Tonight at 7 PM CST, the Iowa Caucus will start. There are 41 pledged delegates and 8 unpledged delegates (super delegates: 5 DNC members, 3 Congressmen) in Iowa. The 8 unpledged delegates do not participate in the first round of voting at the convention so you don't have to worry about them.

Here is how the 41 pledged delegates are determined:
District 1: 7
District 2: 7
District 3: 8
District 4: 5
At large (statewide): 9
Party Leader/Elected officials: 5

So, what people need to understand is that this is a caucus and not a primary. There are no ballots and you don't vote for a single person and call it a day. Instead, this is a fairly arduous process where a bunch of people in each precinct meet at a public school or something like that and they listen to stump speeches for all the candidates. Then, they are told to stand in a corner to show support for a particular candidate. If a candidate doesn't have 15% of the vote at the precinct level, they are considered non-viable and their supporters can either support another candidate OR go home. For example, if Bernie gets 30%, Biden 25%, Warren 15%, Pete 20%, and Klobuchar 10%...Klobuchar supporters can reallocate at that particular precinct. The viability threshold changes depending on the number of delegates at stake. Supporters of a VIABLE candidate are NOT ALLOWED to switch their vote. After that, the results are translated into "state delegate equivalents." Note, that the SDEs are predetermined in AMOUNT so if a particular precinct has insane levels of turnout, that doesn't affect anything. Lastly, only registered Democrats are allowed to caucus. No Republicans or Independents will be allowed to participate.

Reference: https://www.thegreenpapers.com/P20/IA-D

Knowing all this, who do you think will get the most delegates tonight? Note, that the results of tonight don't necessarily translate to ACTUAL delegates because the state convention doesn't occur until June (county convention occurs in March, District convention occurs in April)

Barnie in a landslide (his delegates will go to Hillary or the corpse of Ted Kennedy or whoever else the DNC inserts at the convention)

Hoping Yang can somehow snag an upset somewhere but don’t see it happening

More interesting is to see if Warren or Biden underperform and if so by how much

This post was edited by excellence on Feb 3 2020 04:59pm

So, I think Bernie is going to win the "popular vote" so to speak. However, I think he'll underperform in delegate count relative to the number of votes he gets.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/89-different-scenarios-for-what-things-could-look-like-after-iowa/

This is particularly interesting in that Iowa appears to be the state that will shake the race up the most according to the 538 model. It's kind of interesting because I feel like their model is overestimating the importance of Iowa but they know a hell of a lot more than I do so I can't really argue against it.

of course, it’ll be an overreaction due to no clear front runner established and the looming possibility of Barnie winning. Trump pouring gasoline on everything about the potential ‘rigging’ only further adds anticipation for results. In reality it means little, but one can position themselves well with consistently strong performances in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina

I dont off the top of my head remember who finished where in Iowa in 2016 for the (R)s. I know Hillary won by coinflip for the (D)s but thats a lot easier to recall

as for the expected results:



they canceled that poll result for a reason, but i think it’s more due to unexpected poor performance by either Biden or Warren rather than good performance by Barnie

This post was edited by excellence on Feb 3 2020 05:16pm

This is a feature of the delegate system, not a fluke. It makes it easier for people in power to keep it.

There will be two results. Sanders will win the vote count in a landslide and then the party will swing it to Biden via delegate equivalent counts. This will ensure a Trump victory in November, which is what the DNC wants.

This post was edited by inkanddagger on Feb 3 2020 05:33pm

i don't think that's fair. the dnc doesn't want trump to win. they 'just' prefer him over bernie...

They’re a bunch of rich fucks who benefit greatly from Republican policies while also benefiting from fake identity politics outrage and easy fundraising.

Well, the delegate system ensures that you have widespread support. I'd argue that superdelegates are for power retention.





Hm, I read that it was due to the possibility of Pete underperforming. Regardless, if your methodology is flawed, you have to cancel the poll.

This post was edited by thundercock on Feb 3 2020 05:58pm

Biden about to get FUCKING DUMPSTERED!