Iowa Caucuses Aren’t Worth Your Attention
Statistically speaking, Trump was already the favor for the Iowa Caucus, but even that doesn't mean much.
Predictit said so, BBC said so, and I’m sure there were plenty others in agreement. I didn’t care at all.
Iowa Doesn’t Predict Winners
BBC explicitly says that Iowa has a bad record of predicting presidents. 5 decades ago, the Iowa caucuses started, and 16 candidates have won but still not become president (e.g., Pete Buttigieg in 2020). ABC states,
“Only three presidents since 1972 won their Iowa caucuses when the races were contested rather than unopposed: Democrats Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Barack Obama in 2008 as well as Republican George W. Bush in 2000.”
In fact, some candidates who lost in Iowa have still gone on to win the presidential race. So it’s nothing we should care about in terms of the election.
Of the last seven Republican presidential nominating contests without a GOP incumbent president (1980, 1988, 1996, 2000, 2008, 2012 and 2016), two of the caucus winners have gone on to win the Republican presidential nomination. In New Hampshire, in those seven primaries, five of the winners went on to win the nomination.1
That means fewer than 1 in 3 caucus winners from either party win the presidency. Iowa caucuses don't actually do a great job at predicting who the next president will be. 2
https://rollcall.com/2024/01/10/iowa-vs-new-hampshire-which-matters-more-in-predicting-presidential-nominees/
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2020/01/05/do-iowa-caucus-winners-win-presidency-party-nomination-general-election/4410195002/