At long last, today is the Iowa caucus.  Let’s take a quick refresher course, yes?

The Des Moines Register poll came out yesterday and showed Trump ahead over Cruz, but not by much.

Here’s the thing to remember.  To have your caucus vote count, the candidate must meet a 15% threshold.  Caucus-goers who vote for an under-15% candidate on the first ballot get to vote again.  This means that in most Carson, Paul, Christie, Bush, Huckabee, Paul, Santorum, Fiorina, and Kasich voters — almost 45% will vote again — for Trump or Cruz or Rubio.

So it looks good for Cruz and even Rubio.  Yes, Trump will do the best on the first ballot.  But not so much on the second and third.  His popularity is wide, not deep.

On the Dem side, you have Hillary Clinton ahead of Bernie Sanders, 45 percent to 42 percent.  Very close.  And since Kasich will probably not make the threshold (although he certainly could), his voters will voters again.  Will they go to Clinton or Sanders?  I’m guessing Clinton.

That said, Iowa campaign coverage is always the worst. It seems to involve political journalists marveling at themselves for actually being in Iowa.

Next week is New Hampshire, the first REAL primary.