"Anybody who tells you with certainty what happens here Monday is either a liar or a fool."
--
David Axelrod, strategist for John Edwards, in the
LAT.
The first thing to remember is that we don't know for certain what's going to happen in Iowa tomorrow -- hence the big, attention-grabbing quote. But-- there are really only two scenarios that make any logical sense, and I want to hash them out here.
But first, a plug: early this morning, when most Kossacks were (apparently) still asleep, I posted a graphical recap of polling in Iowa back to January of last year. It may be interesting to some.
By the Numbers
Now, on with the show. Let's look at the most recent polls. One data point may be unreliable, but let's see what happens when we average the most recent polls together -- the latest Zogby track, the DM Register's Iowa Poll, and the SurveyUSA poll from a few days ago.
ZT: Zogby Tracking, Jan. 15-17; n=502 LV, MOE=±4.5
IP: Iowa Poll by the Des Moines Register, Jan. 13-16; n=606 LV, MOE=±4.
SU: SurveyUSA, Jan. 13-15; n=722 LV, MOE=±4.9
ZT IP SU Avrg
Dean 23.1 20 22 21.7
Edwards 18.4 23 24 25
Gephardt 18.8 18 20 19
Kerry 24.4 26 23 24.3
Others 6 8 10 8
Undecided 10 5 3 6
One thing about the undecided voters: as Joe Trippi drill-sergeants into Ryan Lizza, there is historical evidence that many undecided voters who are still undecided on the night of the caucus will stay undecided: that is, they will come into the caucus and vote Uncommitted, which they can do.
As regarding non-viability, I'm making the highly suspect assumption for the purposes of this analysis that the big four's non-viable precincts will more or less balance out across the state on the night. There is no evidence for this but there is no satisfactory way to model an unequal realignment.
If that was all it took, this is how they'd look:
Edwards (25)
Kerry (24.3)
Dean (21.3)
Gephardt (19)
...but of course it's not, so now we have to look at part two of the game: organization.
Ground Invasion
Let's make the following broad assumption: a good organization doesn't allow you to outperform the polls (with one exception which I'll get to); but a bad organization means you underperform.
In terms of quality per capita, Dick Gephardt almost certainly has the best organization. He has the Union Legions, he's done this before, and he's invested everything in this state.
Dean's organization is likely bigger than Gephardt's, but not quite as well-oiled. His supporters are enthused bordering on frenzy, but many of them are new to this. Still, he's only a nose behind Gephardt and way ahead of the two late surgers. And he will be able to draw on the expertise of AFSCME and the Harkin machine, if not at the ground level then certainly strategically.
Kerry's organization is the hardest to take a guess about. In Michael Whouley he has a general the equal of Dean's or Gephardt's, but Dean and Gephardt have been building their machines for two years, leaving Kerry to play last-minute catch-up. If he could match their troop strength, he would win, but he most likely can't.
Edwards is interesting. He's been here for a long time as well, and he has part of a great organization. His setup in rural, sparsely populated counties is probably as good as he could have hoped for; but with his sudden vault into the four-way tie, he's just like Kerry in frantically trying to scrape together a statewide infrastructure.
What happens when we combine these with the polling estimates?
Gephardt is the easiest to predict. His own staff admits his strategy is not predicated on an X-factor. He's got his hard corps of supporters, and he's going to drag all of them to the caucuses, by the ears if necessary. Fear the turtle. Gephardt will probably have the best success at getting his ones to turn out, meaning his eventual fate is entirely dependant on the failings, if any, of the other three.
Edwards will probably underperform. He doesn't have an organization, and he doesn't have gobs of mortgage money to dump into his campaign to rent-a-machine at the last minute. But he has an X-factor. The lightly populated precincts -- where his organization is best -- are actually slightly overrepresented, in delegate terms, vis-a-vis what they ought to be on strict proportionality. This means that Edwards, who may have the best chance to move 2s, 3s and 4s to 1s in those precincts, will also be disproportionately rewarded for doing so. In a tight race, that might be the microscopic edge necessary to get from fourth to third, or third to second.
Kerry will also probably underperform, but not by as much as Edwards. He has a number of structural advantages: he's got money, he's got the Big Mo, and he can attract second choices from practically anybody. I would expect that wherever Gephardt winds up, Kerry will be within a point of him, getting worse return from better numbers.
And that just leaves Dean, whose entire campaign has been built around X-factor. His organization is excellent. But before we can consider how he'll perform relative to his polls, we need to look at the last of the three factors...
Dean's Invisible Army
The near-mythical New Voters Dean's campaign has brought to life are the most frustrating part of the caucus: virtually impossible to measure because of the way caucus polls are conducted (using either the Iowa Secretary of State's list of voters already registered, or the Iowa Democratic Party's list of previous caucus participants) and, indeed, nobody but Joe Trippi knows if they even exist at a level high enough to influence the caucuses.
There's only been one poll all primary season that I'm aware of which did a full-scale random digit dial of everyone in Iowa and took its likely caucusgoers numbers from that -- the LA Times poll conducted Jan. 5-8 and released Jan. 10. It had Dean 30, Gephardt 23, Kerry 18. By comparison, the first day of Zogby tracking, conducted Jan. 8-10 and released Jan. 11, had Dean 25, Gephardt 23, Kerry 15. Does that mean there are five points' worth of Neo-Deanies out there? I don't know, but it's the only information we've got.
Basically, there are three scenarios about the effects of the Invisible Army.
1. There might be no Invisible Army.
This one's pretty obvious -- the new voters just don't show up.
2. The Invisible Army shows up and goes for Dean in a big way.
This is what the Dean campaign is counting upon; thousands of new caucus participants all showing up for Dean, giving him a kick of anything between five and ten points and allowing him to massively outperform his polls. But there's a third possibility...
3. The Invisible Army shows up, but splits.
Bearing in mind that the plural of anecdote is not data, I've seen more than one quote in a newspaper story over the last few days from an Iowan who will be attending their first caucus on the 19th, and who started out as a Dean vote, but is now drifting away from Dean. This could be Dean's nightmare: the people he's brought back into the process show up and vote, all right, but not for him.
Yes, But What Of It?
I said at the beginning that there are basically two scenarios which make sense. They are:
1. A four-way cluster with all the candidates within a 6-point or so spread of 25%.
In this situation, everyone's walking away with very similar numbers of delegates, which means that the only value is for the symbolic win of first place. The candidates could come in any order at all, but the only thing that might shake the race up below the first place spot is Edwards taking second to someone other than Dean.
Then there's the other possibility...
2. A people-powered-Howard blowout.
By "blowout" in this context I mean Dean above 30%, maybe even clawing his way past 35%. This happens if the Invisible Army turns out in force and votes for Dean, allowing him to do significantly better than the polls predict. It's also the only way Dean can beat expectations in Iowa.
So, there are my thoughts on tomorrow's caucuses. They're longer than I thought. Now, over to you -- rip them apart!