DES MOINES — The consensus is that Ted Cruz is more likely to win the Republican Iowa caucus than Donald Trump. The problem for Cruz, of course, is that winning here does not mean that he’s going to win New Hampshire or the nomination (see: Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum). Indeed, a close look at the polls indicates that Cruz’s coalition is good in Iowa and not good at all in New Hampshire.
Cruz has basically no support from moderate Republicans. He earned just 9 percent from Iowa moderates in a Marist poll conducted last week and 7 percent from Iowa moderates/liberals in a Quinnipiac poll out this week. Cruz is doing well in the Hawkeye State because he took 36 percent and 37 percent from conservatives in those surveys, respectively. That could be enough for him to win the caucus given that about 84 percent of caucus-goers in 2012 identified as conservative compared to just 17 percent who were moderate or liberal.
But if Cruz’s weakness with moderates and liberals continues in New Hampshire, it will likely doom him there. Why? Moderates and liberals made up 47 percent of New Hampshire primary voters in 2012. That means Cruz would do about 10 percentage points worse in New Hampshire even if he got the same support from each ideological group there that he currently gets in Iowa.
Donald Trump’s Iowa coalition, on the other hand, is far better suited for New Hampshire. Trump was at 28 percent among moderates in the Marist survey and 37 percent among moderates and liberals in the Quinnipiac poll. Trump isn’t doing too badly among conservatives either, with 21 percent and 28 percent in those polls, respectively.
This ideological split helps to explain why Trump is currently close to 30 percent and leading in the New Hampshire polls while Cruz is well back with closer to 10 percent.
A day in the campaign-saturated life of an Iowa voter
“Après moi, le deluge.”
That’s what Baby New Year says to Iowa every campaign year. When January rolls around, the campaigns ramp up their inundation of the state — TV ads multiply, door-knockers proliferate and phone calls increase (Bugaboo style, if you know what I mean).
But how many drops are in a deluge? We like to quantify things around here, so we got Meredith Leigh, one of those famous Iowa voters, to keep track of her interactions with the campaigns for a day.
Leigh, 33, is a contract negotiator at Wells Fargo and a registered Democrat, at least for this election — she caucused for Ron Paul in 2012. “It was funny, I took the ‘What side are you on?’ [quiz] because I was trying to figure out who I was going to caucus for” this year, she told me. “I came up 79 percent Jeb Bush and 76 percent Bernie Sanders.”
Meredith Leigh at her home in Des Moines.
Clare Malone
I popped over to Leigh’s house in a quiet residential neighborhood of Des Moines this morning to chat with her at the start of her day chronicling the media blitz. I got there when it was still dark out and was greeted by Cici, a 10-year-old basset hound who warmed my lap a little (and yes, my heart) while I grilled her owner about what it’s like to be a registered Iowa voter right about now.
Leigh had seen two campaign ads on TV before my 7 a.m. arrival, one from Marco Rubio and one from Hillary Clinton. She said that members of both the Clinton and Sanders teams had come knocking on her door in the last month. She’s still undecided, so they’re hitting the right kind of house, but Leigh said that she has a polite technique to help her quickly disengage from the campaigners (this is a pattern with people I’ve been talking to, by the way — polite denials).
“I’m always like, ‘Oh, OK, I’ll think about that,’” she said. “I don’t want to be like, ‘No,’ because then they’ll be like, ‘Well I think this person is great, blah, blah, blah,’ and I don’t really want to engage.”
We’ll check back in with Leigh at the end of the day to see how much interaction she’s had with campaign ads on TV, radio and online. Who knows, she might even run into a candidate! Des Moines is lousy with them this time of year.
