Pledged delegate breakdown, April 27th edition

It had been quite a while since I last updated the pledged delegate breakdown on March 31st. After weeks of constant elections and states refining their allocation, the six-week lull struck and froze things on the delegate front for a while.

Three changes in our delegate count today. The first, obviously, comes form Pennsylvania's primary -- the only contest that took place in the entire month of April. Second, the numbers out of the Texas caucuses have been refined and Obama picked up a delegate since my last update, now leading 38-29 instead of 37-30.

Third, Iowa held its district conventions this week; you might remember that, at the county convention, Obama had picked up a stunning number number of delegates thanks to the desertion of Edwards delegates, transforming his 16-15 edge against Clinton the night of the caucuses to a 25-14 advantage. The district conventions, however, saw a small but surprising Edwards comeback, as the former candidate managed to get one more delegate elected out of the first district; it looks like Clinton delegates helped Edwards cross the viability threshold in order to cost Obama a delegate -- and they succeeded, a very rare instance of the Clinton campaign out-maneuvering Obama at caucuses. A detailed explanation of how these district conventions function is available here.

Iowa, delegate breakdown after the district conventions:

• Obama: 24 delegates (Previous total based on the county convention vote: 25)
  
• Clinton: 14 (Previous total: 14)
  
• Edwards: 7 (Previous total: 6)

Pennsylvania primary: Clinton 54,55%-Obama 44.45%

• Clinton: 83 delegates
  
• Obama: 73
• Outstanding: 2
  

This brings us to the following total:

• Obama: 1488.5 delegates
  
• Clinton: 1335.5

That's a differential of 153 pledged delegates -- only a small improvement for Hillary since March 31st, when she was trailing by 162 delegates. The Pennsylvania results in particular were a disappointment for the Clinton campaign who had surely been hoping to dent into Obama's margin in a more meaningful manner; the delegate allocation rules and the division between even and odd delegate districts ended up favoring Obama in this state.

It has become impossible for a while for Clinton to catch up Obama among pledged delegates, but that certainly does not mean that this count is not meaningful. Even if Obama suffers a meltdown of the sort Clinton has been waiting for, she still has to be close enough in the pledged delegate count to be in a position of clinching the nomination even if superdelegates move massively towards her -- right now, she needs too massive a proportion of uncommitted superdelegates to endorse her (though the Clinton campaign would respond that, were Obama to suffer a meltdown, a number of superdelegates who have endorsed him might migrate away from him).

To get herself meaningfully closer, Clinton needs to get huge margins in West Virginia and Kentucky, win big in Puerto Rico, score a convincing victory in Indiana and -- very importantly -- keep the race close in North Carolina, the upcoming state that will allocate the most delegates. Naturally, there is also the question of the Florida and Michigan delegates and whether they should be seated; compromises to seat half of the delegations, and at least Florida's, have long been in the works and the DNC is getting ready to hear such appeals.

Caucus chaos: Obama gains in Iowa, Clinton contests Texas (Updated with new Iowa numbers)

So much for the pledged delegate count Campaign Diaries and most media groups have been keeping up. More than 13 thousand delegates elected on January 3rd convened today at Iowa's county conventions and they threw the delegate allocation numbers we had all relied on out of the window. (I explained how this was possible, and the stakes of today's convention, in this post yesterday). With all of the county conventions now completed, the Obama campaign can claim a big victory.

Based on the vote at the county conventions, the original delegate count out of Iowa (16 for Obama and 15 for Clinton) will change dramatically and reflect a significant gain on Obama's part: He can now claim 25 delegates out of Iowa, while Clinton lost a delegate and is now at 14 with Edwards losing eight to end up with 6 (these delegates will be up for grabs once again in the next round). With almost all delegates for the state convention selected, Obama obtained 52%, Clinton 32% and Edwards 16%, which more or less means that almost all Edwards's delegates who did not stay with their candidate switched to Obama.

This is obviously a huge gain for the Illinois Senator. His 10 delegate increase alone is superior to Clinton's edge out of Ohio! And this from a much smaller state like Iowa in which Obama got 9% more than his rival: With 38% of the vote, Obama can now claim 55% of the state's delegate, the biggest disparity we have yet seen in a system that looked so strictly proportional. Given that Clinton is already so far behind in the pledged delegate count and that we can hardly imagine her catching up in pledged delegates with all the remaining contests, this is obviously a blow to her chances.

But how is this different from superdelegates deciding to vote for whomever they want without respecting the will of voters? Iowa voted on January 3rd -- but the delegate allocation will not follow the will of that day's voters. And not only because Edwards delegates backed Obama, since Clinton appears to have lost a delegate! After all the vociferation about respecting the will of voters, this does not seem like the logical next step.

The caucus system is looking increasingly disastrous for Clinton. It means not one caucus but a whole series of caucuses, each further diluting Clinton's votes. Fortunately for the New York Senator, she has much less to fear in most other caucuses, for she has already reached such depths in most of them that she can't possibly go much further down (in Idaho, for example, she only has 3 out of 18 delegates). But there are two danger areas: Nevada, where she won the popular vote and has to defend 12 out of 25 delegates, and Texas.

The Texas caucuses are still reporting at 41%... which has prompted me to not include the delegate breakdown of that contest in my delegate count. The projection out of those 41% gives 38 delegates to Obama and 29 to Clinton, but both candidates are too close to the thresholds of one less/one more delegate in too many districts that have barely reported with a third of their precincts for a definite breakdown to make any sense (it is worth noting that some networks, like NBC, are also refusing to project final numbers).

Worried about facing the same problem in Texas that she did today in Iowa, Clinton is now openly contesting the March 4th caucuses as she had been threatening to do for a while. Her move today was to send a letter to the Texas Democratic Party, as reported by the Dallas Morning News, to ask that the March 29th county conventions (exactly what happened in Iowa today) be postponed. Why? Because she wants the identity of caucus-goers to be double-checked, and she cites a number of violations including votes being taken with head counts instead of written rolls.

It is true that the Texas caucuses were a stunningly chaotic affair, with officials having utterly failed at organizing them and preparing for the turnout. They were reports of caucuses starting hours late, voting taking place in parking lots in the dark and with flashlights because there was not enough room in the actual caucus location, etc. There was no evidence of fraud -- both Obama and Clinton threw such allegations at each other -- simply the incompetence of the caucus organizers and government officials. In this context, Clinton's move to contest the county conventions could be interpreted as a delaying tactic and one born out of genuine worry as to what the March 29th conventions could have in store.

To make matters worse, it's hard for us who cover the campaign to know what to expect and what is really going on in Texas when we have no access to the 59% of the results of a contest that is deciding a total of 67 delegates -- and I am very much afraid that most of the precincts which are not reporting are those where media reports say voting took place on parking lots.

Dems ready for contests in Michigan and... Iowa?!

In a sure sign that the Democratic primaries are caught in a time warp with no end in sight, the campaigns are now getting ready to fight a potentially decisive fight in... Iowa. More than two months after Obama's game-changing victory, the state's county conventions are convening tomorrow, and you can sense that the Des Moines Register can barely conceal its glee at having some kind of role to play once again.

The tricky thing with caucuses is that no candidate actually wins any DNC delegates on Election Night, and the totals released by the networks are only projections that will hold if everything goes as it's supposed to. In fact, a caucus elects county delegates, and county conventions elect district delegates, and only then does the state convention choose its actual delegates.

In Iowa, 13,485 delegates were elected on January 3rd! And all of those are allowed to go and elect about a fourth as many tomorrow in the state conventions... That means that the Clinton and Obama campaign will have to make sure that all of their county delegates go participate tomorrow to make sure they get as many DNC delegates as they are entitled to. If Obama, for example, fails to get all his delegates to the caucuses tomorrow, he could easily lose a delegate here and there -- and we would be forced to change our pledged delegate totals!

To prevent that from happening, both campaigns have paid staff in the state contacting their delegates, leaving messages and organizing a whole new turnout operation! Nothing can be simple in the Democratic primaries.

Especially targeted are the county delegates of John Edwards. The final projection out of Iowa was 16 delegates for Obama, 15 for Clinton and 14 for Edwards -- so that's 14 delegates that will be distributed between Obama and Clinton or be sent to the convention as uncommitted depending on what Edwards's county delegates do tomorrow. So the fight for Edwards's Iowa delegates is possibly more crucial than that of the Wyoming caucuses!

Meanwhile, Michigan seems to be inching towards a resolution... without Florida! As the Sunshine state's mail-in scenario looks ruined, Michigan Democrats have been much more successful at finding consensus between themselves and with the two campaigns, and a plan on which all parties are already in agreement could be reached later today. It would be a state-run primary that would apparently not be paid by the state and not be conducted via mail, and it would take place on June 3rd.

Any such plan would have to be approved by the DNC, the state legislature and... the Department of Justice, which could delay things further but Michigan Democrats appear hopeful that they can at least start organizing for the contest. Unless Florida finds a way to follow very quickly it could be left out of the loop, and this could be a disastrous scenario for Clinton: Florida is much more favorable for her than Michigan is, and a June 3rd showdown in only the latter could be a major headache for her campaign, for a loss there (or even a tight race) would cost her most of the arguments she is relying on to court superdelegates and argue that she has momentum. And how would the dilemma of Florida delegates be resolved?

