| | As of a few minutes ago, 92% of the precincts are reporting. The results are currently as follows (in order):
1. Huckabee, 34%
2. Romney, 25%
3. Thompson and McCain, 13% each
4. Ron Paul, 10%
5. Giuliani, 4%
6. Hunter, 1%
The biggest losers, in order, are:
1. Romney. He outspent Huckabee 15 to 1 in Iowa and was counting on a win in Iowa. According to exit polls, about 51% said that electability was their top reason for voting for Romney. Losing may damage his image as a winnable candidate. If a lot of people in other states were planning on voting for him just because they thought he was electable, that could cause a lot of them to change their vote.
2. Thompson. Rumor has it he may drop out if he doesn't do very well in Iowa. I'm not sure how badly he has to do in order to drop out, but I'm sure we'll be finding out any day. Not sure who'll get his delegates if he drops out.
3. Giuliani. I mean, 4%? Losing to a supposed long-shot? Doesn't look good.
The biggest winners of this are Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul. Huckabee absolutely needed an Iowa win to survive, especially since he's done so poorly in fundraising. Ron Paul is a winner out of this because he did several times better than landline polls predicted. According to CNN, he also got a couple of delegates out of this, even though he didn't win.
Actually, he did about 2 1/2 times better than a lot of the landline polls were predicting, which is about what I expected. As I said, the landline phone polls are not trustworthy in the least. The Ames Straw Poll (taken on August 11, 2007) was actually about right for Ron Paul's numbers, although Romney and Huckabee were reversed. It wasn't all that far off for Giuliani or Hunter either. Thompson and McCain did a LOT better than it predicted, though (although, in fairness to the Ames Straw Poll, several candidates have since dropped out, so if they hadn't been in the poll, and I'm not sure that Thompson had even officially announced his candidacy then, so if those are corrected for maybe it wasn't so far off). There are two lessons in this: first, straw polls are more reliable than landline polls in predicting actual outcomes (especially, I would think, of caucuses, which have a similar format to a straw poll as I understand it, at least for the Republicans). The second lesson is a lot can change in a few months.
Interestingly, Ron Paul got a lot of support from independents, according to exit polls. He'd also benefit a lot from a Romney or Thompson downfall (although probably a bit more from a Romney downfall).
To be honest, I'm still rather shocked that so many people are voting for Huckabee. What's there to like about this guy? He did a bad job as a small-state governor, not to mention the numerous ethical scandals that have surrounded him. I expect he'll do poorly in the other primaries; he's been getting a lot of bad press lately and it'll catch up to him eventually. Sorry guys, I just don't buy Huckabee's whole phony integrity thing. It really irritates me that he's trying to promote himself as the "Christian" candidate and market himself to evangelicals in spite of his obvious integrity issues. A lot of evangelicals seem to think that anyone who wears their faith on their sleeve "must" be a good candidate for President. A lot of people need to wake up and realize that it takes a lot more than that to be qualified to be President.
For the Democrats, Barack Obama is the winner. John Edwards came in second with a good showing in Iowa at 30% and Hillary Clinton in a close third. 100% of precincts were reporting, so the number is final. I'm pleased that Barack Obama beat Clinton as I think he's is a better candidate than Clinton in a lot of ways. I'm a little disappointed Bill Richardson didn't do better, though; he came in a very distant 4th. In all honesty, I haven't looked at the Democrats all that closely, but it seems like he's better than the other Democrats in a lot of ways. I think Barack Obama and John Edwards are the big winners here and they've both proven they can beat Clinton. Dodd, Gravel, and Kucinich all got 0%, which is pretty embarrassing.
I'm also disappointed that Duncan Hunter didn't do better. He would be my second choice among the Republicans. He really deserves a lot more votes than he's getting. I really hope he gets picked up as a VP candidate or a Cabinet member by whoever wins. I'm glad he at least got 1% - I'd feel really bad for him if he got 0%.
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| | Posted 1/3/2008 11:50 PM - 39 views - 0 comments
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