OpEd: The Answers to the Iowa Caucus Questions

On Monday, my "Moore to the Point" commentary focused on the upcoming Iowa Caucuses, not in terms of predictions but more in terms of the questions we might expect to be answered by night's end.

SEE: Moore to the Point - Cold Comfort Caucus

I laid out three questions I expected we'd see answered following the caucuses:

How on (or off) the mark the polls have been
How dedicated Iowans are to their respective candidates in the face of negative high temps and wind chills
Who overperforms, who underperforms, and who will head into New Hampshire and South Carolina with momentum

Now, we have our answers. So, I thought I'd take a few moments to review and take stock of where we are.

How on the mark were the Polls?

Pretty on the mark, at least in terms of the first-place finisher. Heading into Monday night, the RCP average had former President Donald Trump at 52.5 percent, with former South Carolina Governor and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley at 18.8 percent, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at 15.7 percent. The final outcome, with 99+ percent reporting, has Trump at 51 percent, DeSantis at 21.2 percent, and Haley at 19.1 percent.

READ MORE: LIVE: Iowa Caucus Results

The biggest departure is the second-place finish. DeSantis outperformed the average by 5.5 percent, which is notable. He'd led Haley in the average until just a week prior to the caucuses. One interpretation then could be that those last polls reflected efforts by the Never Trump/Establishment camp and some Democrats to push the narrative of a Haley surge that didn't translate into actual caucus participation on a cold — very cold — Iowa night. (Total turnout was down from 2016 — the last competitive GOP caucus in Iowa — by 41 percent, or roughly 110,000 versus 187,000.)

Which leads us to the second question:

How dedicated were Iowans to caucus for their preferred candidates in the face of viciously cold winter weather?

As noted above, Iowa caucus-goers were not as dedicated in 2024 as in 2016. But only about 10 percent behind the 2012 turnout of just under 122,000.

Whether and to what extent the lightning-quick call of the race affected the ultimate vote totals may not be quantifiable. There's no indication it would or could have changed Trump being the winner given the margin, but there's a valid argument it may have affected the second, third — maybe even fourth-place — percentages and the relative finishes. Certainly, there are anecdotal accounts (including among RedState readers) of people who opted to leave the caucus before casting their votes upon hearing that the race had already been called Trump. Whether those were Trump voters who thought their votes no longer necessary or discouraged DeSantis, Haley, or Vivek Ramaswamy voters, again, may not be quantifiable.

The answer to the third question may be a bit murkier.

Who overperformed or underperformed, and who heads into New Hampshire and South Carolina with momentum?

I'm going to tackle that in reverse order because the one candidate clearly heading into the next two contests with momentum is Donald Trump. While he technically didn't "overperform" vis-a-vis the polling, he stuck the landing and notched a commanding win, and there's no indication at this juncture that polling showing him well ahead in both New Hampshire and South Carolina will fail to hold up.

Haley is running second to Trump in both contests, ironically closer to him in New Hampshire than in her home state of South Carolina. Contrary to her assertion Monday night, finishing third — albeit a respectable third — in Iowa doesn't render it a "two-person race."

READ MORE: The Hubris of Never Trump

Haley neither over nor underperformed in the caucuses. She wound up right about where the polls predicted, and should that hold true in the next two contests, she'd pick up a handful of delegates (perhaps six or seven) in New Hampshire, which allocates them proportionally) and zero in South Carolina, where the winner takes all.

DeSantis is the only candidate of the top three who overperformed in Iowa. As noted above, he beat the RCP average in Iowa by 5.5 percent. That should count as a decent shot in the arm to the campaign, but with him polling fairly far behind Haley in both New Hampshire and South Carolina, he's got an uphill climb, to say the least. Still, his message following Monday night's results was optimistic, and he's vowing to push forward with the campaign.

I joined the Mike Ferguson in the Morning Show on NewsTalkSTL Tuesday morning to share more of my thoughts on the outcome of Monday night's caucuses.