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{"id":4930,"date":"2016-02-01T09:38:39","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T16:38:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/?p=4930"},"modified":"2016-02-01T09:38:39","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T16:38:39","slug":"nate-silver-on-why-iowa-matters-for-trump-sanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2016\/02\/nate-silver-on-why-iowa-matters-for-trump-sanders.html","title":{"rendered":"Nate Silver On Why Iowa Matters for Trump & Sanders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"ST.001\"$ <\/a>Why should just a few hundred thousand voters taking part in a bizarre caucusing ritual in a demographically unrepresentative state have such a massive impact on who runs for president? It seems pretty shady, but that\u2019s a whole \u2018nother question. This time around Iowa will probably have a big impact on the campaigns of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Nate Silver cited five reasons on his blog today<\/a>. Here\u2019s a synopsis of what he said:<\/p>\n

1.
\nIowa results will dominate news cycles for weeks. The tone of that coverage could sway a large swath of voters toward the scrappy upstarts. Trump lives and dies by dominating news cycles and manipulating coverage. Nobody wields press coverage like a weapon as well as the Donald. The press still doesn\u2019t love Sanders, but a surprise win over Clinton would force the press to begin taking him more seriously.<\/p>\n

2.
\nThere\u2019s room on the bandwagon.\u00a0With much of the Democratic electorate just beginning to feel the Bern a showing within\u00a0two percentage points of Clinton would be a press boon. While Clinton remains quite electable, she\u2019s still not well liked. Sanders has the opposite problem. He\u2019s incredibly likable, but electable? He\u2019ll have to begin to see an Obama-like groundswell soon. Trump still has to convince Republicans that he can actually win a general election.<\/p>\n

3.
\nIowa will cement opinion among party elites. The unknown drives party power-brokers nuts. They really want a clear front runner to emerge, and\u00a0they want to be as early to that party as they can be. Nothing\u2019s worse than backing the wrong horse, though. So post-Iowa handshakes between Republican big-wigs and Trump may be forthcoming\u2026 unless he bombs. Sanders will not likely see a huge bump in endorsements from a strong showing in Iowa.<\/p>\n

4.
\nIowa will weed out the posers. Again this benefits Trump, who\u2019s decision to skip the last debate has made the other candidates seem small. Those who don\u2019t have the money to go the distance will have to cash it in. O\u2019Malley is actually very important to Sanders, since he siphons off some of the \u201cI just don\u2019t like Hillary\u201d vote.<\/p>\n

5.
\nIowa matters because it\u2019s the first concrete\u00a0test of whether\u00a0pollsters are on track or not. This matters most for Sanders, who has gone from 29 points down in Iowa to within the margin of error in many polls. The moment of truth is here. An extremely strong showing by Clinton in Iowa\u2013say an 8-10 point win over Sanders\u2013would be incredibly hard to overcome. Nobody really knows if Trumps polling numbers are soft, but it seems as though the suspicion is that they are, mostly likely the result of Trump being the candidate most likely to be over-hyped.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"