What Iowa tells us about the GOP race going forward
Cruz wins Iowa the old-fashioned way and Presidential election in Iowa, 2016
 Date: November 8, 2016 |
Winner: Donald Trump (R) Hillary Clinton (D) • Jill Stein (G) • Gary Johnson (L) • Vice presidential candidates |
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This article covering the 2016 presidential election was written outside the scope of Ballotpedia's encyclopedic coverage and does not fall under our neutrality policy or style guidelines. It is preserved as it was originally written. For our encyclopedic coverage of the 2016 election, click here.
February 2, 2016
James A. Barnes is a member of the CNN Decision Desk and he helped to project the Democratic and Republican winners in Iowa.
The results from the Iowa 2016 Republican caucuses indicate that there could be a sustained struggle for the party’s presidential nomination among at least three candidates; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and billionaire businessman Donald Trump.
For the winner Cruz, the results from the television networks’ “entrance poll” (a survey of a representative sample of Iowa voters as they entered their caucus sites) and the county-by-county returns indicate that he is on his way to consolidating the most conservative portion of the Republican base.
Among those Republican caucus-goers who described themselves as “very conservative,” Cruz won a solid plurality, roughly 44 percent. That far exceeded the 21 percent of very conservative Republicans who sided with Trump and the 15 percent who went for Rubio.
Cruz also won a plurality—roughly one third—of the born-again and Evangelical Christians who surged to the Republican caucuses. Overall, born-again and Evangelical voters made up 64 percent of the Iowa GOP caucus electorate—a notable increase over the 57 percent level in the 2012 caucuses and the 60 percent mark set in the 2008 GOP contest. Cruz also ran well in rural and small town Iowa.
Cruz’s success is reminiscent of the coalitions assembled by the two previous Republican victors of the Iowa GOP presidential caucuses, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum in 2012, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2008. But neither of those candidates came very close to capturing the Republican nomination and Cruz’s ultimate challenge will be to expand his Iowa coalition if he wants to win the GOP nod in 2016.
And the next stop on the nomination trail, the New Hampshire primary on February 9, is a much less hospitable political climate for Cruz. While more than two-out-of-five Republican Iowa caucus-goers described themselves as very conservative, only one-in-five of the 2012 New Hampshire GOP primary voters called themselves “very conservative,” according to the networks’ exit poll that year. Just over a third of the 2012 Granite State GOP primary voters called themselves “moderate” while only one-in-seven of the Iowa Republican caucus-goers last night described themselves that way. And only 22 percent of the 2012 New Hampshire Republican primary voters said that they were born-again or Evangelical Christians, about one-third of the number attending the 2016 Iowa GOP caucuses.
Moreover, tough-talking Texas Republicans have just had a hard time in the Granite State. In the 1980 GOP nominating contest, former Secretary of Treasury John B. Connally finished 6th in the New Hampshire primary. In the 1996 Republican presidential race, then Texas Sen. Phil Gramm never had much traction in New Hampshire and he withdrew right before the primary balloting after a disappointing finish in the Iowa caucuses. And in 2000, after he had handily won the Iowa caucuses, then Lone Star state Gov. George W. Bush was upset by Arizona Sen. John McCain in the New Hampshire GOP primary.
Florida’s Rubio exceeded expectations in the 2016 Iowa caucus and is well positioned to become the favorite of more “establishment” Republican voters. While he only carried five of Iowa’s 99 counties in the caucuses, he narrowly won the states’ largest, Polk, with its urban hub of Des Moines; and he handily carried next-door Dallas County, which is filled with booming suburbs and exurbs. He won the two largest campus counties: Story, home to Iowa State, just north of Des Moines; and Johnson, where the University of Iowa in Iowa City dominates. Rubio also won Scott County (Davenport).
In a way, Rubio has a more cosmopolitan coalition. According to the networks’ entrance poll, almost two-thirds of Rubio’s caucus-goers had at least a four-year college degree, while a majority of both the Cruz and Trump voters were not four-year college grads or postgrads.
Rubio’s most immediate task is to consolidate the center-right Republican voters—those who describe themselves as moderate or “somewhat conservative.” That latter group was the largest ideological segment of the 2016 Iowa GOP caucus electorate, 45 percent compared to 40 percent of the Republican caucus-goers who described themselves as “very conservative.” (Trump won the self-described moderates who attended the GOP caucuses followed closely by Rubio.)
But there is going to be a lot of competition for the center-right Republican voters in New Hampshire. Not only is Trump going to make a major push in the Granite State to regain momentum for his campaign, Rubio is going to have to compete with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich for these voters. Rubio could be squeezed in the Granite State between Kasich and Christie on the left and Cruz on the right.
Perhaps befitting his unconventional candidacy and celebrity appeal, Trump draws from all across the ideological spectrum of the party. In Iowa, Trump was runner-up to Cruz among self-described “very conservative” Republicans caucus goers, second to Rubio about “somewhat conservative” GOP voters and he won moderates. That is both a strength and weakness: while it gives him the potential to assemble a winning coalition, it also suggests he has no core of support that he can depend on. And it’s hard to know how his popularity and appeal is going to be affected his stumble in the Iowa caucuses after he’s repeatedly justified himself and his candidacy to voters by claiming to be such a “winner” in the business world and life in general.
Making any prediction about Trump in New Hampshire—and for that matter any of the GOP candidates—difficult, is the unknown number of independents who will choose to participate in the Republican primary. The Granite State has a very easy process that allows independents to vote in a party primary and then switch back to their independent status on the voter rolls after they cast a ballot. In 2012, 47 percent of the New Hampshire Republican primary voters identified themselves as independent.
But unlike 2012, this year, there is also a hotly contested presidential race on the Democratic side and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders can be expected to draw independent New Hampshire voters to participate in the Democratic contest.
One thing’s for sure: exactly one week out from the February 9 primary, the Republican presidential race in New Hampshire has been scrambled by the results from Iowa. The last time a Republican presidential candidate in a competitive race for the GOP nomination won both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary was in 1976, when incumbent president Gerald R. Ford hit that political exacta. Stay tuned.
For election and demographic information by county, please click on the below maps.
| Color Key |
|---|
| Winning candidate |
| Ted Cruz |
| Donald Trump |
| Marco Rubio |
James A. Barnes is a senior writer for Ballotpedia and co-author of the 2016 edition of the Almanac of American Politics. He has conducted elite opinion surveys for National Journal, CNN and the on-line polling firm, YouGov.
See also
- Cruz wins Iowa the old-fashioned way
- Iowa Democrats feel the Bern
- Presidential election in Iowa, 2016
- Presidential Nominating Index: Clinton rules, but Sanders also rising
- Presidential Nominating Index: GOP elites tilt to Trump
- Presidential candidates, 2016
- Presidential debates (2015-2016)
- Presidential election, 2016/Polls
- 2016 presidential candidate ratings and scorecards
- Presidential election, 2016/Straw polls
