The FiveThirtyEight Team Goes To Iowa

DES MOINES — Iowa isn’t exactly known for its diversity, and the fact that the Hawkeye State gets the first say in each presidential election despite its nationally unrepresentative demographics can be a sore spot. But Iowans do take the political power they hold seriously, whether or not they’re eligible to vote. Monica Reyes, 25, and Hector Salamanca Arroyo, 22, are two undocumented Iowans who’ve dedicated themselves to pushing politicians to take comprehensive immigration reform seriously and to pushing Latino Iowans to seriously engage with politics. Reyes founded DREAM Iowa with her sister in 2012 to help share information with other undocumented immigrants about their rights. The group became more active in electoral politics in 2014 after meeting with the leaders of DREAM Action Coalition, a national organization that advocates for immigration reform. “They were like, ‘Come on, you’re in Iowa. Do something about it,’ and so we did,” Reyes said. “We started confronting politicians. We started confronting presidential candidates.” Arroyo has high hopes for both the group and himself. DREAM Iowa is currently run completely by volunteers and is in the process of becoming a 501(c) organization. “We’ll be able to push more individuals to run [for office] and recognize what the Latino vote can do, as well as get more Latinos to actually hold elected office,” Arroyo said. “Who knows, maybe in the next couple years, maybe immigration reform happens and we’ll be able to run. I feel as if that’s my dream — to be able to run and be elected would be a full circle for me.”

DES MOINES — The Iowa caucuses seem so close that I can almost taste them. Yet our FiveThirtyEight Iowa forecasts suggest that a lot of movement can happen between the polls taken now (19 days out) and the results on caucus night. We don’t need to look far back to see how much the numbers can move. The 2012 Republican race changed tremendously in the final 30 days of the Iowa campaign. In an average of polls completed 22 to 31 days before the caucuses (equivalent to surveys taken from Jan. 1 to Jan. 10 of 2016), the average candidate saw his or her support change by 6 percentage points. Much of that had to do with religious conservatives getting behind Rick Santorum, who climbed to 24.5 percent from 5.3 percent in that final month — in part because he gained a pivotal endorsement from social conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats. Many of those Santorum voters left Newt Gingrich, who fell to 13.3 percent from 28.9 percent over that period. It wasn’t just the socially conservative Iowa voters who were changing their tune in 2012. Mitt Romney went to 24.5 percent from 17.2 percent in the final month and ended up basically tied with Santorum for victory in the caucuses. Ron Paul came in a fairly close third place after rising to 21.4 percent from 15.8 percent. The point is that we still have time for a major shift in the campaign. The Des Moines Register poll conducted by Ann Selzer that came out today was completed 22 days before the vote, and it will not be the final word.

We’re still piloting our elections podcast (official launch very soon!) and figured we’d keep it up while in Iowa this week. There’s a strange phenomenon in the early voting states where the political news is being made on the ground, but of course being filtered through media and polling taking place elsewhere. Nate, Clare, Harry and I chatted about the latest polling, how it’s being cited or ignored by the candidates we’ve seen, and our other observations about the pre-caucus politicking. Nate also gives a pretty solid breakdown of the new primary forecast we launched this week. Take a listen below or in the feed for our podcast What’s The Point.