Yes, the media was über-hyping the Iowa caucuses. First actual votingish thing in the nation for this election!
Following that event, all eyes were on New Hampshire. First actual primary in the nation!
The problem is … neither Iowa nor New Hampshire are particularly representative of the Democrats, Republicans, or general electorate. Their importance is solely based on being first, and not on what they actually mean when the primaries move to the South, to the big voting states, to pretty much any place that matters.
All due respect to those two states, and not to say your votes don't count, but they are not a valid representation of the demographics of the United States on pretty much any level, and anyone who is saying that …
"Candidate X lost in Iowa and/or New Hampshire, and therefore cannot win the nomination"
or
"Candidate X won in Iowa and/or New Hampshire, and therefore is clearly the next party nominee"
… is trying to sell you (or themselves) something.
Get to the South. Get to the Midwest. Get to the double-digit electoral states like California and New York and Illinois and Florida and Texas and Ohio. Then you'll start to see the voting that actually matters.
The rest is pure showmanship, media frenzy, and (for better or worse) donor jitters.
Or, to put it in other terms:
– Don't assume anyone who won tonight is going to win elsewhere.
– Don't assume anyone who lost tonight is out of the race (unless they are out of money).
– That's true both for the folk at the top of the party tickets and the folk in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, even 5th place. (Folk below that should bow out gracefully and sign that book deal.)
The only people whose electoral statistical analysis I give any credibility are the folks at http://fivethirtyeight.com/
And right now even Five Thirty-Eight is working with garbage polling, so they can't tell us much. I saw the breakdown of the actual numbers, and there wasn't enough to draw conclusions about any group other than old white people, yet they were still using it to call the entire state.
Yeah, but at least they're good enough to admit where the weaknesses in the data are. As someone who works in a realm of uncertainties, I appreciate that.