How 2016 changed what we thought we knew about the Iowa caucuses

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[Commentary] In the 2016 Iowa caucus, advertisement spending wasn't the key to victory. If we plot vote percentage against the percent of spending among candidates who survived to the caucuses, there's very little correlation. There are two possibilities for what happened in 2016.

Possibility No 1 is that 2016 was anomalous, driven by a reality television star who managed to capture media attention for months on end, unseated at the last minute by a stronger traditional campaign. Under this possibility, 2020 will return to the classic Iowa tradition of butter cows and hugging ethanol. Possibility No. 2 is that Iowa's results were linked to how the candidates were doing nationally in a way that they will from here on out. That the Iowa process won't mean much anymore as voters track the national conversation more closely than the guy showing up at the local Pizza Ranch. That a guy who jumps into first place based in part on the strength of his tweeting is creating a new path for success in early state voting.


How 2016 changed what we thought we knew about the Iowa caucuses