Can’t wait until "elastic" IA votes 10+ to the right of the NPV result and once again ends up being more Republican than TX, GA, NC, FL, and OH and everyone pretends that they saw it coming all along.
Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s a pretty good chance Iowa votes to the right of all those states (although I think it won’t be 10+ to the right of the NPV this time). It’s just that if Biden does as well as the polls say, he may well eke out a victory in IA. Hillary was a uniquely bad fit for rural America, and 2018 shows that Iowa has by no means rejected the Democratic Party.
I don’t think it’s impossible for Biden to eke out a very narrow win in IA (although it’s highly unlikely), but I’m pretty confident that Biden will already have flipped OH/TX/GA/NC/FL and be fairly competitive in states like KS/AK/MT if it gets to that point.
If Biden is winning by the narrowest of margins in IA, I don’t think he’ll be especially competitive in those states. Sure, he’ll have made a very good showing for a Democrat, but he’ll be behind by 5-10 points.
5-7 is definitely in the "fairly competitive" category.
