{"id":5858,"date":"2016-02-03T21:46:39","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T21:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/?p=5858"},"modified":"2016-02-03T21:46:39","modified_gmt":"2016-02-03T21:46:39","slug":"who-won-in-iowa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/blog\/2016\/02\/who-won-in-iowa\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Won in Iowa? And Why? – Article by Daniel Bier"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"The<\/a>Daniel Bier<\/span>
\n<\/big><\/big><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
******************************<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n

It depends on what was really at stake
\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

On Monday, the political world\u00a0watched as the early\u00a0results trickled in from the Iowa caucuses. First, Donald Trump was ahead, then Ted Cruz overtook him, then Marco Rubio started creeping up. In the final count<\/a>, Cruz won convincingly with 28\u00a0percent, Trump came in second with 24 percent, and Rubio took home bronze with 23 percent.<\/p>\n

Commentators are scrambling now to read the tea leaves of these results. A lot of the alleged meaning depends on the hopes and expectations people had before. The last (and typically best<\/a>) Iowa poll, released just two days before the caucuses, had Trump at 28 percent, Cruz at 23 percent, and Rubio at 15 percent.<\/p>\n

Trump, it was thought, had\u00a0run a lazy campaign and had very little grassroots mobilization, so maybe he would get crushed by better organized rivals. And though he did lose\u00a0to Cruz, and barely beat Rubio, it’s hardly the death blow some hoped. It turns out that at least a quarter of\u00a0the highly motivated GOP base\u00a0in Iowa really do like Trump, in spite of his lackadaisical\u00a0operation, and the polls that show\u00a0him in the lead aren’t skewed or exaggerated.<\/p>\n

Cruz’s triumph, driven by evangelical voters, might seem\u00a0to bode well for his nomination prospects. Rubio did better than expected, so maybe that means something. Carson, Jeb, and Rand garnered very modest\u00a0support; the rest of the pack did so poorly they didn’t\u00a0received any delegates at all, and some are already dropping out<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This week, pollsters will be furiously dialing potential voters. Pundits will be scribbling and shouting, all\u00a0angling for some unique or authoritative or contrarian perspective on these results.<\/p>\n

But there’s one source of information that’s a better predictor of where the wind is blowing than polls, statistical models,\u00a0or expert forecasts: the market. Specifically, betting\u00a0markets<\/a>,\u00a0where people are forced to put their money where their mouth is.<\/p>\n

With hard cash on the line, the incentive to be right is powerful\u00a0\u2014 and, it turns out, pretty effective<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here’s what the betting odds\u00a0looked like for most of this endless\u00a0campaign\u00a0season. Early on, there’s a lot of uncertainty, but the odds of\u00a0Trump actually winning the nomination\u00a0were always consistently\u00a0low, despite his huge leads in the polls.\u00a0Bettors didn’t believe voters would really go for him, or that the party insiders would allow him to succeed.<\/p>\n

\"betting-odds-oct-dec\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But in the last month, something changed. Maybe it was because the\u00a0party insiders\u00a0didn’t seem to be doing anything<\/a> to stop Trump. Maybe it was because the mainstream never coalesced around a “establishment” candidate. Maybe it was because Trump’s long-predicted crash in the polls never materialized.<\/p>\n

Either way, Trump’s odds started steadily improving in January, and Christie, Cruz, and\u00a0Rubio started slipping. On January 13, at 7:01 AM, Trump took the lead for the first time, and after that, his odds soared. On the day of the Iowa caucuses, bettors put his\u00a0probability of winning the Republican nomination at over\u00a050 percent.<\/p>\n

\"betting-odds-january\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But as the results started trickling in, and it became clear that\u00a0Cruz would beat\u00a0Trump, the markets reacted.<\/p>\n

In just\u00a090 minutes, Trump’s odds of winning the nomination cratered\u00a0\u2014 falling from over 50\u00a0percent to about 25 percent\u00a0\u2014 and Marco Rubio’s soared, from about 30 percent to over 55 percent. As for Cruz’s big win, it\u00a0barely brought him back\u00a0to where he stood\u00a0two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

\"betting-odds-feb\"<\/a><\/p>\n

According the markets, Rubio won in Iowa, and Trump\u00a0lost.<\/p>\n

If you’re concerned about the rise\u00a0of Trump’s fascist, populist demagoguery<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 its virulent and xenophobic identity politics, economic nationalism, and lawless authoritarianism\u00a0\u2014 this might seem to be good news, of a sort.<\/p>\n

But the bad news is that Trump’s loss\u00a0is probably due in large part to his rival’s embrace of Trumpism<\/a>. At the Atlantic<\/em>, Peter Beinart notes that Rubio “surged by borrowing Trump\u2019s message while pledging to more effectively package it.”<\/p>\n