The morning after, Democrats: We have a new favorite

The Democratic results might not have been a surprise considering the Obama campaign itself was predicting victory in the final days, but they upend the state of the race dramatically. Hillary Clinton was the inevitable front-runner all the way until the end of October; after the Philadelphia debate, she lost her inevitability but she was still favored to win it all. That is no more true; the roles have been reversed, and Barack Obama has to be anointed the new favorite to become the Democrat nominee.

The scenario that played out last night was Clinton's nightmare: She came in third and Barack Obama came in first. The one comforting thought has to be that she managed to stay in a tie for second-place (only 7 delegates separate Edwards and her) but the press is loving the symbol of Clinton coming in third and is going to run with it for the next few days.

Yet, it is undeniable that something big happened last night. Turnout surpassed anyone's expectations, even those of the most optimistic Obama aides. Nearly 240,000 Iowans went to caucus for Democrats which is nearly the double of what it was in 2004. Among the 57% who were first-time caucus goers, Obama demolished his adversaries: He got 41% to Clinton's 29% and Edwards's pale 18%. On the other hand, Edwards led among voters who had already caucused. Furthermore, and while Obama did win a huge share of independent voters (41%), they only comprised 20% of voters -- much less than what some had predicted. Hillary Clinton cannot claim that Barack Obama won solely on the basis of his strength among non-Democrats, as the two were tied among registered Democrats. Obama appears to have won mostly because of a turnout surge among the youth who participated in much greater numbers. And a stunning 57% of the 17-29 year old crowd voted for Obama. This is what Howard Dean tried to pull off 4 years ago and failed miserably at.

As predicted, realignment played a huge role in the results -- especially the Richardson-Obama deal. What is most puzzling is not that there was such a deal in the first place (there is ample documentation that Richardson voters did go massively for Obama last night and that precinct captains told them that those were the instruction), but why did Richardson and Obama keep it secret and the campaigns kept denying it? To avoid the press talking about it in what could undermine the purity of victory? Obama would have won without Richardson's boost but his lead could have been smaller. And we've got to wonder about the ethics of not publicizing such a deal and repeatedly denying it.

A second observation about second-choice preferences is that they pushed Clinton into third-place. Entrance polls showed Edwards trailing Clinton by about 4-5% in raw votes, and he managed to narrowly pass her at the end. That conforms to a lot of anecdotal evidence across the state as observers reported that Clinton gained very few votes between the two rounds of counting and Edwards very often passed her in places where he was third in hte first round of counting.

What does this mean for the rest of the race? Clinton knows that early wins for Obama could make him invincible in the coming weeks, especially if the African-American vote in South Carolina flips in favor of Obama (it has been tied for most of the year). Clinton can hardly afford to wait until Florida where she cannot even campaign due to her pledge -- though it will be interesting to see whether she is tempted to go back on her promise once Iowa and New Hampshire have voted -- and has to get back on track in New Hampshire. Polls have Clinton up in New Hampshire by varying margins -- anywhere between 4% and 15%, and we will see in the coming days just how much of a bounce Barack Obama gets.

And Clinton is working fast to move on from Iowa -- and has started questioning the legitimacy of the caucus process. Her staff is murmuring that Iowa has never elected a woman in any gubernatorial and congressional election, which, to be fair, is a rather disturbing fact. And Hillary said today in New Hampshire: "You're not disenfranchised if you work at night. You're not disenfranchised if you're not in the state."

Don't underestimate Clinton's chances in New Hampshire. Given that Obama and Clinton were almost tied prior to Iowa, Obama has to be given a slight edge in the Granite State, but Clinton's organization and network is much stronger here than it was in IA. Bill Clinton is very popular in the state and will be dispatched everywhere in the coming days -- and she has many other surrogates. The big question now is how negative will Hillary Clinton go in NH; she had started to go down that route in December and then stopped. But she could have no other path at this point: Obama has got momentum, people are starting to see he is electable after all and a second loss could be near-fatal. And one mystery: What will happen in Michigan? With Dodd's exit, Clinton is now the only candidate in the race. She'll try to spin it as a "I stayed and was not afraid of the fight," will anyone buy it?

The trouble for Clinton: Movement candidacies pick-up steam remarkably fast. Many high-profile Democrats such as Al Gore and Ted Kennedy might have been staying away from endorsing for fear of offending the likely nominee, but now that Hillary has been defeated once Obama could start seeing the tangible benefits of that. Money, of course, but such high-profile names could start lining up behind him. Obama's victory in Iowa could make the rest of the campaign fundamentally different. And with Obama as the favorite, the spotlight is now turned on him -- with everything good and bad that entails. More attention, people taking him more seriously... but also increased criticism and negative stories coming out.

And what this means for other candidates: John Edwards had a good showing. But let's face it, he is toast. He put everything in the caucuses, and he would have won if turnout had been lower. But he is tied for second -- and got less than he did in 2004. That said, it is undeniable that Edwards did great given that the press barely covered him for much of the year. That he remained competitive with Obama and Clinton despite the way the campaign was framed speaks to his resilience and his talent as a campaigner. But Edwards needed a win to remain viable. He has no real organization in later states and not that much money -- and what next for him? Where does he go, and where does he win?

He is presenting himself as the underdog and the change agent who defeated the status quo, but he got a higher share of the vote among conservatives than among liberals; and as the white male of the race, he definitely attracted some of the status-quo vote. His speech last night meant that he is staying in the race -- and he has been reframing it as an Obama-Edwards race now. Look at what he said today: "I am not the candidate of glitz; I am not the candidate of glamor. I am the candidate who will fight with every fiber of my being every step of the way." But the more he stays in and is competitive, the better that is likely to be for Hillary Clinton as it gives her an opening to corner Obama.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd both dropped out. It is still unclear whether they are planning to endorse anyone but the results must have been disappointing for them. Biden apparently got about 5% at the entrance but less than 1% of the delegates. More than anything, this frees up a ton of endorsements: Chris Dodd especially had the backing of the prized firefighters union, and we'll have to see where they go next. And Ted Kennedy was rumored to be reluctant to endorse anyone given his friendship with Dodd, so this could also liberate him. Keep in mind that Dodd grew into a whole new persona over the past few months and positioned himself to challenge Reid for Majority Leader at some point in the future. And contrary to reports in the press, Mike Gravel is not pulling out.

Iowa results thread: Huckabee and Obama win, Clinton likely to be third, Biden and Dodd drop out

11:55pm: Giuliani gave a speech tonight from... Florida and did not mention Iowa once. He is only at 4% in the caucuses, 6% behind Ron Paul which says a lot. With 87% in, Huckabee is ahead 34-26 and the Thompson-McCain race is still tied. Meanwhile among Democrats, all but one precinct have reported with Obama at 37.57%, 29.76% for Edwards, 29.46% for Clinton, and 2.11% for Richardson. Biden gets only 0.96% of delegates. Just imagine the huge number of caucus-goers who had to realign given the final numbers Biden and Richardson had to settle for.
11:20pm: Joe Biden is dropping out as well, CNN is reporting, which is a big surprise. No news for now on whether he will endorse. Barack Obama just gave his victory speech and he was clearly in his element, as this kind of speech in front of a pumped-up crowd is where he shines best -- and he emphasized the historic nature of the night. "This is the day we will remember" years from now, he said again and again.
10:50pm: Thompson is back slightly in front but it's only 300 votes. Race for third is going down the wire. And Ron Paul is firmly in double-digits. Meanwhile, Huckabee's speech is a classic mixture of Christian humility and populism. With Chuck Norris standing just behind him. And Clinton has not made up any ground at all, with only 70 precincts outstanding she's 11 delegates behind (while both are about 190 behind Obama). And Clinton is now more than 8% behind Obama. That has got to hurt -- and it's even larger than the DMR poll predicted.
Meanwhile, here are the latest turnout projections: It's only 90,000 among Republicans, and 221,000 among Democrats. That's a gigantic number -- beyond anyone's projections. Beyond even Obama's campaign hopes, as the consensus among Obamaites was about 150,000. And has clearly been a boost mainly among the youth and among independents, and it provided a gigantic boost for Obama. And consider that Democrats outnumbered Republicans 2.5:1... in a state Bush carried in 2004. How much does that speak of the GOP malaise?
10:40pm: Chris Dodd is dropping out, and it is still unclear if he will endorse anyone. This could also mean that Ted Kennedy could endorse soon, as what was holding him back might have been his friendship with Dodd. And it also frees up the endorsement of the prized firefighter's union.
Meanwhile, Huckabee started speaking at the same time as Romney -- and Mitt's speech is not being covered by the networks. Kind of symbolic of the night for Romney.
10:30pm: It's Hillary Clinton's turn, and she is celebrating this as a great night for Democrats, and thanking all caucus-goers for "standing out and caucusing for a Democrat..." She could have said EXACTLY the same thing if she had won the race (which made for a pretty surreal speech) as she framed it all in a GOP v. Democrat frame as opposed to a speech on the eve of a primary election. Speculation: She mentions "Democrats... [pause] and like-minded independents" and there were laughs in the audience. Is that meant as a dig to Obama's reliance on independents, or am I just imagining things at this point? And Clinton followed it up by taking digs at Iowa... in a brilliantly subtle way by promising to be a president for those who need it like all those who couldn't caucus tonight like those who have to work night shift and those who are in Iraq. A way to shoot down the undemocratic nature of the caucuses without actually saying so.
The basic message: Clinton might have lost tonight, but she wants Democrats in later states to know she barely cares about it and that she is still the natural front-runner.
10:20pm: John Edwards, speaking right now, claimed second-place and celebrated the "defeat of the status-quo" and the victory of change -- apparently lumping himself with Obama versus Clinton. And Edwards is following this up with a populist speech, and he has gone on to address poverty and the need for health care.
With 78% of the GOP in, McCain has now passed Thompson for third-place -- though there is only 34 votes differentiating them.
10:05pm: The numbers are hardly changing at this point. With 92% in, it's 37.18% Obama, 30% Edwards and 29.58% Clinton. CNN reports Obama has won the top 5 counties of Iowa. And among Republicans, numbers have hardly moved. Thompson is barely ahead of McCain.
9:50pm: Entrance poll shows surprising result that union members put Edwards in third, and those who decided late chose Obama and Edwards. With 89% precincts in, Clinton is under 30% and not very far from Edwards. The story will probably be a tie for second at this point. The press is emphasizing the boost Obama will get because of whites embracing his candidacy.
9:45pm: A huge proportion -- 55% -- of GOP voters were evangelicals. Don't look further to explain Huckabee's victory. Republicans numbers are finally coming in with 65% reporting: Huckabee 34%, Romney 25%, Thompson 14%, 13%, McCain. Paul is at 10% and Giuliani is only at 4%. It looks like my one projection that Paul will beat Giuliani is being proven true.
Meanwhile, KEY entrance poll: among independents, Obama got 41% and Clinton 17%. That clearly provided much of his margin of victory. Can Clinton and Edwards stay above 30%? The gap is increasing fast: It's now 37% Obama.
9:35: Can Obama get to 40%? He is rising fast and he is now at 36%. And the storyline is clear: independents have carried the day for Obama (though I have not yet seen a projection of what the Democratic turnout proportions are). Meanwhile, Edwards and Clinton are basically tied -- proving that Edwards is getting a big boost from second choice preferences. Can Clinton avoid her nightmare scenario? Right now it's Obama-Edwards-Clinton. There's still 400 precincts to go and there is only 3 delegates separating Edwards and Clinton.

