One of the reasons why I privately worried about Donald Trump winning Iowa is because I’m pretty sure that he’s going to win New Hampshire, and for precisely the reasons that Dan McLaughlin states:
New Hampshire is the best possible state for Trump. It has a primary, not a caucus; a long history of high voter turnout built on a culture of town meetings, scores of tiny state legislative districts, and frequent contested statewide elections (the Governor is up for re-election every two years, the House and Senate seats flip parties with regularity); and way more secular, white independents than any other state. And Trump has had a double-digit lead in the RCP poll average in New Hampshire continually since early August.
Trump winning Iowa and New Hampshire would have… complicated… matters for the GOP. And we’ll leave it at that.
I don’t think the GOP are quite out of those woods yet, Moe.
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Iowa hasn’t been terribly predictive in recent cycles – Santorum and Huckabee won in 2012 and 2008 and .. well ..
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Mew
Trump may yet win, that’s true. The game changer is, will he act different/worse as a candidate now that he’s lost something that matters? Because THAT would tank him. I don’t know: one the one hand he is resilient & a winner in business for a reason. On the other hand it takes character to overcome adversity privately, so if he’s really feeling this he may implode, despite himself. This is a long nominating process for several reasons, I think this “test of character” thing is one of them.
Again, *does* Iowa matter? Based on the elections, going back to 2000, I am not impressed with Iowa as a predictor .. and late ’90s are about when Iowa stopped being a predictor and started being a “must win/all-in” badge of credibility. It *can’t* be both …
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That said, if he’s really feeling this, I wonder how it differs from other adversities he’s obviously felt in life, eh?
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Mew
The absolute results in Iowa didn’t matter – but perceptions do. And the perception is that Trump waaaaaay underperformed in Iowa.
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With luck, we can ditch another 5-6 candidates after New Hampshire, and let that clarify things.
I was impressed by his gracious he was in defeat.
I did NOT see that coming.
I don’t have a feel for how that’ll affect things going forward, but it seems like it should be an inflection point.
There would be fewer complications if the GOP had read “How to Feed and Care for Your Voters.”
But they didn’t. And they neglected their voters. Left the gate unlatched. Their voters have been straying. And now they are rushing around, trying to find them, and berating themselves for spending so many afternoons over at the cute CoC’s house.
“Her mom’s got really good cookies, and CoC, she smiles at me and she laughs at my jokes and she smells so good – but I miss my lost voters.”
Will GOP find his lost voters?
Will the lost voters imprint on another wild candidate?
Will CoC demand that GOP get rid of those smelly voters?
Are the cookies CoC’s mom bakes really that good?
Find out this year as our newest serial plays out:
“Picket Fences, Picket Lines, Picket’s Charge.”