Iowa Predictions

Yes, Mod Lang is back for another boring, run-of-the mill election year, with the usual politicians making their typical prom---waitaminute, this isn't a normal election year at all!!

Well, rather than bore you with yet another rundown of how crazy this year is, I'll cut right to the chase and make some predictions for the first big primary/caucus of the 2016 election year.

Thank God the voting is finally starting.

On the Republican side, I expect Trump to win; one of the big questions is how close Cruz can keep it, but Cruz has apparently decided to accelerate his schedule for self-implosion and has been looking pretty bad for the last couple weeks. (It had to happen, though. I mean, anyone who looks at this guy closely--that is, anyone who isn't a very particular type of conservative Christian voter--is going to quickly see the flaws in Ted Cruz. He's kind of a mixture of Richard Nixon and a TV evangelist, except he lacks Nixon's warmth and humanity.)

Rubio is positioned to do well enough to claim momentum going into New Hampshire. He looks to grab third place pretty easily, might even get close to Cruz' totals. And I honestly don't think anyone's going to care much about who comes in 4th-23rd. Maybe Kasich pulls into, like, 5th place... that might be a minor story.

On the Dem side, I think Hillary should win. Bernie has a lot of support among younger voters, but I'm not sure that will be enough. Hillary has got to have a pretty good ground game in Iowa by now. If Bernie were leading by a bit in a few polls, I'd say he might pull off the upset. But Clinton is leading in 7 of the top 9 polls listed by Real Clear Politics. She should win this one, concede New Hampshire to Bernie, and then roll the rest of the way. Probably.

And yes, Trump is a horribly bad pick for president. But that's where the R voters are, at least at this point with a fractured field of way-too-many candidates. Very likely that the anti-Trump vote will come together around Rubio or Kasich. Not sure it will be enough to stop him. Yikes.