9:25pm: Obama is being projected the winner among Democrats by the networks.

With 70% reporting among Democrats, Obama has crossed 35% and Clinton has gone south of 31%. And here is more evidence of the Obama-Richardson deal. From the results it looks like Obama would not be where he is now without that (it's safe to assume at least a 3-4% boost). Republican numbers are not updating much.
9:20pm Evidence that second-choices are sinking Hillary: Richardson, Biden and Dodd are apparently viable nearly nowhere -- which means that nearly everyone backing them is rellocating which is awful news for Hillary Clinton. The TNR reports that at a precinct Clinton ended up trailing Edwards by a vote while she was ahead in the raw votes of the first count -- and Clinton gets one less delegate just because of that one raw vote (out of a total of more than 200). And this explains why Clinton is still trailing Edwards in the results despite coming in ahead of him in entrance polls. With 1200 precincts, it's Obama 35% and 31% for Clinton and Edwards.
9:15pm More talk about the deal: TNR's Crowley is now being told that Richardson's 17 people decided at the site to go for Obama and had not been told anything. Not sure what to think here. The press's take on Romney's defeat is emphasizing just how much Romney outspent Huckabee, which is not a conversation Romney wants to have. Meanwhile with almost 1000 precincts in, Obama is still ahead and very very slowly rising. It's still 34-32-31 with Clinton in third.
9:05pm: Entrance polls have been refined and now apparently show Obama narrowly ahead, which should ensure an Obama victory given that he is clearly benefiting from realignment. With almost 50% reporting in the Democratic race, Obama is starting to rise: 34% to 32% for Edwards and 31% for Clinton. Clearly big precincts are favoring Barack. Let's see how close Clinton can keep it. Meanwhile among Republicans: With 25% reporting Thompson is narrowly ahead of McCain.

9:00pm: Mike Huckabee is now being projected to win the Iowa caucuses by CNN and Fox. He is likely to win big.

9:00pm: More evidence of a Richardson-Obama deal via Ben Smith who reports the Richardson captain at his precinct told his group the campaign strategy is to go for Obama and told Smith he had been told this "informally." Meanwhile, Obama looks to have cleaned out in the precinct shown on C-Span, where his group is more than the double of Clinton's. This kind of large precinct will now start reporting, so numbers could change quickly.
8:55pm: With 15% of the GOP vote, Huckabee is up 36% to 23% on Romney with Thompson at 14% and McCain at 12%. On the Democratic side, it's 33% Edwards, 32% Obama and 32% Clinton... could hardly be tighter. Meanwhile, entrance polls of CNN: 57% of 17-29 year olds went for Obama and 11% for Obama, and among 65+ voters it's 45% Clinton and 17% for Obama.
8:45pm: Richardson seems to have indeed struck some sort of deal! The TNR's Crowley reports that in the precinct in which he is standing all 17 of Richardson's supporters collectively moved to Obama's group after Richardson was unviable. That's 17 out of 161 voters -- nearly 10%. That is some huge boost for Obama if it holds across precincts and a blow to Edwards who was hoping to pick-up these second choices.
8:38pm: The Obama campaign is now predicting 200,000 -- which could be a huge boost to his chances to win this out. We have now passed 10% precincts reporting and it's now 33% E, 32% C, 31% O. Couldn't be tighter -- but Obama's strongest counties are probably still to come. And as I already noted, turnout could be a huge boost for Obama and should also help Clinton distance Edwards at the end.
8:30pm: CNN's entrance poll says that "Hillary Clinton is holding a narrow edge over Barack Obama and John Edwards on the Democratic side." This is the first time an order has been given in the Obama-Clinton showdown; don't forget it in no way means Clinton will win -- though it could mean she is saved the disgrace of third-place. Out of 118 precincts reporting (which is something close to 8%), it's 36% for Edwards, 32% for Clinton and 28% for Obama. Once again, this does not include the big precincts so a lot is going to change.
8:20pm: An Obama adviser is talking about a Richardson-Obama deal on Fox... and suggesting that while there is no top-down order people might have seen these rumors online and been pushed thus to go for Obama. Meanwhile, entrance polls suggest 50% of caucus-goers on the Democratic side are first-time voters -- that's close to the DMR's model.
8:11pm: This is in no way meaningful but six precincts are already reporting on the Democratic side! Edwards has 39% of delegates, 34% for Obama and 25% for Obama. Keep in mind the first precincts to report are smaller rural precincts in which Edwards is stronger. Also, reports are that turnout is huge -- which means that it will take a lot of time to count hands.
8:05pm: First entrance polls are out from MSNBC and from CBS: Obama and Clinton on one side, Huckabee and Romney on the other are tied at the entrance (which is not good news for Clinton), but Edwards is trailing.
7:47pm: C-Span just interviewed a young first-time caucus-goer who's already arrived on site and who has not yet decided who she is voting for; she said she was waiting to talk to others during the deliberation phase. That tells you just about all you need to know about why it's impossible to know what's going to happen tonight. Meanwhile, Ambinder reports that "Richardson supporters said to be moving in lockstep to Obama" though he offers no details so it is unclear what he means by that -- has there been a deal after all? One more piece of news: It looks like Dodd could be dropping out if he does not get fourth place tonight (which seems rather unlikely).
7:30pm (all times Eastern): The doors of the caucuses are opening. The Democratic meetings could start in a matter of minutes, while the GOP is going to get going in half-an-hour. C-Span is airing a Democratic caucus, and C-Span 2 is going with a GOP one (though there is definitely much less to see in a Republican caucus). Ambinder is reporting some anecdotal evidence from Cedar Rapids where Democratic turnout was 120 in 04 and that number appears to be shattered today. If that holds across the state, it will bode well for Obama (and, perhaps, for Clinton depending on who these extra-people are).

Original post: Welcome to the first results thread of 2008! Numbers should start trickling in from small precincts as early as 7pm CT (8PM ET) and most precincts should be on their way to reporting by 9:30pm CT. It's also unclear when the media will be reporting their entrance polls -- and don't forget that there is no reason to think the leader in the entrance poll will still be ahead after realignment and delegate allocation. However, I do believe that the entrance numbers are any many ways much more valuable than the results that will be reported at the end of the night, so I will definitely try to report those as well.

Meanwhile, check my guidelines of what to expect tonight.

Setting expectations: A few guidelines

I will not make any definite predictions, because I sincerely believe that Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Romney and Huckabee all could emerge victorious tonight. I do have my sense of what is more probable and what would be more surprising, so I will offer a few small guidelines of what I am expecting.

Democrats, first place: All three candidates have very plausible scenarios to win this out: Hillary Clinton will win if she turns out first time voters who are registered Democrats, Barack Obama if he turns out independents, and John Edwards if he rides the second-choice preferences ti victory. My hunch is that a Clinton victory at this point is the least probable scenario, mainly because realignment will play at her disfavor. To put it simply: Clinton has to be leading by at least a few points prior at the entrance of the caucuses to win a plurality of delegates which gives her an extra hurdle that her two rivals don't have. That said, the benefits of a victory for Clinton would be huge, as she would then be in an ideal position to sweep the rest of the early states. A campaign that now looks so fragile could end up being much easier than predicted (just look at the trajectory of the Gore-Bradley match-up once Gore won New Hampshire).

