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

How bad is it for Biden, Micah? I mean, it’s pretty bad, in part because Buttigieg finished ahead of him, giving him more competition in the moderate lane. I guess the silver lining is that expectations were so low as of last night that getting 15 percent might seem tolerable by comparison. But we’ll see. I don’t think Biden can afford another fourth-place finish in New Hampshire.

If this sticks, and we don’t know that it will, how bad is it for Biden?

As promised, there are at least some precincts reporting from all 99 counties (although none from the satellite caucuses). To me, that says that there isn’t a big cache of, say, Warren votes waiting to be counted. What we have yet to get should look pretty similar to what we have. That isn’t to say that the numbers won’t change slightly — maybe enough to put Buttigieg ahead of Sanders in the popular vote, for instance. But I think it’s safe to say that, for example, Biden, at 15 percent of the initial alignment vote, won’t catch Sanders/Buttigieg/Warren to finish first.