It is 6 out of 8, not 4 out of 6. (The sentence has an unfortunate ambiguity in it.) Since the Harkin time shouldn’t count (local boy), the effective record is 6 out of 7. Not perfect, but not bad.
It looks like Buttigieg’s points were mainly picked up from Biden+downlist candidates, not from Sanders or Warren.
Also several races with two or three candidates, not over a dozen. Getting 1/2 or 1/3 right isn’t exactly Karnak the Magnificent.
Hasnt the casino itself lost a shitload of loot so far? How does that even happen???
Obviously a slow news day.
There’s no denying though the boost Iowa gave to Obama and Carter. If someone other than Biden or Warren top the Iowa caucus it will be a pretty big deal. (The fact that the caucus format is a form of single transferable vote makes it hard to apply normal primary predictive models to it.)
Yes, who can forget the Big Deal of candidates like Rick Santorum storming to within an inch of presidential victory after winning the Iowa Caucus.
The Iowa GOP Caucus is a completely different animal from the Democratic version. (In your example, Santorum nominally won in Iowa, but received 0 delegates.) However, if someone other than Warren or Biden top the caucus and then they go the way of Santorum, I will (try to remember to) post a mea culpa.
Yeah, statistical analysis is not strong with this one.
At this point, the Iowa Caucuses for both parties are, for the most part, exercises in false nostalgia (complete with straw hats and other old-timey accoutrements and rituals). They doesn’t reflect the real world of national politics, beyond what older white people think amd want (which is becoming less important as we become a majority-minority country where young people’s concerns take centre stage).
One day, the DNC might put in place a proper and modern primary system, with a more randomised selection of first (small population) primary state and standardised secret ranked-choice ballots and access to any registered Democrat. Until then, though, every four years candidates and journalists and those who follow politics are going to have to suffer through this deep-fried and corny dog-and-pony show.
It is 4 out of 6. Nobody seriously challenged Clinton in 1996 or Obama in 2012, so there were no caucuses. Also, the 2016 Iowa Caucus was basically a tie, originally called for Sanders and later given to Clinton. So maybe 3.5 out of 6? 2000 was Al Gore vs. Bill Bradley, and a dead cat could’ve called that one. So make that 3.5 out of 6 with an asterisk. I would barely trust the Iowa Caucus over a coin flip, and I say this regardless of whether the person I like this election wins or loses.
I was correcting the interpretation of the article, which listed 8 caucuses in which 6 of the selected candidates won the primary.
Whatever its predictive value, the Iowa caucus has been an important boost for candidates who might otherwise not have been considered competitive. On the Democratic side, it is also interesting because unlike most primaries the walking caucus is not FPTP, giving an example of the kind of structure many advocates of electoral reform support.
And I was pointing out that it was 6, not 8. Count 'em:
There’s only six primaries there. And of those six, two winners were not nominated. Of those four where the winners were later nominated, one was called incorrectly at first (meaning that the “important boost” there went to Sanders and not Clinton). Of the three where the winner was the nominee and that were called correctly, one of those was incumbent Vice President Al Gore’s trouncing of former NBA player Bill Bradley, the only other candidate, who went on to be trounced in every other primary he was in. Either that boost was really really really important, or Bradley was just that bad of a candidate.
Yeah, not much predictive value there, but there’s literally zero predictive value in an “important boost”* either. There aren’t a whole lot of places you can move this goalpost to that aren’t complete bullshit, and the remaning few places are only mostly bullshit.
*see: “Joe-mentum”
we could have primaries on different dates from one county to the next
we could start with counties with small populations
people could vote on different days depending on their license plate numbers
OR, OR, here’s an idea, everybody could vote on the same goddamn day like in any other election
Now where’s the old-fashioned charm in that? And where’s the chance for a bunch of older white midwesterners to give the party establishment’s preferred Third-Way candidates an important boost?Priorities!
There’s a pretty good argument for staggered primaries, starting with small states like Iowa and New Hampshire: it gives the candidates with less name recognition and fundraising power a better chance to compete with the big guys, and get their name out there.
Except that it distorts federal funding. Early primary states like Iowa, NH, etc. end up getting more funding as politicians look to curry favor with primary voters.
I can see that argument. However, having the same two lily-white states kick things off every time in the same order creates obvious problems. I’d like to see who’d get a boost if Dems in New Mexico or Louisiana got first crack at the primaries once in a while. Also, maybe take California and Texas out of Super Tuesday and give them their own Super primary day.
The DNC should also demand that all primaries have the same easy eligibility requirements for voting (to allow more young people and poor people to vote) and standardise the voting methods (secret ballot and preferably some form of ranked choiceThe DNC should also demand that all primaries have the same easy eligibility requirements for voting (to allow for more young people and poor people to vote) and standardise the voting methods.).
Funding and other goodies.
Literal and figurative pork!
well then we should have staggered general elections too
gotta give the underdog a fair shot
OH YEAH, the states where the most people actually live, they should be deliberately marginalized
this all makes perfect sense
It’s hard to marginalise them because of their populations. They take all the air out of the room on election day as it is, which is fine. But for primaries, you can spread things out over multiple days to lessen that impact.
