With politicos quickly turning their attention to New Hampshire and South Carolina, analysis shows that Iowa pollsters were accurate in predicting the first-in-the-nation caucus — with one caveat.
The final RealClearPolitics polling average had former President Donald Trump running away with 53% of the vote, followed by former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley with 19% and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) holding down third place at 16%.
In the end, it was Haley who finished third, drawing 19%, with DeSantis in second at 21%, a result that will have an important impact on both of those campaigns even if the ultimate result, a Trump victory, remains the same.
J. Ann Selzer, whose firm conducts the highly respected Des Moines Register survey, noted the day after the caucuses that the relative lack of enthusiasm among Haley voters could have fueled the result.
“The story of our final poll was not in the top line but in the crosstabs,” Selzer told the Washington Examiner. “So, our analysis that Nikki Haley’s second-place showing in the poll was fragile was part of the main story. … The enthusiasm gap was one of the reasons I pronounced Haley’s second-place showing as fragile.”
Despite landing in third place, Haley tried to brush off falling short of the polling expectations.
“I can safely say tonight Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race,” Haley said Monday night.
The DeSantis campaign was eager to point out that Haley would be left out of a two-person contest in Iowa.
“Haley was right about one thing: This is shaping up to be a two-person race soon enough. It may just take a few more weeks to fully get there,” spokesman Andrew Romeo wrote Tuesday morning.
Team Haley may be able to take solace in the outlook in other states. She’s running second in national polling, her support having nearly quadrupled since the GOP debates began in late August, and pulling in nearly 30% support in New Hampshire, whose primary date is next on the calendar.
Haley may hope for better weather in future primaries as well.
Iowa was hit with waves of heavy snowfall and subzero temperatures when caucusgoers met in person at 7 p.m. local time. Roughly 110,000 people showed up Monday night, representing less than 15% of the state’s registered Republicans and down sharply from the nearly 187,000 who showed up in 2016, the last year with a contested GOP primary.
“I’m voting for caucuses to be held in July of 2028 instead of January,” joked Drake University professor Dennis Goldford, who has been at the Des Moines-based school since 1985. “It’s just miserable here right now.”
Goldford said Haley appeared to lack an organized ground game compared to Trump and DeSantis, which again could contribute to the polls overestimating her performance given the challenging weather.
“Just as real estate people say the three most important factors in real estate are location, location, location, in politics the three most important factors are turnout, turnout, turnout,” Goldford said. “And for turnout, the three most important factors are organization, organization, organization.”
On that measure, the Iowa polls were very accurate regarding Trump, who is notable for the loyalty he inspires in his supporters. Trump was polling at 53% support and came in with 51% in the final tally.
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Haley’s polling numbers were also close to her final tally, with the difference being that DeSantis and his Iowa ground game pulled in 5% more support on caucus night, or 21% in total, compared to the 16% predicted by the polls. The Florida governor is now training most of his fire on South Carolina, the third primary state and one with a more conservative electorate than New Hampshire.
“There was a boomlet there for Haley because she seemed to pass DeSantis, and the question was whether the boomlet turned into a bubble that burst,” Goldford said. “For DeSantis, for what second place at that distance is worth, he has to be happy to at least have survived Iowa.”