Meanwhile, I would venture to say that an Edwards victory seems a bit more likely to me than an Obama victory because (1) I do believe independents will make up a larger proportion of voters than ever, but I doubt it will be as much as some are predicting; and (2) realignment should boost Edwards a bit more than it should boost Obama (except if the rumors of deals between Obama and Biden/Richardson are true, which we apparently won't know for now).

If Obama wins tonight, it will be a huge story that would reverbate massively in later states and would put Clinton's campaign in shambles. Obama will not have won the nomination yet at all, but he would have defeated the mighty Clinton machine and that will probably lead many in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada to take a whole new look at him. The Obama camp did take a risk, however, in letting expectations get slightly out of control in the past few days as one of the state chairs predicting a 200,000 people turnout and Obama repeatedly predicting victory. Compare that to the Clintonites are saying that they "already won just by being competitive" -- which is obviously a ridiculous argument considering that they were slightly ahead in polls until two months ago, but it at least sets up their spin in case they lose.

Democrats, third place: I would be more surprised if John Edwards comes in third than if Obama or Clinton do. He is the least dependent on turning out new voters, and he should be boosted up to at least second place as many backers of unviable candidates are likely to line up behind him. However, if turnout really shoots up tremendously and new-comers flood the caucuses, Edwards has the most to lose and could easily fall to third place. The race to avoid third is just as predicated on turnout than the race to be first. And obviously, both Obama and Clinton would face lots of problems going forward if they come in third -- especially if the other is the victor.

Republicans, first place: It will be Huckabee or Romney, of course, but I have very little to add to the fact that most polls show a tight race. A few days ago I would have said that Romney has caught up Huckabee and is likely to win, but Huckabee has proved remarkably resilient in the final days, the local media has barely covered Monday's infamous press conference, and Huckabee will be victorious if evangelicals turn out. But remember that Romney's campaign is much better organized and looks to be better equipped to get its supporters to caucus, whereas Huckabee has had much less time and money to get his team and lists together. Just because of the few points boost this could give Romney, I would say he is slightly more likely to win it tonight and keep his candidacy alive. (Update: MSNBC is now reporting that both the Romney and Huckabee internal polls have Huckabee narrowly ahead, so Huck's lead appears very much real with a few more hours to go).

Republicans, lower-tier: The one prediction I will risk: Rudy Giuliani comes in behind Ron Paul, which probably puts him in sixth position. And however much the Giuliani campaign is dismissing results from IA and NH as irrelevant to their big-state strategy, they're going to have a hard time spinning a sixth place showing. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Ron Paul were to jump to fourth place. As to the McCain surge, I do think Thompson's numbers are a bit understated in polls compared to McCain's given that the former's campaign is much better organized to make the most of Iowa.

Confusion reigns in Iowa (Updated)

Confusion reigns in Iowa today as to whether the Obama and Biden campaigns are trying to strike a voter-exchange deal. The Washington Post, not known for engaging in unsubstantiated gossip, reported that the two camps were talking earlier today: Obama would get Biden supporters in districts where Biden is unviable, and the Delaware Senator would get some extra Obama voters in places where Obama has "spare voters" (the concept of which, by the way, looks strikingly undemocratic). The Washington Post sourced this from both people in both the Biden and Obama campaigns.

But TPM has gotten both a Biden spokesperson and an Obama spokesperson to say on the record that there is no such talk going on. From Biden's comes a strong statement: "No discussions have taken place. We have not made any deals or arrangements. We are strong enough on our own." Hard to know what's going on at this point, but the stakes are very high: it is a deal like this that could ensure that Obama wins tonight -- or at least guarantee that he does not come in third.

Don't forget that there is no reason for the campaigns to have to publicize such a deal. Its enforcement will rest on precinct captains knowing what's going on and pushing their supporters towards a candidate. The order can come top-down at the last minute without it being really relayed to the media. Though such behind-the-scenes moves could also muddy anyone's showing if it looks to be too obscure and hidden from the public. So I for one doubt that Obama and Biden would be close to striking a deal if their spokesperson are denying it that intensely. It is for now impossible to know what is going on -- and the situation is looking increasingly confused.

Meanwhile, poor Fred Thompson is stuck having to argue he is not going to drop out in the coming days no matter what happens in Iowa. "This is absolutely made up out of whole cloth," said Thompson. This has got to be the nightmare of any campaign: Be stuck answering questions on Iowa television about whether you are 24 hours of withdrawing the morning of the first votes being cast. It's obviously impossible to know what Thompson is thinking. He has suggested he wants to get in second in Iowa -- and it is equally absurd for him to withdraw if he does not get that than it is for him to not withdraw if he can't even get double-digits in the state he has spent so much time in during the past few weeks.

And in New Hampshire, Suffolk released the third installment of its daily tracking poll:

• Among Republicans, Romney has climbed a bit since yesterday: Down 32% to 23% then, he is now trailing 29% to 25% against McCain. Huckabee is at 12% and Giuliani at 9%.
• Choice quote from the release: "Giuliani’s numbers have declined in seven consecutive polls, from a high of 37 percent in March 2007 to 9 percent as of Jan. 3, 2008."


• Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton is maintaining a double-digit lead up 39% to 23% for Obama and 17% for Edwards, who is still very much in the running -- at least for second place.

Keep these numbers in mind, as they will be very useful to see what the impact of Iowa will be in the coming days. The numbers that will be released tomorrow will still be pre-Iowa (taken on the 2nd and 3rd) but the evolution on Saturday and Sunday will tell us a lot about what kind of bounce the tonight's winners are getting.

Update: And the confusion continues. Now it is the New York Times which is reporting that Obama has a deal with Richardson to do pretty much what the Washington Post said he was going to do with Biden. The WaPo now is saying that the Biden-Obama deal has fallen through.

The NYT however is saying that the Obama-Richardson arrangement has already been made. In other words: Obama offered to help Biden be fourth and the deal didn't work out, so he is now going to help Richardson be fourth? Both Richardson and Obama spokesperson are once again denying there is a deal, though the explanation of Richardson's spokesperson is that "Richardson will be viable in nearly every precinct so the point is moot." If that's their reason as to why there is no deal...

A few more tea-leaves: Watch the proportion of independents

In what is very symbolic of just how confused the race is, a new ARG poll was just released with Clinton looking stronger than ever just as I was ready to launch this post that acknowledges the CW that Obama is favored. The reason is clear: 83% of the ARG sample are registered Democrats, and Clinton gets 38% among those. The controversial DMR poll had a controversial sample of 50% of Democrats only. Turnout will likely end up being between those two numbers -- and how much the portion of independents matters is obvious: Obama gets 45% among the 17% non-registered voters. Here are the numbers:

• Clinton leads 34% to Obama's 25% and 21% Edwards. Biden has risen to 8%.
• But it is also obvious that second-choices could sink Clinton: 31% of Biden supporters say they will choose Obama on the second ballot, 25% Edwards and 12% Clinton. Among Richardson voters, it's 31% Edwards and 19% Obama.


• Among Republicans, Huckabee has taken the lead back -- he was down by 9% a few days ago, underscoring the craziness of the GOP race as well: He is now ahead 29% to 24%. Thompson is third with 13%, with McCain at 11%. Giuliani gets 85 and Ron Paul 6%.

As I said, Clinton's 9% lead is hardly surprising if ARG is projecting an 83% registered Democrat turnout model -- and that seems highly unlikely given Obama's outreach to independents. The question is just how low that number will get. The higher it stays, the better for Clinton and Edwards.

One more note: The blogosphere and progressives like Krugman are turning against Obama with an increasingly intense passion. Two weeks ago Kos was pretty much endorsing Obama and he has since then retracted his quasi-support and he blasted him again yesterday. Not that Kos is representative of the Left in general, but this switch is still emblematic enough to deserve to be highlighted because this sentiment is being echoed by many commentators at this point. And it is likely to be a Clinton and Edwards talking point in 24 hours if Obama wins tonight (that he won on the strength of non-Democrats):

Obama has made a cottage industry out of attacking the dirty fucking hippies on the left, from labor unions, to Paul Krugman, to Gore and Kerry, to social security, and so on. People think I was being ticky tack with the Gore thing, and in isolation it would've been but a minor non-event. But it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me, yet another in a pattern of attacks against Democrats and their constituencies. He is the return of Bill Clinton-style triangulating personified... I'd rather have our candidate elected promising progressive reform, especially in a year where the American people seem to crave such solutions.

It's useless at this point to speculate on different scenarios and what they might mean. It's pretty much obvious that Edwards needs a win, that an Obama victory would make him a huge favorite in New Hampshire, that Clinton coming in third could very well sink her faster than is conceivable, that Romney losing would be devastating, that McCain coming in third would give him a boost in NH, and that Giuliani in sixth place could have bad consequences, even with Rudy dismissing the caucuses.

And now add one more consequence: Fred Thompson will likely drop out if he does not get a good showing in Iowa, which most sources are placing at 15%. He would likely endorse McCain soon after he dropped out -- and that could be one more boost for the AZ Senator (though not in NH where Thompson is stuck at 3%).

It's caucus day: Richardson and Biden going for Obama?

