"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.
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