer poll literally 2 days ago showing a 3% lead for Clinton (45% to 42%).

So, um, what are you talking about dude?

What are you talking about? I'm not the one who said it was surprising Clinton was doing this well! I'm the one who said Sanders' success was surprising in the "scheme of things," and referred back to the beginning of the race when Biden was thinking about getting in. And, no, no one predicted this from Sanders then.

[TrackerNeil]

It seems that, whatever happens, Clinton and Sanders are going to come out of Iowa even in terms of delegates. If Sanders wins in NH, as is widely expected, whatever delegates he takes can be wiped out by a Clinton victory in SC, which is also widely expected. It seems to me entirely possible that Clinton could play against Sanders in 2016 the game that Obama played against her in 2008: ignore the media narrative and concentrate on picking up delegates. 

[Shryke]

1 minute ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

What are you talking about? I'm not the one who said it was surprising Clinton was doing this well! I'm the one who said Sanders' success was surprising in the "scheme of things," and referred back to the beginning of the race when Biden was thinking about getting in. And, no, no one predicted this from Sanders then.

People were predicting it in July of last year, as I posted above. And have for awhile now.

And I'm talking about exactly what you just said "Another amazingly prescient Clinton supporter! Bizarre that basically no one voiced the expectation that Sanders would mount a serious challenge to Clinton before a month ago, but they all secretly knew it." which was almost certainly to me since no one else on this page fits the context of this quote.

So what are you talking about again? Cause you seem to be implying something that is clearly not actually true given anything that I've said. Ya seem so caught up in declaring this a huge upset that you aren't even paying attention to the people you are talking to and about.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

1 minute ago, Shryke said:

People were predicting it in July of last year, as I posted above. And have for awhile now.

And I'm talking about exactly what you just said "Another amazingly prescient Clinton supporter! Bizarre that basically no one voiced the expectation that Sanders would mount a serious challenge to Clinton before a month ago, but they all secretly knew it." which was almost certainly to me since no one else on this page fits the context of this quote.

So what are you talking about again? Cause you seem to be implying something that is clearly not actually true given anything that I've said. Ya seem so caught up in declaring this a huge upset that you aren't even paying attention to the people you are talking to and about.

It absolutely was to you and I stand by it. No one was predicting a serious challenge. That article has Sanders at 30% of the vote, and says he "could" win it.

[Shryke]

4 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

It seems that, whatever happens, Clinton and Sanders are going to come out of Iowa even in terms of delegates. If Sanders wins in NH, as is widely expected, whatever delegates he takes can be wiped out by a Clinton victory in SC, which is also widely expected. It seems to me entirely possible that Clinton could play against Sanders in 2016 the game that Obama played against her in 2008: ignore the media narrative and concentrate on picking up delegates. 

And that sort of thing may well work because the problem for Sanders is the same it's always been. It's in that link I posted from 538 which has a great graphical breakdown of the issue. It's why people have been commenting on his issues with reaching minorities for ages now. Sanders has a demographics issue. The Iowa and New Hampshire democratic bases are fairly white and liberal historically. It's Sanders best demos. He's gonna need to expand his appeal to win further delegates.

So basically expect Sanders to play this as a big win for the same reasons you see people saying it in this thread, Clinton to declare it a win based on the fact that she's likely to actually win Iowa (even if only marginally) and for Sanders to need to spin positive press from this outcome into votes in places like SC for his campaign to actually go anywhere in the long term. If Clinton can just hold on to her demographic edge, she can just keep picking up delegates till she's got the win, regardless of the narrative at large in the media.

But yeah, for Sanders unless he can spin this "upset" into better showings later in the primary, this is probably not a great sign for his overall chances given that, as things stand, Iowa should be one of the places he performs best. He needs to improve the demographic layout of his supporters to keep moving upward from here.