Hard to believe that primary voting is starting, pretty much a year after it all started. And what a time John McCain and Barack Obama have chosen to pick. Look at the last installment of the Zogby tracking poll out this morning:

• Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton has crashed to 24%, down from 28% yesterday and 30% two days ago. Barack Obama is now at 31%, up from 28% yesterday. And John Edwards is second at 27%. There is very little movement in the second-tier, with Richardson at 7% and Biden at 5%.
• The Zogby numbers are now very similar to the DMR poll -- just as in 2004 when Zogby's tracking took a few more days to pick-up the Edwards and Kerry surge.


• Among Republicans, Zogby has Huckabee rising at 31%, Romney staying mostly stable at 25%, while Thompson takes third place alone for the first time at 11%. McCain is at 10%, tied with... Ron Paul who has some momentum. Giuliani is at his lowest ever, at 6%.

And Obama might get a huge boost if this is confirmed, but there are now reports that Joe Biden and Bill Richardson's precincts captains might encourage their backers to go for Obama if their candidates are unviable. This would truly be huge and such a coordinated move would add many points to Obama and pretty much guarantee a win -- it could also spell huge trouble for Edwards whose hopes are pinned on winning second-choice preferences.

Is is true? Biden's move is being kind of confirmed by a Biden staffer to the HuffPost as he said that Biden backers are likely to migrate to Obama. But Biden's spokesman said there is "no deal with any other candidate" -- though that doesn't really answer the question, since that is not what the rumor is about. Kucinich, after all, asked his backers to realign for Obama without any deal being struck.

On the other hands, reports about Richardson's move are being confirmed by the Iowa Independent. And this is huge, huge, huge. Richardson is polling 5-8% in polls, and even half of that moving to Obama would be a tremendous boost that would get him so many more delegates. And it would also be a huge surprise, symbolic of Clinton's fall: Until a month ago, Bill Richardson constantly rushed to her defense, obviously gunning for being the veep. (Update: Ben Smith is skeptical of any such vote transfer deals).

More than ever, the expectation at this point is that Clinton will get third place -- and that Obama is succeeding in turning out in independents and securing a lead -- at least in the entrance poll (whether Edwards can overtake him post-caucus politicking is still debated). This does not mean that Clinton will lose at all, obviously, but much of the coverage of the past 3 days has been set by the storyline of Obama's momentum again -- and notice how this is almost entirely due to the DMR's poll on Monday. Until then, it was all about Edwards's move and Obama's troubles. Talk about a poll setting the storyline.

Democrats: It's all about turnout

The outcome of the Democratic race is entirely resting on turnout at this point, much more than on the GOP side. Since the Des Moines Register poll was released on Monday, all campaigns and observers are speculating about who will show up to caucus tomorrow night: How many new caucus-goers will there be, and what will be the proportion of independents and Republicans who will go attend the Democratic caucuses?

These have always been questions in the background of coverage of the race, but they picked-up with particular intensity when the DMR poll highlighted just how much increased turnout and independent voter participation could boost Barack Obama. The Obama campaign has actively reached out to non-Democrats in Iowa to get them to come caucus tomorrow and while Hillary Clinton is also heavily depending on first-time caucus goers, a huge boost in turnout would no doubt be due to Obama's outreach.

But is the Obama campaign disillusional? Gordon Fisher, the Iowa co-chair of the Obama campaign, told Marc Ambinder today that he was projecting a turnout of 200,000. That would be huge: 125,000 Iowans voted in the Democratic caucuses in 2004, and while it appears certain that tomorrow's turnout will beat that given the unprecedented ground game of the top candidates, 200,000 seems like too much. Possible, sure, and if it happens Obama is in awesome shape -- the DMR poll basically models a similar boost.

But rival campaigns are (nervously) mocking the possibility of such a gigantic turnout increase. And Obama staffers have acknowledged that their own internal polls do not project similar proportion of independent. Yet, their internal polls apparently have Obama leading as well -- so keep that in mind because it probably means they are also betting on many a significant proportion of independents.

Meanwhile, both Obama and Clinton aired a two-minute ad this evening around the evening news as their closing argument. There really isn't any big surprise in their ads, so I will not comment on them at length but do watch them if you are interested: the Clinton ad is here, and Obama's is available here.

And one more interesting story tonight: Hillary Clinton has chosen to spend the last night before the Iowa caucuses on David Letterman -- his first show back after Letterman reached an agreement with the writer's union which is on strike. I guess that there isn't much more a candidate can do at this point, but how much a boost can Letterman possibly provide in the caucuses? We'll have to stay tuned to see whether Clinton is going to use this for some kind of announcement.

Meanwhile, Clinton can at least take some comfort in her leads -- albeit sometimes small -- in today's New Hampshire polls:

• Suffolk's new daily numbers hae Clinton up massively, 37% to 20% with 16% for Edwards.
• The poll of Franklin Pierce have somewhat tighter numbers: 32% to 28%, with Edwards at 19%.

Notice that Edwards is moving up in New Hampshire and while he is still far from the two front-runners he has set himself in a good position to surge in case he gets a win tomorrow and we could very well have a three-way New Hampshire race in our hands.

Morning poll delivery: Iowa and New Hampshire all tied up

The daily installment of the Zogby tracking poll is out and it has some minor movement in Barack Obama, Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney's favor:

• Among Democrats, Obama gains two points and Clinton loses two: They are now tied at 28% for the first time. Edwards gets 26% -- putting the three in a complete tie, but that's before realignment.
• Among Republicans, the race at the top gets closer and is now separated by only 2 points: 28% to 26% in Huckabee's favor (it was 29-25 yesterday). Behind, John McCain holds at 12% and Thompson rises at 12%.

Zogby points out that Obama is gaining among independents and, though he warns that the gains are small, how much Obama can rely on independents has become the dominant story in these finals days because of the DMR poll. In 2004, Zogby's tracking caught the Edwards rise but a few days late -- is something similar happening here?

Meanwhile, CNN/WMUR has a new poll from New Hampshire:

• In the Democratic race, Hillary Clinton leads 34% to 30% for Obama, with Edwards at 17%.
• This is a slight improvement from the last CNN poll of two weeks ago in which Obama was up 30% to 28%.


• In the GOP race, Romney and McCain are tied at 29%, with Giuliani at 12% and Huckabee at 10%. Don't forget that McCain led in his first poll from the state yesterday, and we have seen a few polls with the two candidates tied -- which in itself is a huge surge for McCain. The trendlines are clearly in his favor but at this point any movement will be dictated by the results of Iowa on Thursday.

One other key statistic: 63% of independents who are planning on voting in NH say they will do so in the Democratic primary. That number was 54% a month ago. McCain and Obama are the two candidates who want to benefit from independents, so if that number goes down again it would hurt Obama and benefit McCain, and vice-versa. This competition is one of the most fascinating dynamics of the campaign since it atypically cuts across party lines.

And one another news item this morning: The Politico is now reporting that the total amount of money the Huckabee campaign spent on the negative anti-Romney material over the week-end (the material which the candidate then scraped though he showed some of it to the press) was $150,000. For a campaign with scarce resources, that's a pretty large sum. Could Huckabee not have made up his mind before shooting the ads? It's not as if he was not told of the decision prior to the preparations starting.

Iowa Update: Fourth poll of the day, and the tone of the Huckabee campaign

Strategic Vision has been faithfully releasing a poll of the Iowa caucuses every week and here is their latest delivery:

• In the Democratic race, Barack Obama is ahead with 32% with John Edwards at 29% and Hillary Clinton at 27%. Last week, Strategic Vision had Obama at 30%, Clinton at 29% and Edwards at 28%. And that was a decline for Obama, who was up 3% the week before and had an 8 point lead the prior week.
• Note, however, that this is the only one of the day's four polls that has Obama ahead. As we saw with yesterday's DMR poll, there is a very clear factor explaining the variations: Every pollster is using a different turnout model, and it appears impossible today to predict who will turn out on Thursday night; and what will be the proportion of first-time caucus goers?


• Among Republicans, Mitt Romney is rising and has erased much of Huckabee's surge: He is ahead today by a tiny 30% to 28%. Last week, Huckabee was up 29% to 27%, and two weeks ago it was 31% to 25%. The trendline in Romney's favor is clear, and confirms other Iowa polls released today
• But it is the numbers behind that are truly stunning: John McCain now reaches 16%, with Fred Thompson at 13%. That is a shocking number for McCain, a candidate who has barely campaigned in Iowa for the past few months (though it's not like the other lower-tier candidates but Thompson have). Last week, McCain got 13% and 8% two weeks ago. Here too, this trend is confirmed by all other polls.

Interestingly, GOP Senator Grassley of Iowa retracted his earlier prediction that Romney would win the caucuses, saying that it had become too close to call. What is strange is that Grassley issued that bold prediction at the height of Huckabee's surge when the former Arkansas Governor looked unstoppable. And now that Romney is looking to have a chance to pull off a victory again, Grassley suddenly senses the depth of movement in Huckabee's favor?!

More seriously, the big story since yesterday's now infamous Huckabee press conference is the tone of his campaign. He pledged to stay positive in the last 3 days of the campaign -- and he made a big show out of it, assembling reporters and accusing them of cynicism. So the press cannot be blamed for scrutinizing Huckabee very closely to see if he is just showing off or if he is serious. And that gets us a deluge of stories about Huckabee's subtle digs at Romney (today on CNN) or this report of how Huckabee surrogate Chuck Norris (one of the first big Huckabee endorsers) blasted Romney today in Huckabee's presence without the candidate intervening.

