Bernie Sanders
For all intents and purposes, Bernie Sanders won Iowa. His ground game (organization to get voters to the caucus sites) was strong and his strength amongst middle class voters within the Democratic party meant he was always going to have a good chance.
I thought about titling yesterday's piece, "always bet on the middle class," as they are still the dominant force in this democracy of ours. Sure they are typically led by the ruling elites in one direction or another but they're also capable of rising up and anointing their own candidate in full defiance of what those elites prefer.
That happened in both primaries, but I digress. Sanders now has the needed momentum and credibility to win in New Hampshire as well and put Clinton and the DNC in a really tight spot. Bernie had to win in Iowa, but he basically did.
Mike Bloomberg
The democratic party DOES NOT WANT Bernie Sanders to win as he would be a disaster both in taking on the Republicans and in serving at the top of the ticket to help Democrats win seats in the house and senate. The DNC is not yet willing to bet an election on America's comfort with democratic socialism. What's more, former NY mayor Mike Bloomberg is just waiting to run for President if he gets a chance to compete against anti-establishment options like Berne Sanders and Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.
In the event of both parties losing control and giving way to hardliners like Sanders and Cruz, Bloomberg would then rise as an independent who could unite the parties and get things done. Don't be fooled, there is absolutely a chance he could win that election. Bloomberg saw what happened in Iowa and grinned.
All he needs is for Clinton to hang around for a bit before being taken down by Sanders surging or email indictment and for Cruz to win the nomination for the GOP and he'll rise by building a coalition of minority voters, independents, and moderates from either party who don't want to see the country pulled apart by a divisive leader. Perhaps he could borrow some of Trump's "Make America Great Again!" messaging as well. Just something to watch for.
Hillary Clinton
The biggest lesson from Iowa was that the Democrats don't have someone on the ticket right now who can hold together the Obama coalition of white liberals, minority voters, under-30s, and suburban moderates.
The plan was to follow the typical American path of empowerment, first you finally give the black man his chance to have a voice in politics and then you enfranchise women as well. It was a nice plan, and Clinton has a lot of influence and know how in the party, but the problem is that she has an awful personality for a figure that needs to unite and excite a diverse coalition of voters.
That's really more Bill's role, and he's decreasingly effective at it since A) He's no longer at the top of the ticket but just coming in support and B) his sexual misconduct is seen even less favorably now by young liberals then it was when it happened.
Now, Clinton is still virtually a lock to win South Carolina and Nevada but the longer she allows Berne to hang around and build momentum and the longer the email scandal lingers the more the party is going to consider trying to salvage this nomination process before they end up with a candidate who is going to get whipped.
Donald Trump
Donald Trump was shockingly humble in his concession speech and tried half-heartedly to claim that finishing second after his initial rise was so unexpected was a hyuge victory, but it wasn't. Donald Trump had all of the media attention and the help of the entire Republican establishment in trying to take down Ted Cruz and he couldn't parlay that into success getting enough voters to turn out to win.
In fact, based on the high turnout it's possible that many people flocked to the polls to ensure that he didn't come away with a big win to carry him into New Hampshire.
Because of the rise of the last guy on our list, I think we're going to see Donald Trump start to fade away. Perhaps he'll say something that enables him to dominate the news cycle for another week but I'm guessing he loses New Hampshire and then completely fades away. His coalition was diverse but simply doesn't consist of enough middle class voters of the sort who have the discipline, confidence, and investment in this country to show up to something like a caucus.
Instead, he was a temporary voice for a frequently disenfranchised group of Americans who will now probably limp back into the corner in bitterness. Hopefully whoever wins the presidency will make it a point to speak to their concerns.
Ted Cruz
Ted Cruz proved that his "turn out the base" plan for winning the Republican nomination, and then the general election, has at least enough legitimacy to make him a frontrunner for the nomination. Here's the problem for Cruz, the ruling elites all despise him and what he represents, which is "new money" and the ascendance of divisive tactics and hard-line groups previously held at bay.
The GOP wants to be big tent party and that's not really what Cruz is aiming for with his candidacy. Now he's going to continue to be a major target but instead of using Trump to split his votes I suspect the establishment will now instead rely on Marco Rubio to give them a shield from Cruz winning the nomination.
Cruz needs to start peeling away Trump's supporters fast and winning big in the early primaries while starting to broaden his coalition and appealing to less radical parts of the base before Rubio unites them all and surges into the lead with the Florida primary.
Marco Rubio
If the GOP field still wasn't so big I'd imagine that Marco Rubio now has the best odds of becoming the next president of the United States. His appeal is much broader than Cruz's, who often has a penchant for sounding preachy, in-genuine, or too hardline, and he's capable of holding conservative principles while packaging them in a way that sounds appealing and current.
His ability as a devout Catholic and former Mormon to speak the language of evangelical voters is going to be a problem for Cruz since he could pick off many of them that think the Texas senator is too extreme. He's also proven that he's pretty tough and tested after surviving a carpet bombing of negative ads from Jeb Bush's Super-PAC.
Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Jeb Bush were all big losers from Iowa for the simple fact that Marco Rubio did so well. None of them stand out as a particularly strong establishment option in comparison to Rubio who appeals to moderates and non-evangelicals but can also maintain that important demographic within the base.
Rubio even ran for senate in Florida as a tea party guy, he has extraordinary political talent.
It's now going to be a battle between Cruz and Rubio with Marco having to prove that he cares enough about securing the border to keep Cruz from stealing some of Trump's support and winning the nomination with a coalition of nativists/Alt-Right folks, tea partiers, and evangelicals.
Rubio will try to do this by picking off just enough of those demographics with a "I will represent your interests but I'm more electable" message and adding them to a coalition of non-hardline evangelicals, Catholics, moderates, and conservatives who don't view immigration as the dominant issue in modern politics.
I'd say there's a good chance he's successful and it will start with him winning in New Hampshire in a week.
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