… As he staffed the campaign, [campaign manager Jeff] Roe made the unusual decision to make Cruz’s director of analytics and his pollster the same person. … Roe has granted [Chris] Wilson the most expansive brief of any pollster in either party’s 2016 field: his surveys not only guide Cruz’s […] Read more »
Making Sense of Iowa
If you predicted that Ted Cruz would beat Donald Trump by a larger margin than Hillary Clinton would beat Bernie Sanders, you deserve a special pundit medal of honor. But, the topsy-turvy results of the Iowa Caucuses actually make some sense when you dig into the reasons behind them. CONT. […] Read more »
Polls Were Way Off on Donald Trump. Here’s What It Means.
Donald Trump was at the top of each of the last 10 polls in Iowa, but his lead failed to hold up on caucus night Monday. In the end, his seven-point lead in polling averages amounted to a three-point loss to Ted Cruz. That 10-point swing was enough to make […] Read more »
Donald Trump Comes Out Of Iowa Looking Like Pat Buchanan
On Monday, Iowa voters did something that Republican “party elites” had failed to do for more than seven months: They rejected Donald Trump. … It’s not uncommon for the polls to be off in Iowa and other early-voting states, but the manner in which Trump underachieved is revealing. It turns […] Read more »
The bad news for Cruz: His Iowa win looks very similar to Huckabee’s and Santorum’s
Ted Cruz’s Iowa victory was a surprise, after the final polls showed him trailing Donald Trump. But Cruz also followed a very familiar path to victory in the Hawkeye State: heavy reliance on strong conservatives and evangelical Christians — and not on first-time caucus-goers. CONT. Scott Clement, Kevin Uhrmacher & […] Read more »
What We Learned From Iowa
Iowa is in the books, and we already have our first surprise: Ted Cruz confounded late polls showing him sliding and Donald Trump rising. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders battled to a near-tie. Last week, we asked five questions about what the Iowa results might tell us. What did […] Read more »