As has been already noted, the local media looks to be giving Huckabee somewhat of a pass, but the national press is having a field day with Huckabee's hypocritically positive tone since his decision to air that attack ad during the press conference. Some of that coverage is bound to trickle down to caucus-goers (who, after all, must be committed politicos to go and caucus for hours). And many of the questions aimed at Huckabee are now reflecting this skepticism, not a good thing to have going for you 48 hours before an election.

Obama and Iowa liberals: Candidate gets pounded from the Left, but semi-endorsed by Kucinich

Barack Obama has been criticized for much of the past two months for attacking his rivals from the right -- first on Social Security, then on health care. 48 hours from Iowa, Obama has just drawn a new round of criticism for his latest comments on past Democratic nominees and on union expenditures; but he also secured a potentially deal-making show of support: Dennis Kucinich urged his backers to join Obama's group in the precincts in which Kucinich is unviable (which is likely to be most of them).

This should not procure a big number of raw votes to Obama, but given the election mode of the caucuses it could help him get one extra delegate here and there with the help of Kucinich backers, and that extra-delegate in some precincts could go a long way towards boosting the percentage of Obama's delegate allocation -- the results that are reported at the end of the night. It is through deals like this that victories are secured in the Iowa caucuses.

In 2004, of course, John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich allied themselves on the day of the election and told their supporters to join together for the group with the most members in places where one (or both) of them was unviable. So Kucinich's endorsement of Obama (that he justifed saying they both embodied change) is going to be taken as a direct rebuke of Edwards -- which is especially strange given that Edwards has gone much further to the Left and towards Kucinich this time than in 2004. And it is also interesting that this does not appear to be the result of a concerted move between Obama and Kucinich. Will Biden, Dodd and Richardson make similar announcement or cut deals?

Meanwhile, Obama is having a growing problem with his party's left. The latest controversy has its roots in the Edwards-Obama controversy of two weeks ago during which Obama accused Edwards of benefiting from special interest aids because of 527 groups helping him. In response, Krugman blasted Obama for insinuating that unions and groups like Emily's List should not be involved in elections when they are such key constituencies of the party.

Now, Obama has picked up his anti-527 rhetoric denouncing the "Washington money" of special interests that are pouring in Iowa, and unions are fighting back, blasting away at the Illinois Senator. The president of AFT told the Politico, "I’m taken aback that somebody like Obama would think that Oprah Winfrey has a greater right to participate in the political process than the 4 million people I represent." And many other union heads have criticized Obama as well.

The second controversy has emerged out of Obama's following comments: "I don't want to go into the next election starting off with half the country already not wanting to vote for Democrats -- we've done that in 2004, 2000." Obama perhaps did not intend this as a specific indictement of Gore and Kerry's divisiveness, but that is how it is being interpreted, with many bloggers and Democrats already responding that not only Gore won in 2000 but Kerry can hardly be blamed for the negative onslaught that followed his nomination. Though this is very much part of Obama's standard campaign argument, that he is the only Democrat who can unify the country whereas others will divide it and polarize it further.

The Prospect's Ezra Klein summarizes his worries about Obama by explaining that Obama has drawn distinctions in the run-up to the caucuses by blasting his opponents from the right:

Obama's comfort attacking liberals from the right is unsettling, and if he does win Iowa, it will not be a victory that either supporters or the media ascribe to the more progressive elements of his candidacy. Instead, they will search for the distinctions he's drawn, and, sadly, a number of those distinctions point away from the heart-quickening progressivism of much of this race, and back towards the old politics of centrist caution and status quo bias.

And the fact that the DMR poll highlighted that Obama's win will come from a huge surge in turnout among independents and Republicans will likely not reassure those who hold such concerns.

Markos joined the Obama critics a week after saying he would probably cast his ballot for the Illinois Senator; he now pretty much retracted himself on the basis of Obama's latest comments: "You have to have your head stuck deep in the sand to deny that Obama is trying to close the deal by running to the Right of his opponents. And call me crazy, but that's not a trait I generally appreciate in Democrats, no matter how much it might set the punditocracy's hearts a flutter." Kos is obviously not representative of the Left and of progressives, but when such criticism starts being added up it becomes striking how the candidate that presents himself as the darling of anti-establishment progressives is being viewed by an increasing number as the most reactionary.

3 new caucus polls: 7 days from New Hampshire, all eyes are on Iowa

It's only the first day in 2008, and it's hard to imagine that not only Iowa is voting in 2 days, but New Hampshire is just around the corner as well. In a week, we will know the results from both early contests -- but (almost) everyone is in Iowa. The NH Secretary of State was obsessed with making sure his state gets the attention it supposedly deserves, but for now it has been forgotten.

And with that, we get three new polls from Iowa today, and the Democratic results are very different from yesterday's DMR poll as Clinton is leading in two and Edwards in one. But we for once know exactly the reason of these variations, as the weirdness of the DMR model (60% first-time caucus-goer, 40% independents) is now well-documented and is based on a turnout of between 180,000 and 200,000, hugely superior to 2004. It's not an impossible turnout, and if it happens there is no doubt Obama would win the day.

The first poll comes to us from CNN and was conducted Dec. 26-30, more or less the same dates as the DMR survey:

• Hillary Clinton is ahead 33% to 31% with Edwards crashing at 22%. Two weeks ago, it was 30 for Clinton, 28 for Obama and 26 for Edwards.
• In the GOP, Romney is ahead 31% to Huckabee's 28% and Thompson manages to take third place at 13%, with McCain at 10%. Ron Paul and Giuliani both get 8%. Two weeks ago, Huckabee was up 33% to Romney's 25%.

The second poll is the latest delivery from Zogby's tracking numbers and they have little movement since yesterday:

• Hillary Clinton stays at 30% followed by Obama at 26%. Edwards gets 25%. Yesterday it was 30-26-26.
• Obama does get a bit weaker among second-choice preferences, as Edwards leads 30% to Obama's 22% and Clinton's 15%.
• Among Republicans, Huckabee holds on to a 29% to 25% lead with McCain at 12% and Thompson at 10%. Yesterday, it was 29-27-13-8.

And third is an Insider Advantage poll which only released Democratic numbers -- with Obama very far behind:

• Hillary Clinton leads 30% to 29% for Edwards and 22% for Obama. And in a fascinating set of numbers, Edwards gets a solid lead when the second-choice preferences are plugged in: 41% to 34% for Clinton and 25% for Obama. What more proof do we need that gaps are going to be created very quickly come the end of the caucuses and delegate allocation? Note that Edwards got a total of 11% from realignment!
• Two weeks ago, the numbers were 30% for Edwards and 26% for Clinton and 24% for Obama, so some movement in Clinton's favor here.


• As for the GOP race, the pollster refuses to release the numbers: "I’ve seen enough GOP polls in 28 years to know when some sort of shift is taking place. The Republican numbers right now are all over the place and, in my experience, that means the numbers probably won’t settle until immediately prior to the voting." The last Insider Advantage poll had Huckabee up 28% to 25% on Romney, so keep that in mind when hearing about "some short of shift."

The analysis of the Democratic numbers of these polls has basically been done at the start of this post: If Obama manages to inspire enough independents to come out and vote for the first time, he will likely pull off a win; if the turnout model stays closer to what we are used to seeing, look at these three polls for an indication of where things might be heading and things then look better for Clinton.

Among Republicans, Huckabee is barely holding off at this point and many polls are showing Romney back in the lead. Even the DMR survey had some signs of trouble with Huckabee's supporters less committed to going to vote on Thursday night than Romney backers. With that, Huckabee's hypocritical move yesterday could be very important. I had started to link to local media stories to get a sense of whether they were as brutal with Huck than the national press corps.

Marc Ambinder finishes the job today and finds out that they weren't at all: KCCI, for example, the Iowa affiliate of CBS, reported that Huckabee decided to not go negative and still aired a portion of the ad! Which, of course, was exactly Huckabee's intention and hope: Get credit for being positive and the benefits of going negative. Compare that to the AP story that does not shy from using the word "hypocrisy."

Final DMR poll smashes all conventional wisdom and has Obama gaining

The much-anticipated Des Moines Register poll, talked-up as the most reliable survey of the Iowa caucuses, was released last night after a week of speculation and rumors. In 2004, the DMR poll had Kerry, Edwards, Dean and Gephardt in the correct order -- a mighty accomplishment given the fluidity of that race. And with the new survey sure to get a lot of press, it smashes the conventional wisdom that was developing in all polls and observations from the trail during the past week. More precisely, the three storylines that are undermined here are (1) the Edwards surge (2) Obama's struggles and (3) Huckabee's sinking.

• In the GOP poll, Mike Huckabee leads Mitt Romney 32% to 26%. McCain confirms his rise as he comes in at 13%, ahead of Fred Thompson. Ron Paul and Fred Thompson are tied at 9%... and Giuliani is very far behind at 5%!
  


• In the Democratic race, Obama increases his lead in the last DMR poll and is now ahead 32% to 25% for Clinton and 24% for Edwards. Richardson is very far behind at 6%. And in what is an even more encouraging news for Obama, he does better and Clinton does worse in every day of polling.

