Candidates are in DANGER of being eliminated after the first round.
The amount of misunderstanding about the Iowa caucus, with people who should know better is amazing. You have all seen or heard the refrain that after the first round of the caucus a candidate that doesn’t get 15% is eliminated. That is Flat out WRONG. There is no doubt some of them will be eliminated after the second round but in no way does it limit the choices in the second round. You could think of it as Sudden Death. The candidates the have not yet reached the threshold (and in some precincts that will be 25%) can combine with each other or their supports could go to home or to already qualified candidates. They could combine into uncommitted.
This is very important to understand in such a fluid race. This framing and narrative is an unintended voter suppression. Caucuses are already seen as complex, the media has been pretty good at getting out that the rules have changed, so now even prior caucus goers are anxious, and then the narrative that your candidate doesn’t have a chance, why bother. Yes that will suppress minor candidates mostly, But the next set of polls could have any of the candidates seen as unviable. Heck the last two had Sanders below the threshold. That doesn’t even count the stress at the caucus site where arguments about what the rules are will be frustrating.
Let me illustrate with a hypothetical precinct in a progressive district with only the top five.
So at the first count we have Sanders and Warren tied a 30%, then we have Biden and Buttigieg at 14% with Klobuchar following at 12%. The Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar supporters now get a chance to pick again. But they do not have to pick between Sanders and Warren. They still have the same choices. The most likely outcome is that two of them become viable and one fails. With so many candidates so near the threshold, that or something like is bound to happen in one variation or another over and over.
But now we have the narrative that they are eliminated.
I’ll point to a comment in Nuts & Bolts. This is not a knock on Chris but it is a reflection of the imbedded narrative:
While it is TECHNICALLY possible that someone could be saved from below 15% in the below the line re-alignment, in looking at, I should have said “virtually impossible” so let’s say Klobachar comes in with 13% and in the first re-alignment they pickup all the people who were for Steyer and get to 15%… that is POSSIBLE, but amazingly unlikely
With so many candidates and so many polling within a couple of percent of the threshold it is not unlikely, it will be common.
The important thing is that a candidate is not eliminated in the first round. The other thing is that the groups already viable do not get to choose again.
Support for a candidate is not evenly distributed and with all the other candidates and uncommitted across almost 1700 precincts I am willing to bet that most precincts will have candidates that become viable in the second round. In hundreds of precincts all of the leading candidates will fall below the threshold in that precinct and rise above it in the second. In none of them are they entirely eliminated after the first.
A couple of things on the three numbers being reported. As the narrative coming out of Iowa is much more important then the actual Delegate count (which we actually wont know until much later).
The Delegate Equivalent is really the only one that sort of matters. It will report the likeliest number of delegates that a candidate will receive.
The first and second round counts are pure narrative and so could depress realignment. If you are a strong supporter of your candidate and your candidate will not gain the threshold at that precinct, there is now a strong incentive to not move at all as it will hurt your candidate. Staying will not change the delegate distribution, but it will change narrative. If you move you depress your candidates second count totals and that could be important with the post debate narrative.