Donald Trump is doing everything he possibly can to reshape the nature of American politics. The decision to skip the Jan. 28 debate was a big gamble. Without any data yet, it is impossible to say whether it was a good idea. Still, there was an outpouring of pundit nonsense as many people were willing to take strong and firm positions in the absence of information.
Quite a many prognosticated that this stunt was a foolish decision that will hurt his campaign. Just as many--perhaps because they felt burned for discounting Trump previously--now seem to insist he had become unstoppable. The correct answer, and the one posited by Trump himself, was that we simply have to wait this out. We will see some polls soon, particularly the final Des Moines Register poll which comes out tomorrow.
In the meantime, yesterday was a clinic in multi-candidate field dynamics. The seven candidates on the Main Stage are all trailing Donald Trump. Yet, despite a few initial jabs at Trump, they forgot Trump existed for the most part and focused on tearing down their on-stage rivals. This of course favors Trump. So does the fact that his closest rival, Ted Cruz, didn’t have one of his better debates, and that much of last night’s discussion focused on immigration, Trump’s best issue. Some talk suggested it was Marco Rubio’s night but that seems a touch premature. Overall, it was a pedestrian debate.
Moving onto the expectation game. There seems to a great deal of agreement on what will happen in Iowa: Cruz in first, Trump in second and Rubio in third. There has been some buzz that Rubio will come in a surprising second. The Rubio camp instantly downplayed that possibility. Cruz, however, seems to be taking the opposite tack, boldly predicting victory. Cruz's expressed confidence flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which is to dampen expectations. It maybe that both the Rubio and Cruz camps simply have the correct understanding of the race dynamics. If the conventional wisdom does shake out, Cruz, Trump, Rubio, in that order, it will be interesting to see how Trump handles what without public polling would seem like good news. But public polling has shown Trump with a slight edge in Iowa so a loss there could be seen as a setback. His numbers in other states are strong enough he should be able to ride out an Iowa loss. Given what could be considered an erratic decision not to debate, Trump’s speech on Monday night is critical. If Trump handles defeat well, like Clinton did in Iowa in 2008 and Obama did in New Hampshire in 2008, his campaign should suffer no permanent damage. A bad speech could be the equivalent of the Dean Scream. It wouldn't be the loss that did him in but the scream after it, or in Trump's case, the speech.
Meanwhile, while all the attention has been focused on Iowa, the ad wars in New Hampshire show just how much multi-candidate field dynamics matter. National right-wing PACS are focusing their fire not on Trump, the clear front-runner, but on John Kasich, who at the moment seems to have the momentum in New Hampshire. A strong Kasich performance there, as I explained yesterday, is a disaster for those who want to stop Trump. Kasich will only complicate the process, which after New Hampshire will only have 21 days to sort itself out before a huge voting day.
With three days before voting begins, the dynamics we are have been seeing remain exactly the same and we just have to
wait and see.
Three Days to Iowa.
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The Scorecard is a political strategy and analysis blog. Our hope is to provide information and insight that can be found nowhere else into how and why things are happening in American politics. Unlike many political pundits, we will tell you who we think is going to win as an election approaches; we will tell you why; and we will give you a sense of our level of confidence. Ours is a holistic approach, one that takes in as many numbers as possible but is also willing to look past the numbers if need be. When we turn out to have been wrong, we will let you know. When we are right, we’ll let you know that too.
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About Me
Author Jason Paul is a longtime political operative who got his start as an intern in 2002. He has been a political forecaster for almost as long. He won the 2006 Swing State Project election prediction contest and has won two other local contests. He had the pulse of Obama-Clinton race in 2008 and has been as good as anyone at delegate math in the 2016 race. He looks forwards to providing quality coverage for the remainder of the 2016 race.
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