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

Just based on the initial coverage on CNN, the story they are emphasizing is not really who won, probably because Sanders and Buttigieg are so close. They are really focused on Biden being in fourth, winning very few counties and not being viable in some areas. I expected the person finishing in fourth is going to have a bad few days. If Biden remains in fourth, I think that will be the case.

It’s hard to believe we have no guidance yet on when we’re going to get more numbers (remember there is no data for 38 percent of precincts). And what’s more, we don’t know why those results are delayed.

Projections by Lenny Bronner, a data scientist at The Washington Post (and my brother!), have Buttigieg’s 95 percent confidence interval in state delegate equivalents as slightly higher than Sanders’s — but there’s a lot of overlap between the two intervals. So while Buttigieg has a lead, some caution is warranted.