would biden have done better in a primary?

well, i don't want to frame the question around biden's performance, as though that's the primary concern. but, there appears to have been a disconnect between the polling and the outcome.

the question i want to ask, and that is important, is if the outcome of the caucus was really reflective of the democratic will of iowans or not, and the fact that there were no polls that had buttigieg at 27% suggests that it perhaps wasn't.

you could maybe erect a reverse-bradley effect around buttigieg's sexuality to explain the polling discrepancy, but that could only really get you half the answer. at some point, you have to acknowledge that the difficulties associated with caucusing would have disproportionately affected older voters, and voters that worked in the evening, which would have been biden's core demographics..

the caucus is supposed to be transparent and aid the democratic process. you could probably increase turnout that much more by scheduling it on a weekend, right? but, when you look at how low turnout was, it really does open up a lot of questions.

as mentioned, the primary question should be whether the views of iowans were accurately recorded in the results or not. were they?