In the final weeks before Iowa, Rubio grew markedly more anti-immigration. Having previously warned against using terrorism as a pretext to restrict legal immigration, the Florida senator in mid-January declared<\/a> that because of the rise of ISIS, \u201cthe entire system of legal immigration must now be reexamined for security first and foremost.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also followed Trump\u2019s lead on trade, suggesting<\/a> that he might oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement he had once praised<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rubio echoed Trump when it came to the rights of Muslims, too. Asked in a January debate about Trump\u2019s call for banning Muslim immigration, Rubio praised the billionaire for having \u201ctapped in to some of that anger that\u2019s out there about this whole issue because this president has consistently underestimated the threat of ISIS.\u201d … The listener who didn\u2019t already know Rubio\u2019s position might well have thought<\/a> he supports Trump\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n

When asked about Trump\u2019s call for closing mosques, Rubio did Trump one better, declaring<\/a> that, \u201cIt\u2019s not about closing down mosques. It\u2019s about closing down any place \u2014 whether it\u2019s a cafe, a diner, an Internet site \u2014 any place where radicals are being inspired.\u201d<\/p>\n

… Having once pitched himself as a bridge between the GOP and the changing face of twenty-first century America, Rubio\u00a0instead began appealing<\/a> to \u201call of us who feel out of place in our own country.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here is the moderate<\/em>,\u00a0establishment<\/em> candidate calling the whole system of legal immigration into question, attacking foreign\u00a0trade, fear-mongering about\u00a0religious minorities, calling to shut down and censor the Internet, and blowing tribalist\u00a0dog whistles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course, Rubio isn’t Trump: he’s a politician. If he captures the nomination, he’ll try to\u00a0pivot\u00a0from identity politics and emphasize his “moderate” credentials. He’s still an establishment figure, with the credibility of being\u00a0sophisticated, eloquent, and (above all) “electable<\/a>”\u00a0\u2014 everything Trump isn’t.<\/p>\n

But this is the\u00a0larger problem. Trump has convinced the establishment that they need to embrace his priorities\u00a0and methods in order to maintain control. Worse, he\u00a0might be right. This may be the most troubling development in the whole Trump saga, and not just because the establishment won’t flatly\u00a0repudiate a man conjuring up religious tests, concentration camps, and mass deportation.<\/p>\n

By rallying long-suppressed nationalist factions, Trump has shifted\u00a0the margins\u00a0of acceptable debate more than any other political figure in recent memory. “Trump has redefined what \u201cmoderate\u201d means,” Beinart argues.<\/p>\n

In 2008 and 2012, Mitt Romney and John McCain never had to praise a rival for suggesting a religious litmus test for entering the country. During their presidential bids, Romney and McCain both shifted right on illegal immigration. But they didn\u2019t backpedal on their support for legal<\/em> immigration.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Trump probably couldn’t win the general election, and if he did, he couldn’t institute his agenda\u00a0effectively without the network of interest groups that make policy happen. That’s what makes him so dangerous: he’s unconstrained by the traditional network of interests, compromises, and pressures of the status quo\u00a0\u2014 nobody has any idea\u00a0what he might try to do.<\/p>\n

But that’s also what makes his candidacy a long shot. The more established\u00a0candidates\u00a0might very well win and\u00a0effectively implement\u00a0their agenda \u2014\u00a0pushing the bounds\u00a0of executive power that Bush and Obama softened into playdough\u00a0\u2014\u00a0without triggering an open constitutional or political crisis.\u00a0Their embrace of Trump’s agenda\u00a0is a troubling sign both of how\u00a0the political\u00a0landscape has shifted and what might now come from even a “moderate”\u00a0presidency.<\/p>\n

The ballots\u00a0say Cruz won. The markets say it was Rubio. But, in time, we may find that it was Trump after all.<\/p>\n

Daniel Bier is the editor of Anything Peaceful. He writes on issues relating to science, civil liberties, and economic freedom.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article was published by The Foundation for Economic Education<\/a> and may be freely distributed, subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License<\/a>, which requires that credit be given to the author.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniel Bier ****************************** It depends on what was really at stake On Monday, the political world\u00a0watched as the early\u00a0results trickled in from the Iowa caucuses. First, Donald Trump was ahead, then Ted Cruz overtook him, then Marco Rubio started creeping up. In the final count, Cruz won convincingly with 28\u00a0percent, Trump came in second with 24 percent, and Rubio took home bronze with 23 percent. Commentators are scrambling now to read the tea leaves of these results. A lot of…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4426,4503,4220,2664,2665,487,4536,38,4229,4537,4488],"class_list":["post-5858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-anything-peaceful","tag-daniel-bier","tag-donald-trump","tag-fee","tag-foundation-for-economic-education","tag-iowa","tag-marco-rubio","tag-politics-2","tag-presidential-election","tag-republican-primary","tag-ted-cruz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5863,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5858\/revisions\/5863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}