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

Biden put out endorsements this morning from Democratic elites from Alabama, Arkansas and California. The most notable person was Alex Padilla, California’s secretary of state. Those are all Super Tuesday states. I would assume those endorsements were pre-planned and did not depend on the Iowa result. That said, it is does feel prominent Democrats are more pro-Biden than voters are, at least right now. He has about 46 percent of our “endorsement points,” while he is getting approximately 26 percent of the vote among Democrats nationally, according to polls.

Illinois politicians are coming for Iowa. Last night, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker suggested his state go first in the primary process. This morning, Sen. Dick Durbin called the Iowa caucuses a “quirky, quaint tradition that should come to an end.”

Since late last night/early this morning — what is time, really? — the Buttigieg and Sanders campaigns have both released internal data showing their candidates doing well. Buttigieg’s campaign claimed to have data from roughly 75 percent of precincts, while Sanders’s campaign had data from “trained Sanders volunteers at representative precincts” across Iowa. On the one hand, their strong showings do line up to some extent with entrance poll data that suggested they were neck-and-neck when it came to initial preferences among caucusgoers. On the other hand, it’s not official data, and the campaigns obviously have an interest in selling what makes them look best. So be careful with this info.