Given the tightness of the polling and sheer number of candidates, in the top tier or otherwise, anybody who claims any authority in knowing how the Iowa Caucuses tonight are going to shake out is full of it, unless they tell you they have no idea.

That doesn’t mean they won’t, or that we don’t have our preferences.

I actually kind of like the way things have shaken out, especially in the wake of the big Des Moines Register poll not getting released, due to, of all things, font size issues (seriously). As things stand, there hasn’t been a huge poll, certainly not with the cache of the Register (considered the gold standard, really), in most of a week. As such, there’s actually some small measure of mystery or anticipation about the results; I think that mystery is going to encourage people to come out, because there’s no media narrative based on the last big poll saying candidate x is running away with it, so everybody feels like they have a shot, so people won’t stay home.

And really, until people start huddling in corner in school gym and church rec halls in a few hours, everyone does, as there’s not been a single damned vote cast.

As for my predictions, I would love to see a strong Warren showing, because Liz is my candidate, and in spite of her being down in recent polls, she’s got a hell of a ground game in Iowa, and has for a long time now, and I kind of think that matters. She may not win the evening, but exceeding expectations is important and will give momentum.

And who comes in first, in the scheme of things, is only important in terms of momentum – with four tightly packed top-tier candidates, I expect that final delegate counts are going to be pretty evenly distributed amongst Sanders, Biden, Warren, and Buttigeig, and a real possibility for Klobuchar to make a dent as well. I don’t see any of them dropping out this week; the top tier will remain in the game through New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina, at which point, we’ll know a lot more.

But right now? It’s anybody’s game.