Record turnout for both parties
In case you hadn’t seen the numbers, the Des Moines Register reports…
Democratic and Republican Iowa caucus-goers tonight turned out in historic numbers to show their support for their favorite presidential candidate.
The record-setting turnout in many Iowa precincts caused problems in finding parking places and overcrowding in many caucus sites. Some precincts reported running out of paper ballots and delays in registration as well as the start of the caucus process.
With 93.5 percent of precincts reporting, Iowa Democratic Party officials reported 218,000 caucus attendees, compared to 124,000 in 2004. Iowa Republican Party officials reported projections of about 114,000 people taking part, shattering the numbers of 2000 Republican caucuses won by George W. Bush that drew 87,666.
Huge numbers resulted in a delay in calculating candidate preferences in today’s first-in-the nation caucus.
It also resulted in more than one potential supporter abandoning the caucus because of the inconvenience.
There were no seats and little standing room available for Republican caucus-goers at Berg Middle School in Newton, said Norman McDonald, of rural Jasper County.
“I left without voting because the crowd was too large,” he said. “I’m 80 years old and I couldn’t stand up for as long as it was going to take.”
McDonald drove 10 miles from his home to arrive at the school by 6:15 p.m.
Look out. Here comes a lawyer…
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Sort of like Yogi Berra’s opinion of a certain restaurant: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”
Iowa turn out? The entire state consists of 10 farmer’s families and 1,000 corn silos.
The format of the “caucus thing” is a total joke, and it simply plays into the hands of zealots. The huge turnout, however, raises the question… are the wins by Obama and Huck of more value than history suggests? Time will tell.
Maybe this will make them be sensible and convert to a primary. That way, everyone can vote…
Maybe we’ll have a record Republican turnout for the general election…for a change.
I can’t figure out what the numbers next to the percentages are. For the Dems, they are under a thousand (Obama had about 975). The Republicans were shown in the ten thousands, but they had half the turnout.
Speaking of which, one caucus “captain” or “chair” or whatever said the vote was delayed because 40% (my arithmetic) of the attendees switched their party affiliation at the door, just so they could vote.
That happened in a lot of places. So, either Obama really motivated the farmers or their were a lot of ringers that wanted to be sure Hillary lost.
You Decide!
If I am reading this right,the numbers don’t look good.94,000 increase in Dems vs.27,000 increase in Reps.Of course,it is just the beginning,but if it is indicative of a trend,we could be in for a campaign season.I hope someone finds an error in my math or perception.
oops,a long campaign season.
I wonder how many Republicans, not really caring who won between the less than stellar candidates on the Republican side, switched to Democrat to try and derail Hillary before she got started…
This was actually discussed at my caucus. People really considered doing this. So I wonder if some did it. I wouldn’t know cuz you can only attend one. People can change party affiliation any time.
I heard it at my caucus too, that’s why I was wondering. Well that and this:
This high turnout and some of the comments from Iowans just solidified my stance on why caucuses (or is it cauci?) are neither fair nor efficient nor truly representative in nature …
1. Record turnouts? … Verifies my statements here for the last few days that a small percentage of the eligible voters are making decisions that affect the entire process … causing people to drop out of the races before most states even get the chance to vote in their primary election …
2. Many changed affiliations at the door to vote against Hillary? … still a suspicion at this point … not that I would ever want to see her in any office, let alone the White House … but the fact anyone even thought that way at all proves there is a massive opportunity in the process that could allow “cheating” of all sorts …
3. If you’re late you can’t vote and participate … that’s why the 80 year old man left early to be sure he was there at least 15 minutes before the scheduled start time … and then he still didn’t get to cast his vote … I have to wonder how many others may have met with the same situation across the state … would not have happened in a voting booth primary … vote at anytime during the day when polls are open and go back home … end of story …
4. Minimum vote received percentage or they don’t count and those voters must re-vote for another candidate … Talk about stacking the vote … nothing else one can say about that …
As for the numbers …
1. Total Participants
2004 = 211,666
2007 = 332,000
Percentage of increase = 57 %
2. Democrat Participants
2004 = 124,000
2007 = 218,000
Percentage of increase = 76%
3. Republican Participants
2004 = 87,666
2007 = 114,000
Percentage of increase = 30%
This was using the numbers in Michelle’s story above. Now … if as suspected by some there were people changing from (R) to (D) to vote against Hillary then maybe a part of the (D) increase was the (R) vote against Clinton.
Not a statistician so just crunching the numbers provided …
I have been pondering the numbers and decided to look some things up. (I was not able to find total voter registration numbers by party for all of Iowa, but I found the numbers for my county.)
-About 350,000 total voters participated last night, which is about 15% of the voting-aged population of Iowa.
-About 67% of those voters were Dem, 33% Repub.
-For my county about 43% of voters are registered as Dem, 19% as Repub, and 37% as neither. (That is as of Dec., before all the switching that took place last night.)
For what it’s worth, I didn’t hear anyone in our precinct discussing switching to D to mess up Hillary’s support. (I don’t care about the outcome, I couldn’t bear to have the stain of a D on my record.) But there were several people there registering as R for that night because they were previously registered as undeclared or Green Party or something. And, I certainly saw enough signs and bumper stickers for Obama in my town to believe that he pulled it out without R voters switching to derail Hill.
I did hear some of the Dem caucusers discussing stealing the Romney signs from the Repub side though. Just saying.
These are “big” numbers? More people attend football games on any given week during the season.
Amazing. Everyone is crowing about “big” victories in a state that probably lets farm animals vote to raise the number.
Besides, the “caucus” system is phony as a George Bush “idea.” I suspect those tallying the “votes” had to work barefoot so they could count past 10.
Why don’t we just wait for the primaries where ballots must be cast before we start attaching any significance to results?
That’s just on the Democrat side. And all the people that feel the need to attack Iowan’s can just F off. We’re every bit as smart as the everyone else, probably smarter than the ones casting dispersions.
You (and others) are comparing the R turnout in 2000 (no caucus in 04) and D turnout in 2004. If you compare the D turnout in 2000 to 2008 it shows a 290% increase in participants.
meatpieandtatters and MrScribbler – very mature. Iowa has farms so we’re all moronic, inbred hicks, right? Believe it or not, we actually got book-learnin’ here an’ everything! Yee haw!
Look, I’m not one to take such asinine comments personally, but let’s try to keep to higher level of discourse than this. I have come across several Iowans on this site who are strong conservatives and have great things to say.
RaisedRight, how can you take a comment seriously when it’s made by someone who thinks “taters” is spelled with three t’s?
#17, RR –
Iowa has no monopoly on idiots. Look at California, where I live. I suspect most “voters” in this sate have just as much trouble counting…at least in English.
Actually, the “moronic, inbred hicks” I was referring to are the candidates.
But let’s face it: the anachronistic notion of “caucuses” is as flawed as the case against Ramos and Compean.
Enter booth. Make choice. Have choice recorded and counted.
Very simple.
Well said!