Iowa Democrats are desperate to to find out how they’ll be manipulated and misrepresented by their national counterparts in the caucuses tonight:
Underlying the bold pronouncements, campaigns and voters acknowledged a palpable sense of unpredictability and anxiety as Democrats begin selecting which candidate to send on to a November face-off with President Donald Trump. The Democratic race is unusually large and jumbled heading into Monday’s caucus. Four candidates were locked in a fight for victory in Iowa; others were in position to pull off surprisingly strong finishes.
“This is going to go right down to the last second,” said Symone Sanders, a senior adviser to Biden’s campaign.
Polls show Biden in a close race in Iowa with Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang are also competing aggressively in the state.
Democrats’ deep disdain for Trump has put many in the party on edge about the decision. A series of external forces has also heightened the sense of unpredictability in Iowa, including Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate, which marooned Warren, Sanders and Klobuchar in Washington for much of the past week.
Many campaigns were looking to a final weekend poll to provide some measure of clarity. But late Saturday night, CNN and The Des Moines Register opted not to release the survey because of worries the results may have been compromised.
New caucus rules have also left the campaigns working in overdrive to set expectations before the contest. For the first time, the Iowa Democratic Party will release three sets of results: who voters align with at the start of the night; who they pick after voters supporting nonviable candidates get to make a second choice; and the number of state delegate equivalents each candidate gets.
Both national establishments manipulate and screw over their grass roots. But it’s particularly interesting to observe it when the national establishment isn’t sure of its direction. The one thing we can be fairly certain of is that Bernie Sanders will not be the beneficiary. He is to the current Democratic Party what Ron Paul was to the pre-Trump Republican Party. The problem is that the Democrats still haven’t settled on their Mitt Romney.
UPDATE: Mike Cernovich reports the results of the spiked final Iowa poll. Looks like things are going south fast for Creepy Joe.
- 22 percent Sanders
- 18 percent Warren
- 16 percent Buttigieg
- 13 percent Biden