If the Iowa caucus results were findings from a political poll, most people would see that they told us little about how the political winds were blowing. This is not just because Iowa caucus goers are unlikely to reflect the views of citizens nation-wide; there is a good chance that their preferences do not reflect the views of all Iowans. Caucus goers are a biased sample of Iowa’s citizens, and these “sample biases” shaped how the candidates fared. CONT.
Richard Lempert, Brookings Institution