The Register

Happy New Year! Due to some impending deadlines in Korea, I don't have time to write in much detail, but I wanted to add a few more words on recent developments in Iowa.

The Des Moines Register poll came out last night. In 2004, it correctly predicted the Kerry, Edwards, Dean finish. (It didn't predict Dean's scream, but polls have their limitations.) It's easy to forget now, but Kerry wasn't the favorite even two weeks before the Iowa caucuses: Howard Dean was. Both Kerry and Edwards soared in the closing days of the campaign. The Register poll picked up on that. It's well-regarded for accurately assessing who is likely to participate in the caucuses, something with which national polling companies have less experience.

With that said, the Obama campaign seemed braced for bad news. It held a morning presentation yesterday about how it was positioned to continue campaigning in other states no matter what happened Thursday. Rumors bounced about on the Internet that his numbers were looking dim. The Clinton campaign had already stabilized a lead in most other polls, including Zogby's, and some had Obama slipping into third.

The Register poll turned those findings upside-down. On the Democratic side, Obama had the support of 32% of likely caucus-goers, compared to 25% for Hillary Clinton and 24% for Edwards. On the Republican side, it showed Huckabee maintaining a similar lead over the hard-hitting Romney (32% to 26%).

It's tempting to look at these numbers and cover them as what pundits call a horse race. "Obama soars to a lead!" "Edwards stumbles in the final lap." That kind of thing. I had a professor at the Kennedy School who felt otherwise, but I believe this kind of coverage in the media has the potential to affect the margins of public opinion. Undecided voters may be more likely to choose someone with a better chance of winning. It's similar to the phenomenon in sports known as "bandwagon fans". Even my beloved Clippers had some bandwagon fans a couple years ago.

So, let's not go overboard with these results. Let's check out some of the headlines, though. In the Register, the most widely-read newspaper in Iowa, the headline reads:

"New Iowa Poll: Obama widens lead over Clinton"
MSNBC matches this word for word, minus "New Iowa Poll".
Similarly, the Washington Post runs with "Poll Shows Obama Holds 7-Point Lead in Iowa"

-- These headlines imply (a) that there is such a thing as a lead and (b) that Obama had one. The former depends on how you look at things (you could argue that not a single vote has been cast) and the latter negates the last two weeks or so of media coverage, which revolved mostly around Hillary Clinton's growing lead (particularly plausible given recent foreign events) and an angry John Edwards surging past Obama. Obama got a lot of coverage for ostensibly implying that Hillary Clinton's foreign policy experience amounted to drinking tea with the wives of foreign leaders.

The Edwards and Clinton campaigns were quick to discredit some apparent quirks in the Register poll. For one, it predicts that 45% of the people attending the Democratic caucuses will be independents and Republicans. They strongly favor Obama. If they don't show up, Clinton "pulls ahead" in the numbers. This underscores my point from the other day: Obama is the candidate who, for whatever reason, most successfully reaches out to independents and Republicans. It would make him a very effective nominee, and very hard to defeat if the Republican nominee lacks similar crossover appeal. (It's ironic that for Democrats to nominate the Democrat with the best chance of winning next November, they may need help from some non-Democrats.) However, in 2004, only 19% of caucus attendees were independents and Republicans. So for the poll numbers to hold, there has to be a significantly different turnout in 2008. It's possible, but you never know.

Similarly, the poll shows that 60% of those attending the caucuses will be doing so for the first time. This would be remarkable. Since these new attendees heavily favor Obama (75% of those who said they plan to caucus for him say they've never caucused before) it makes his position a little precarious. The best predictor of future behavior, in relationships as well as in voting, is past behavior. Then again, the Clinton and Obama campaigns are working incredibly hard to turn out new caucus-goers, so it's not at all implausible that participation rates will soar.

What to make of all this? Probably the following.

1. Obama needed some good news with which to close out the campaign. This gives him momentum heading into the caucuses. His campaign will ignore the other polls unless they change in his favor. His opponents will do the opposite, but the Register is the most widely-reported and respected poll in Iowa. Advantage: Obama.

2. Turnout is key. This is a political truism; turnout is always key. But it really, really is. The winner Thursday will depend largely on who shows up for the first time.

3. What happens within the actual caucuses is also important. They're, to say the least, peculiar, especially on the Democrats' side. People gather in a room and publicly declare their candidate preference. They gather in groups accordingly. Groups which represent less than 15% of the room are required to dissolve; their members have to choose one of the remaining "viable" candidates (or, presumably, leave, but then they might lose out on the sandwiches being provided by the Clinton campaign.) Precinct captains for each campaign try to persuade the reallocated voters to join them. Reputably, there's even some wheeling and dealing. All this makes things unpredictable.

There's not much time left, but if you like the horse race, keep an eye on the Zogby three-day daily tracking poll. Remember, it's had Clinton in the lead for a few days. Each day, it adds a new day of results and removes the oldest day. If it reflects a tightening of the race tomorrow, it could mean that the Iowa poll results helped some late breaking voters decide for Obama. A third of caucus-goers also said they were still willing to change their mind before Thursday, so what looks like a tight race could break wide open for one or another of the three leading candidates before the end.