The first votes have been cast for the 2016 presidential election, and it has not lacked excitement. While I am anti-political, I still enjoy the show.
Even though it probably doesn’t matter much who actually wins the presidency, it is still useful in determining where public opinion lies. There is no question that this is the year of the anti-establishment candidates.
It isn’t that Trump, Cruz, or Sanders are anti-establishment, but the establishment doesn’t really like them. They would prefer a safer choice in Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio. Maybe it will end up being Rubio and Clinton facing off in the general election, but there is no question that this election season has been different with the traction of the perceived outsiders.
On the Democratic side, it still isn’t clear who won Iowa. It looks as though it was Clinton, but the Sanders camp may not be crazy for thinking that there were “irregularities”, to put it politely.
I still don’t know if this is true, but supposedly the Clinton camp won 6 different coin tosses. Aside from the issue of nominating a candidate based on coin tosses, what are the odds of this happening? First, what are the odds of having to settle so many ties based on coin tosses?
If there were just 6 tosses and the Clinton camp won every one, then this is really unbelievable. That is a one out of 64 chance. But whether it is coin tosses or trading cattle futures, Hillary Clinton tends to have luck on her side.
Bernie Sanders will probably win New Hampshire, but he is going to struggle in the south. I think Bernie Sanders is Hillary Clinton’s third biggest problem at this point. Her biggest problem is a possible FBI indictment for her email scandal. Her second biggest problem is a possible recession. Maybe that is why Martin O’Malley is hanging on. A potential indictment is why Sanders should definitely stay in the race, even if it gets to a point where it looks as though he is going to lose.
On the Republican side, Ted Cruz (27.6%) came out with a surprise victory over Donald Trump (24.3%). Marco Rubio (23.1%) came in a strong third. The next closest was Ben Carson, who only had 9%.
Looking at these results is similar to looking at an economy. There are so many moving parts, we don’t know what impacted what. Did Cruz win because Trump skipped the last debate? Many people thought Cruz performed poorly in the last debate though. Would Cruz have done even better if Trump had been in the debate?
My guess is that Trump won’t be skipping any more debates. Still, we have to realize that Iowa is evangelical country. This is where Mike Huckabee won in 2008 and Rick Santorum won in 2012 (although Ron Paul ultimately won the delegate count). They both went nowhere. Trump will win in New Hampshire where independents vote.
Rand Paul had predicted that the polls were wrong. He was right about that. We were told that Cruz had a strong ground game in Iowa. Caucusing is different from regular voting, so it makes the polling trickier.
So Rand Paul was right on at least one thing. The polls were wrong. Unfortunately for him, his percentages were in line with the polling data. He received less than 5%. His vote total was about one-third of his father’s total 4 years ago. And there were a lot more voters who showed up in Iowa this year.
On the Republican side, I think every candidate other than Trump, Cruz, and Rubio should drop out. If they don’t drop out this week, they definitely should after New Hampshire. I just don’t see any of them surging into the top three at this point.
February 9th with be the New Hampshire primary. Trump and Sanders should win, but it will be interesting to see if anyone on the Republican side (other than the top 3) can gain any traction.
I miss 2008 and 2012 when Ron Paul was in it. I miss the strong libertarian message that we saw at every debate where he participated. At least we have Trump and Sanders for their entertainment value this time around.