Iowa caucuses illustrate uncertainty in elections

Now it’s New Hampshire’s turn, a state so different from Iowa that the three leading Republican candidates for president, Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, must reboot their campaigns.

The GOP caucuses in Iowa were about the candidates appealing to conservatives and evangelicals. It wasn’t happenstance that Cruz and Rubio both invoked the name of Jesus Christ in their speeches Monday night after the results were announced.

But in New Hampshire, voters are politically secular, many embracing a libertarian ideology. In addition, there’s a large percentage of undeclared voters who can decide on Election Day which party primary to vote in.

Coming out of Iowa, Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, has the momentum after his surprising victory in the crowded field. Why surprising? Polls leading up to Election Day showed Trump, the billionaire businessman from New York, in the lead. Rubio, a U.S. senator from Florida, was in third place, but his showing also proved the polls wrong. He barely trailed Trump in the final count.

On the Democratic side, the New Hampshire primary takes on much greater importance for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton because she left Iowa with a whisper of a lead in the vote tally.

Bernie Sanders, independent senator from Vermont who votes with the Democrats in Congress, shocked the political world with his strong performance Monday night.

Thus, the New Hampshire primary Tuesday takes on greater importance for both the Democratic and Republican candidates.

But as the insightful analysis on the presidential sweepstakes by Cathleen Decker in the Los Angeles Times makes clear, it’s risky to predict the outcome of the primaries in the Granite State.

Undeclared voters

“Cruz’s surprise victory, Trump’s shortfall and Rubio’s notable finish – and the tight Democratic race – would be drama enough leading into New Hampshire, but the state’s history seems destined to add more before the Feb. 9 primary. New Hampshire often gives the back of the hand to Iowa’s winners, and the race is often decided by the state’s undeclared voters, the designation here for those not choosing either party.”

Decker points out an important difference between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries that necessitates a change in campaign strategies: While evangelical voters make up half of Iowa voters, only 1 in 5 voters in New Hampshire identifies as a dye-in-the-wool Christian.

That, along with political astuteness of the voters, requires a different approach to winning the primary. Appealing to Christian values and serving political platitudes as the candidates did in Iowa won’t work.

Indeed, with Trump and Sanders leading in the polls by wide margins in their respective races, the challengers must find a way of exposing their vulnerabilities.

In the case of Trump, his refusal to provide specifics on a whole range of issues, including his proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States and his seeming protectionist trade policies, will give Cruz, Rubio and others a chance to take the fight to him. They can also force Trump, who is self-funding his campaign, to provide specifics about his plan to deport 11 million illegal immigrants and his contention that he will build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and require Mexico to pay for it.

As for Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist, his promise to provide universal health-care through the expansion of Medicare, his support for a $15 an hour wage for all workers, and his pledge to reduce college student debt all carry huge price tags. But Sanders has dodged questions about how he would pay for all that largess.

With Trump and Sanders as the frontrunners in their respective primaries in New Hampshire, a couple of questions loom large: If either one loses, would that be the death knell of his campaign? If both win big, does a second-place finish for Cruz or Rubio and Clinton cripple or even doom their prospects?

The coming days should offer the clarity that was lacking in Iowa.

There’s a debate scheduled tonight featuring the Democratic candidates that may provide some answers to the questions arising from Monday’s opening round.