The FiveThirtyEight Team Goes To Iowa

DELTA FLIGHT 2541 — I’m on a plane right now, flying from Des Moines to Philadelphia (via Atlanta for some reason), and that means it’s time to shut down our week-long Iowa travelog. What did we learn? Well, we’ll be writing about that more in the coming days. But here’s one conclusion that reinforces an observation we first made in New Hampshire in 2012 : You can tell a lot about a campaign by dropping by its field offices unannounced. How organized does the office seem? Are you greeted when you arrive, or can you wander around for a while unnoticed? Is the office active, bustling with people making phone calls and stuffing envelopes? Is there not only activity, but — as Nate put it when we were making these visits — direction? Do you get the sense that the campaign has a game plan? Here’s what we found visiting the Republican candidates’ offices here this week (John Kasich and Carly Fiorina don’t seem to have any Iowa offices). When you’re stopping by a field office, there’s no guarantee you’ll get a fair or representative picture of a campaign, but the scenes we found jibed with other reporting on the campaigns’ ground operations. We’ve sorted the campaigns into tiers below. Thanks for following along all week, and so long, Iowa! Tier 1: Nobody Democratic presidential candidates have always invested more resources in the ground game than Republicans have, and that’s definitely the case this year. No operation truly impressed us. Tier 2: Ted Cruz

Cruz’s office in Urbandale had at least as many people as any other Republican office we visited, and they appeared to be busy making calls. Tier 3: Jeb Bush, Rand Paul

(Paul’s campaign asked that I not take any pictures.) Bush’s and Paul’s offices (in West Des Moines and Des Moines, respectively) had somewhat fewer people than Cruz’s, but they were still pretty full. Moreover, the people there seemed to be checking things off their lists. The phones were ringing. Tier 4: Marco Rubio, Ben Carson

Fewer people still. But Rubio’s headquarters in Ankeny and Carson’s in Urbandale both showed clear indications of professionalism: lists of goals on the wall, pin-dotted maps, etc. Tier 4: Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee

We didn’t see any volunteers in these offices (Christie’s is in Johnston and Huckabee’s is in Urbandale), just a handful of campaign staff. Tier 5: Rick Santorum

Santorum is clearly working hard in Iowa; his schedule is packed with events. But if his Urbandale headquarters is any indication — it was big and empty (and used to belong to the Scott Walker campaign) — Santorum may not have much infrastructure supporting him. Tier Donald Trump

Two Trump volunteers wouldn’t even let us into their West Des Moines office, so we can’t really say what’s going on with The Donald. That said, campaigns typically don’t hide flattering information.

URBANDALE — After being turned away at the door of an over-capacity Trump event in Cedar Falls Tuesday night, I made sure to show up an hour early for the candidate’s town hall here at Living History Farms. An eager crowd of no more than a hundred people crammed inside the small museum, where a poster extolling the Six Pillars of Character hung overhead. The event was supposed to begin at 9:30, but at 10:30 there was still no sign of Trump. Tana Goertz, his Iowa state co-chair and a season three runner-up on “The Apprentice,” came out to coax the increasingly annoyed crowd. She asked for a show of hands of those who would vote for Trump on caucus night. It looked like about 50 percent of hands went up. “We know the media says you won’t caucus,” she said, before reminding attendees to look up their caucus locations and to show up on time on Feb. 1. Just when I thought I might have to choose between missing seeing Trump speak or missing my flight home, a slow-clap started. That didn’t work, so it was followed by chants of “We want Trump! We want Trump!” A few minutes later he finally appeared on stage. “I haven’t slept yet,” he said, before launching into his usual hyperbole: “We’re winning in every single poll. In fact, I have a feeling we’re actually going to do better than the polls are saying.” Trump cited a CNN/ORC poll from early December that showed him with 33 percent support among Iowa Republicans — but that survey is old and primary races can change quickly (our forecast models give the CNN poll a weight of 0.02, compared to this week’s Selzer & Co. poll, which has a weight of 1.54 and shows Trump with 22 percent support in Iowa). He touched on last night’s debate, saying that “a few people” did very well and “a few people” did very poorly, but he didn’t name names. Questions from the crowd ranged from how he’d control the heroin epidemic (Trump replied that he’d “build a wall”), how he’d work with Democrats in Congress (“I’m a businessman, I work with everyone”) and why he avoids political correctness (“It takes too long”). He closed out his speech by telling the crowd that if he becomes president, “We’re going to start saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again.” (They’re still saying it in Iowa, at least.)