This Iowa Poll Was Never Published. It’s Still Influencing What You Read.

The Des Moines Register spiked its poll Saturday night, but by the next day it seemed most reporters here had seen the numbers — or something purporting to be the numbers. … Here are what some reporters told me about how the poll affected their work: CONT. Ben Smith, BuzzFeed […] Read more »

Our Final Forecast For The Iowa Caucuses

With just a few hours to go before the voting starts in Iowa, it’s time for us to freeze the FiveThirtyEight primary forecast model! So here are our final estimates of each candidate’s chance of winning a majority of pledged delegates and their chances of winning Iowa ahead of tonight’s […] Read more »

Iowa Road Trip: Do Reporters Know Anything?

What’s going to happen? The Uber driver, learning my occupation, wants to know. So, too, newsroom colleagues who cover beats other than politics. So, too, family members, who not unreasonably imagine that I must have gained some insight by leaving them to travel here. Two words I have learned to […] Read more »

Focus on Rural America Iowa Caucus Poll

… Our last statewide poll had Biden out in front with Warren, Buttigieg, and Sanders each in close contention for the second tier. This time, we went into the field from January 28-30th and polled 300 likely caucusgoers statewide through landlines, cell phones, and text-to-web. In first we found Pete […] Read more »

The Road to Milwaukee: How the Democratic Primary Will Unfold

The voting in the Democratic presidential contest is finally upon us. Iowa begins the march to the July Democratic National Convention, followed by New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina in February. These early contests will get loads of attention throughout the month, although the dirty little secret is that, together, […] Read more »