Six weeks to Iowa: Who wins it?

[Bull Moose Base]

Probably Trump. Trump is the Romney of this cycle, Cruz is the flavor of the month. The merry go round will have moved on from Cruz at that point, but whether whoever is next in line wins IA or Trump pulls it off is unclear at this point. Carson could also come back again, remember last time it was Perry-Cain-Gingrich-Santorum-Gingrich-Santorum.

Actually, I don't think Santorum took a national lead until after Gingrich's 2nd surge came crashing down but someone less lazy can check. But also, Gingrich was destroyed (twice) by negative advertising, in late 2011 by Paul and Romney (who took the lead in Iowa with a week to go) and late January 2012 by Romney. As I've pointed out for a while, the difference between Cruz and Santorum/Huckabee/ Gingrich is his fundraising is stronger than anyone's except Bush. So I think it'd be harder for say Rubio to take him down than it was for Romney to derail Gingrich. Maybe Trump will launch attack ads against Cruz, but they appear to have negotiated a ceasefire and it's not clear Trump will spend much money. (There's also less to attack Cruz on than there was for Gingrich.) So I agree with the consensus here that Cruz will hold his lead.

[Bull Moose Base]

I don't know if there's really such a thing as "peaking too early" with respect to your actual chances of winning the caucuses.  There may be if your nearest opponents are going to hit you with negative ads, but that doesn't seem to be happening here (at least not yet).  So not sure this will really qualify as "peaking too early".  Being ahead in the Iowa polls at this stage is presumably better than being behind in terms of your likelihood of winning the caucuses.

But the second consideration is the expectations setting, and its impact on the momentum that an Iowa win will generate.  On that dimension, I think "peaking too early" could be a worry.  If you take the lead early enough that you become the expected winner, then you risk not getting nearly the same polling bounce from the victory that you would if the victory was unexpected.

As a rule of thumb, that seems about right to me. But in this particular case, the bump should be big regardless of how obvious the win is. Because even if it's obvious to everyone weeks away, Cruz winning Iowa will turn Trump from a bragging prognosticator into a proven loser, the impact of which will be huge. Cruz will see a doubled surge: from boosted media coverage as a result of his defeat of Trump, and quite likely in supporters, as some of Trump's fans abandon him for a stronger candidate. (And that's assuming Trump fans even get around to voting in the primaries in the first place....)

You may be right, though I think however big such a bump ends up being, it would be even bigger if Trump had Howard Dean-esque polling leads in Iowa, and then Cruz surged into the lead in the last week or two John Kerry style.  The media would treat that as a bigger deal than Cruz taking the lead two months in advance of caucus day and holding onto that lead and winning.

But that's really hard to calibrate.  I wouldn't purposely hold back at this stage, just to keep the expectations low.

But maybe Cruz is instead getting a gradual polling bump nationally and in later states. So polls function like tiny primaries and his taking the lead in Iowa, fuels more media coverage not just about his success in the poll but more generally with the angle that he's a serious contender which boosts his numbers. For instance, we are now seeing him pulling away from Rubio nationally and in South Carolina. Whether that's driven by the same things driving his Iowa surge, or driven by his Iowa surge or some combo of them I don't know. If Cruz wins Iowa without surprise, maybe it's ultimately just a more gradual road to the same place he would have been had it been a surprise.