Obama should win the IA caucus with about 37% IMHO

[Perky]

Can anyone tell us how strong a role preinct captains play after the intital vote? Do they direct those they get to the polls to s asingle candidate or do they just lewt everyone make their own choice?

If you take a look at the last five Iowa polls of likely voters there were 3370 polled and for all intents and puropose there is a tie at the top.

on an aggregate level it looks like this:

Poll Date Sample Obama Clinton Edwards Richardson Biden Others RBE
RCP Average 11/23 - 12/01
Zogby 11/29 - 12/01 514 123 139 108 41 26 77 144
ARG 11/26 - 11/29 600 162 150 138 24 48 78 150
DMR 11/25 - 11/28 500 140 125 115 45 30 45 120
Ras 11/26 - 11/27 1156 289 312 277 116 46 116 278
SV (R) 11/23 - 11/25 600 174 174 138 36 24 54 114
Total 11/23 - 11/29 3370 888 900 776 262 174 370 806
26.35% 26.71% 23.03% 7.77% 5.16% 10.98% 23.92%

888 for Obama and 900 for Obama. 12 supporter more in a sample of 3370. They are tied. With Edwards about 3.5 point back.


Assuming that barring political calimity 90% of top tier voters stay with their choice. that leaves about 31% up for grabs state wide.

Given the Caucus system rules. Unless you reach 15% at the precinct level you are viewed as not viable in that precinct and those who side with one of those candidate have the option of casting their lot with another viable candidate for the final vote,

So the real question is how are the 31% going to line up. Some are clearly going to have a pity party and just not vote...but historically late deciders break 2 to 1 against "the incumbent". which ought to mean that Hillary is going to wind up with about 32 to 34%, If Edwards and Obama split the rest (20%) in numbers approximating the polling data it sholuld split something like 12% to 9% for Obama)

That is how Obama get to 37-38%, Hillary gets 33-34% and Edward 28-30%.

[Dawgs]

1. Can't be - didn't you see that Edwards will win.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2404160

[cali]

2. you could be right

I honestly don't have a clue who will win Iowa, but I'll bookmark your thread along with some other prediction threads, and we'll see who comes closest is just a little over 3 weeks.

:hi:

[Major Hogwash]

3. Yeah, but the numbers you're using for Hillary are too high.

Because after everyone figures out after Christmas that she is the grinch that stole the Democratic party - her numbers will go down.

*visualize Hillary as grinch, not so hard to do*

[Perky]

4. .