What Did — And Didn’t — Go Down In The Iowa Caucuses
The relative strength of the candidates across the three metrics matches expectations. We suspected Sanders and Warren would be more concentrated, Buttigieg and Biden more widespread. But Buttigieg’s realignment strength was not as clear from voters’ professed second choices.
Buttigieg Gained The Most From Realignment
Here is a table of the initial popular vote vs. the popular vote after non-viable candidates’ supporters realigned. As you can see, Sanders is leading in both counts, but Buttigieg gained the most from realignment. Biden — and really all of the candidates who got less than 15 percent in the initial popular vote — were hurt by the realignment.
How Iowa’s votes have changed from one stage to the next
As of 5:01 p.m., 62 percent of precincts reporting
| CANDIDATE | FIRST ALIGNMENT | FINAL ALIGNMENT | CHANGE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sanders | 24.5% | 26.3% | +1.8 |
| Buttigieg | 21.4 | 25.1 | +3.7 |
| Warren | 18.8 | 20.7 | +1.9 |
| Biden | 14.6 | 13.2 | -1.4 |
| Klobuchar | 12.7 | 12.4 | -0.3 |
| Yang | 5.2 | 1.0 | -4.2 |
| Steyer | 1.7 | 0.2 | -1.5 |
| Gabbard | 0.2 | 0.0 | -0.2 |
| Bloomberg | 0.1 | 0.0 | -0.1 |
| Patrick | 0.0 | 0.0 | +0.0 |
| Bennet | 0.1 | 0.0 | -0.1 |
| Delaney | 0.0 | 0.0 | +0.0 |
This is just my impression, but I feel like people take second-day coverage differently — and as more final — than night-of coverage, Galen.