In a sign of just how much the DMR poll has the potential to change the narrative, the Edwards campaign literally immediately came out swinging with a release blasting the poll's accuracy. And I have to admit that this poll truly contains some very uncommon turnout projections in the Democratic race:

• Independents: 50% of respondents are registered Democrats, and 40% are independents. In 2004, 80% of caucus-goers were registered Democrats. One has to be a registered Democrat to participate in the caucus, but anyone can register at the caucus site on Thursday night -- so that is not a problem (though it still means that people have to be ready to do that step).
• Among the 50% of Democrats in the sample, Clinton leads 33% to 27% for Obama and 25% for Edwards. Among the 40% of independents, Obama is up with 39% with 25% for Edwards and 15% for Clinton!


• First-time caucus-goers: 60% of respondents would be first-time caucus goers. In 2004, that proportion was only 20%. If the DMR's projection is true, it would be a huge gigantic increase of turnout and while the ground games are better than ever this year, are they really that much better? And first-time caucus goers massively benefit Obama, who draws 72% of his support from them.

This is not to say that it is impossible that this huge a group of Iowans go to caucus for the first time, nor that many of them are independents that like Obama so much that they are ready to go and change their registration on January 3rd. But if Obama inspires enough to move such huge crowds, he certainly deserves to win -- and the GOP should start trembling for November.

The issue, of course, is that no other poll has detected this huge a boost among independents for Obama. And much of the conventional wisdom off the ground was that the poll numbers were ticking up for both Hillary and Edwards. What, then, has led the Des Moines Register to assume that there could be this significant an influx of independent novices in the caucuses? Is it just an outlier? Given the reputation of the pollsters, they might be on to something -- but we will have to wait and see Thursday night.

Oh, and happy new year!

Last stretch in Iowa: Zogby updates his polls, Edwards rises and Huckabee attacks

Zogby updated their Iowa tracking poll for the second day (here is yesterday's edition). There is some movement towards Edwards and McCain -- and there was already lots of buzz for Edwards prior to this poll coming out!

• On the Democratic side, Clinton is up 30% to 26% for both Obama and Edwards. Yesterday, Clinton was up 31% to 27% for Obama with 24% for Edwards.
• The second choice preferences still favor Edwards: 28% to 25% for Obama and 14% for Hillary -- though this is actually a slight improvement from yesterday.


• Among Republicans, the race is still a toss-up with Huckabee up on Romney 29% to 27%, a statistical tie. It was 29-28 yesterday. McCain goes up from 11% to 13% -- and Zogby reports that McCain was at 15% on Sunday alone, so expect him to rise even more in the coming days. Thompson is at 8%, and Giuliani and Paul get 7%.

Democrats: Edwards v. Obama

Edwards is truly putting himself in the position of favorite with a few days to go, reclaiming the momentum he had for most of the spring at the most ideal moment. Not only is he clearly rising in public polls, but there is plenty of rumors that the private polls of candidate show the same thing which is pushing Obama to go after Edwards with increasing urgency. Just look at Obama's latest attack on Edwards, once again on the subject of the 527s:

You know, you can't on one hand argue that you're going to go after the fat cats and then we have hundreds of thousands of dollars coming in from who knows who and it means that there's less accountability, less disclosure, and if that's the game that we play then there's nothing to prevent those same corporate lobbyists that John Edwards decries from doing the exact same thing to us so there's just go to be some consistency and, you know, straightforwardness in how we approach these issues.

And the Obama-Edwards showdown took the form of a full-blown back-and-forth this week-end over the meaning of change. It started with Edwards critizing Obama's focus on hope and negotiation, chargint that "You can't nice these people to death." Obama answered by summarizing Edwards's argument with a disdainful: "The argument goes that the only way to bring about change is to be angry."

At least this is a clear choice Democrats have to make: Do they want to go down the path of compromise or of more direct confrontation -- and do they believe that special interests can be sat at a table and be convince to give up some of their power? This is clearly well too simplistic a way of putting it, but it is striking that both candidates are embracing this simplicity in the final strech, eager to draw some distinctions.

Republicans: How far can McCain rise?

On the Republican side, the big story come Thursday night could very well be John McCain if he continues to rise like this -- and just think of how much damage he could do in New Hampshire 5 days later if he gets momentum out of Iowa (something that was unthinkable merely two weeks ago). And the question now is slowly becoming: Is it conceivable that Romney wins Iowa... but then loses New Hampshire? Or is a Romney comeback in Iowa such a big story that it sucks out the oxygen of McCain's good result?

And the big problem of McCain's surge is that there isn't much to cover: McCain is not visibly campaigning in Iowa. Most of the action is between Romney and Huckabee and we have hit a new milestone today: Huckabee reportedly shot his own attack ads on Sunday against Romney. He also called Mitt "dishonest" and said Romney should apologize to him. It's been three-four weeks that Romney has been airing his attacks ads against Huck and that Thompson and him are sending out mailer after mailer... and Huckabee had yet to fight back. He has clearly lost ground in the state and is looking increasingly vulnerable, and with three days to go before the caucuses he apparently decided to pound back. Now we might have 3 days of brutal back-and-forth between the two front-runners. That could make them both lose ground which would be good for... who else... McCain who is looking to be everyone's second choice right now.

One last note: The Des Moines Register poll -- awaited by all political junkies for a week now -- will be out tonight.

Two new polls bring good news for Romney, Edwards

We are served with two new Iowa polls this Sunday morning and, for once, they both have similar results and bring good news to John Edwards and Mitt Romney.

First up, a McClatchy-MSNBC poll taken from December 26th to 28th:

• Among Democrats, it's a three-way tie with John Edwards at 24%, Hillary Clinton at 23% and Barack Obama at 22%. Two weeks ago, Clinton got 27%, Obama 25% and Edwards 21%. And there is some movement in the second-tier, with Richardson up 3 at 12% and Biden up 3 at 9%.
• In a key finding, the pollster asked respondents to choose between the big three (something that many will have to do come January 3rd) and Edwards jumped up to a big lead: 33% to 26% for both of his rivals. In other words, Edwards has a significant advantage among second-choice preferences.


• There is also a lot of movement in the GOP race -- and Romney has taken the lead back (that's three polls in a row at this point, for those who are counting). He gets 27% compared to Huckabee's 23%. In the battle for third-place, Thompson at 14% is tied with McCain at 13%. Three weeks ago, Huckabee was ahead 31% to 20% -- some big catch-up by Romney.

Next up is Zogby partnered with C-Span who has started a tracking poll that will be updated daily right up until Thursday:

• Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton gets 31%, Obama gets 27% and Edwards 24% -- which suggests there is some distance between them.
• But here again Edwards has a more than significant edge in second-choice preferences: He is the second choice of 30% of voters, versus 25% for Obama... and 12% for Clinton.
• When the supporters of non-viable candidates are asked to realign, however, Clinton keesp her lead -- and the gap has only slightly tightened (since there aren't that many supporters of non-viable candidates in the first place): 36% for Clinton, 33.5% for Obama and 31% for Edwards. 


• The Republican race also has the Romney-Huckabee fight back in a tie, with Huckabee up 28% to 27%. McCain gets 11%, Thompson 8% and Giuliani 7%.

A few quick notes:

The second-choice of Democrats: This could clearly be the deal-maker come Thursday night, and Edwards's huge lead among second-choice preferences in both polls (and confirmed by most others) suggests he is better positioned than the two others to win the caucuses. On the other hand, Clinton looks set to lose much of her advantage once second-choice preferences kick-in. And this confirms what I said yesterday: Clinton will likely need to come in the caucuses with a significant edge to get a tiny victory, since Edwards and Obama look like they will be able to close some of the gap once realignement kicks in. And that also means that gaps are likely to create them very quickly: Look how quickly Edwards jumped up to a 7% lead in that MSNBC poll! However Clinton does have some hope in the fact that there aren't that many Democrats who will be asked to realign (see the Zogby poll). 

Romney's expectations: A month ago, everyone expected Romney to win Iowa and he was likely to get nothing at all from such a victory. Now that he has a good chance of winning, it would be a major story if he managed to pull it through when he seemed so utterly lost just a few weeks ago. Clearly, the pounding that Huckabee is receiving is starting to make him drop -- and we will see in the Zogby poll of the next few days if he goes down even further. There are ads running against Huckabee in the state, and not only because of Romney. Thompson sent out a few anti-Huckabee mailers, and the Club for Growth is still running its ads as well. The press is pounding away on the foreign policy mistakes, and Huckabee is barely responding to any of it. Iowa is back into a tie, and Romney's superior organization could very well do the rest of the trick.

Third-place in Iowa: Curse for a Democrat, Blessing for a Republican

A contrast between the GOP and the Democratic race is that third-place finish is the prize almost all Republican candidates are running after, while it is the curse that could doom a Democratic campaign.

On the Republican side, there are four candidates with a decent shot at third place. With Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney battling at the top, McCain, Thompson, Giuliani and Ron Paul could all come in third. Polls have the group within 6-7% of each other, which basically means that they are all within the margin of error and swapping places. Of the four, McCain and Giuliani had given up Iowa months ago -- and it is a testament to Thompson's steady drop that he has been unable to secure an advantage over them in a state he has campaigned in aggressively.

