What Did — And Didn’t — Go Down In The Iowa Caucuses

To pick up on Geoffrey’s point about the Republican caucuses, there is, unsurprisingly, little suspense. Trump will win the Republican caucuses in Iowa. However, the Iowa GOP is one of the few state parties that made no changes to their delegate allocation process for 2020. The state GOP still uses a proportional allocation method with no threshold to qualify for delegates. Walsh and Weld may end up with some small share of the 41 delegates at stake, but it will only be a temporary allocation as it was in 2016. If, at the national convention, Trump’s is the only name placed in for the nomination, then all of the Iowa delegates will, by rule, vote for him.

Pro tip: If you have ever wanted to be the most popular person in the room, try being an undecided voter in an Iowa caucus. For 15 glorious minutes, you’ll be the belle of the ball.

This is not — so far — what the FiveThirtyEight newsroom is drinking, but maybe we should reconsider?