The last two Iowa caucuses were won by severely underfunded, Christian conservative underdogs. Walker needs to compete for those voters.
But those IA caucuses haven't done so well the last two cycles at predicting the eventual GOP nominee. It only seems to serve to identify who will be the last challenger to the nominee (Huckabee, Santorum). I wouldn't have thought that Walker wants to be stuck in that role.
I think the problem with Huckabee and Santorum's campaigns is not that they won Iowa. It's that they weren't registering or raising money at all before Iowa and they were flawed candidates. If they didn't win Iowa, their campaigns would never have taken off.
Walker comes in a much stronger candidate in every way.
He's not like Huckabee or Santorum whom many movement conservatives detested and were underfunded. Winning Iowa of course doesn't kill your campaign- Both W and Dole won it- it arguably makes you 1 of 2 options to win.
In the 6 open GOP contests of the modern primary era, IA and NH have been won by different candidates in each race and one of them has always been the nominee. In cases where the establishment has had a strong preference for one over the other, as in Dole and Buchanan, W and McCain, McCain and Huckabee, Romney and Santorum, the candidate they prefer has won each time. In cases, where they are happy with both, e.g. Reagan and HW, HW and Dole, the more prominent candidate went on to win. In Reagan's case, also the more conservative. It feels like Walker, Bush, Rubio and Kasich are all acceptable to the party powers and if it comes down to Walker and any of these, I'd say it could easily go either way, (whereas Walker would have little trouble rolling over Paul). As a hunch, I'd say Walker has close to a 50/50 chance to win Iowa and close to 50/50 to win the nomination if he has won Iowa.