John McCain, of course, came back to the state a few days this week, boosted by some polls that showed him suddenly competitive and a lot of buzz that he is everyone's second choice. And today, it was Rudy's turn to go back to Iowa. And get this: It was only Giuliani's 19th day in Iowa -- versus 40 for McCain. In striking distance of a decent showing, Giuliani is looking to get some votes in places he was not expecting to go back to. A difference of only 4% could make the difference between sixth place and third -- and a major shift in the media narrative.

As for Ron Paul, he is the big question mark of the race. He has a ton of money and he could saturate the airwaves with as much advertisements as Huckabee (probably not of Romney, but at least try and get close); and while Paul is up on air, he is spending significantly less than his rivals (the same is true in New Hampshire). The reason seems to obviously be that Paul wants to save some money for an independent run later in the year -- but he could literally insure that he would get a solid showing if he was more committed to getting the job done.

Among Democrats, of course, the dynamic is very different. Though there can always be a major unexpected shift in any race, it would be quite shocking if one of the big three collapsed behind Biden or Richardson. And the race right now is as tied as could be between John Edwards, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. That means that the race is not only to determine who will win the caucuses -- but also to avoid coming in third.

Adding to the likely agony of the third Democrat are the caucus rules. I am not going to explain the whole process again here (check out my explanation here if you are not up to date), but the problem of viability and of realignment means that margins can artificially expand very quickly, so that a margin of a few raw individual votes can become a wider one when delegate allocation is taken up into account. Look at the 2004 results: Kerry got 38% and Gephardt only 11%, but it is very unlikely that there was such a gap among caucus-goers when they entered the caucus-place.

In other words, even if Iowa Democrats enter their caucus place on Thursday night divided something like 30-29-28, the final results that will be reported at the end of the night can very well have a 10% or more margin between the first and the third place finisher. And it seems to me at least that with her weak second-choice preferences, Clinton could be most at risk of sinking far behind once realignment kicks in -- whereas if Clinton is in a position of winning the caucuses, Obama and Edwards would probably be able to better keep the margins close. Though it will also all depend on whether each campaign (especially Edwards's) issues directives to precincts captains about helping/hurting another candidate (more on that to come sometime this week).

Whoever comes in third will be in big trouble and start bleeding support in the later contests. This is an especially large risk for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama (Edwards would probably be fatally harmed even with a second place showing given that he needs a win here to be able to really continue his campaign). With New Hampshire looming 5 days later, third-place for either of these candidates could very well cost them a victory in the Granite State. Whereas a third-place showing for McCain could mean a big boost on January 8th.

ARG shows Clinton and Romney leading, as Huck continues to sink on foreign policy

Six days after its pre-Christmas poll that showed a 14% lead for Clinton and a tightened Republican race, ARG releases yet another survey from Iowa taken from December 26th to the 28th. The previous poll was criticized for being taken during the week-end preceding Christmas, and at least this survey was in the field at the same time as other polls like the Research 2000 one (and probably the DMR one as wel). It will make it harder to dismiss the results of this poll:

• Hillary Clinton is still ahead, 31% to 24% for both John Edwards and Barack Obama. The race has tightened since Monday but Clinton's lead is still larger from what we have seen from other institutes.
• In the GOP race, Mitt Romney is now in the lead and has jumped up to 32%. Huckabee holds at 23%, while McCain comes in at 11%. Thompson has 7% and Giliani and Paul are at 6%.

In the Democratic race, most polls are showing a tied race -- and candidates are swapping leads, though it is noteworthy that ARG is the only polling group that has shown any kind of significant lead (both times for Clinton) in the past 10 days or so. One thing we should keep in mind: It is likely that Clinton has to come in the caucuses with a few points lead to hope for the win given that she still looks to be the weakest on second choice preferences. 

As for the Republicans, it is hard to believe that Romney has that big of a lead now, but don't forget that the private poll reported by Novak this morning also had Huckabee slipping and Romney taking the lead. If anything, this confirms that the GOP race is still very much open: Huckabee probably peaked too early, and is now trying to keep his lead alive and survive the ponding he is taking from the rest of the field and from the press. And, as I have already said before many times, don't forget that Romney's organizational edge is going to help him catch up at least a few points come caucus night.

Huckabee has 5 more days to hold himself together. His fall has been predicted many times before, with every new negative story that has come out and that was presented as the beginning of the end for Huckabee. It is undeniable that his surge has been halted by thedeluge of negative stories on immigration, Arkansas pardons; but the consequences have not yet been too dramatic. But he is really hurting himself now with his foreign policy errors.

Since Bhutto's assasination, he committed many mistakes relating to Pakistan. And instead of being extra-careful as a result, Huckabee just fed the press mill further by saying that John Bolton, Bush's former UN ambassador, was part of his foreign policy team. He described him as someone with whom he has “spoken or will continue to speak.”. The problem: Bolton responded that he has never spoken to Huckabee... This was a complete unforced error, and one that Huckabee should have no problem avoiding especially wen he is drawing extra-security on foreign policy.

Update: Marc Ambinder suggests that Huckabee's foreign policy mistakes are making him look even more authentic to GOP voters in Iowa. While that might be a stretch, there is no question that Huckabee's surge was in the first place due to the fact that Republican voters are unhappy about all their other choices and have only felt passion for Huckabee. That passion and aura of authenticity that Hucakbee is carrying with him is bobviously what is protecting him from the pounding he is receiving and has allowed him to survive a month-long deluge of negative stories. That said, there is a point at which even "authentic" candidate must pass a competence test; and whether or not Huckabee is qualified for the job (he was after all governor of a not-that-small state, so there is no reason to think he is less qualified than someone like Romney or Obama), his mistakes have got to hurt him. If anything else, they mean that Huckabee is losing a news cycle which is never good 5 days from voting.

Iowa update: New poll has things as tight as could be, as the ad wars continue

Yet another poll of Iowa -- and with only 6 days to go at this point we're getting in the last strech. Research 2000 just released its caucus survey:

• Among Democrats, John Edwards is tied with Barack Obama at 29%, with Clinton right behind at 28%. The fourth candidate is Bill Richardson, far behind at 7%.
• Among Republicans, the dual at the top continues and it looks like the few polls with a competitive McCain were outliers: Huckabee has 34% and Romney has 27%. Thompson gets 11% and there is a three-way tie at 8% between Ron Paul, John McCain, and Rudy Giuliani -- which means that Ron Paul is in a clear position to come in third.

This is a major slide for Obama from the Research 2000 poll from two weeks ago. Then, Obama was up 9% with 33% against 24% for both of his rivals. That was at the time many polls showed Obama ahead by significant margins -- and as we have seen with ARG and Strategic Vision that time is now over. Clinton has risen back in contention, and Edwards has strengthened his position. As for the GOP side, don't forget that Romney's massively superior organization is likely to boost him by a few percentage points come caucus night. With that, let's look at some of the developments on the trail today.

Democrats

One of the main dynamics of the campaign is now the feud between Obama and Edwards; two weeks ago, everyone was relentlessly pounding Clinton, but the attacks have now become more general. And that means that the race is even more a three toss-up today than it was two weeks ago. All candidates are going after each other, sensing that everyone is a threat. The only direction in which there is no attack: Hillary Clinton is staying away from criticizing John Edwards, since ultimately the Clinton campaign would not mind that terribly at all if Edwards won the caucuses, making him as much of an alternative than Obama and dividing up the vote.

In this context, the controversy over Bhutto's assassination is playing out dramatically in the Democratic race. Obama's adviser David Alxerod used the story yesterday to bring back Clinton's Iraq vote in the discussion. In response, Clinton blamed Axelrod for politicizing Bhutto's murder. This would all be the usual routine of the Obama-Clinton showdown, if it was not for John Edwards's decision to jump in... and defend Hillary Clinton! Edwards said: "It's ridiculous. It's a ridiculous stretch... We need to be a calming influence and not stoking the fire and certainly not be talking about the politics of this."

The obvious reason for this is that Edwards himself voted for the war resoution, so he is also indirectly being hit by Axelrod's contention that the Iraq vote of 2002 is the cause of all this instability. But he could very well have stayed out of this latest controversy. His choice to rush to Hillary's rescue reveals just how much Edwards and Obama now realize that they are dividing up some of the anti-Clinton vote that they need to somehow unify if they want to overcome Clinton.

Republicans

Two noteworthy developments in the GOP race. First, Fred Thompson is back on air in Iowa. We had reported yesterday that lack of money had forced him to go dark, but that only lasted 24 hours as Thompson seems to have benefited from a cash infusion or to have realized that he needs to spend whatever he has left now or be out of the race by January 4th. You can view his ad here. This is clearly huge news for Thompson who needs a strong showing in Iowa, i.e. to come in third. Threatened by McCain's three-day blitz this week, Thomspon had to be worried about the ridicule of coming in behind candidates who had given up on the state months ago; at least he is now running an ad.

The second item is the ad war between Mitt Romney and Mke Huckabee. Romney is airing yet another version of the contrast ads he has been running against Huck for a few weeks now (you can view the ad here). The first two versions were centered on taxes and on immigration -- and this one mixes the two issues and attacks Huckabee on his readiness to be president. Huckabee answered in an ad of his own (view it here) denouncing the negativity of the attacks against him. Now, Huckabee is being pounded by all candidates and by the press that is unleashing a ton of oppo research against him. However much Huckabee complains about the harshness of the treatment he is receiving, he will need to fight back because his Iowa lead has clearly somewhat eroded and Mitt Romney still has an opening to surge ahead and carry the state.