Iowa caucus
gregladen | February 3, 2016Was the Iowa Caucus outcome determined by a coin flip?
We have seen several reports that Hillary Clinton won the Iowa Caucus by a coin toss, or by six coin tosses. Or some other number. We've also seen reports that six delegates were awarded to Clinton on the basis of coin tosses, implying that of the 44 delegates determined on Monday in Iowa a large percentage were chosen by the toss of an unfair coin, that somehow the Clinton campaign controlled the coin tosses causing them to all come out in her favor. And so on.
After a barrage of these reports, we are now seeing a small number of reports…
gregladen | February 2, 2016Increasingly, I feel the need to declare my position on the candidates before commenting on the process, because, increasingly, the conversation has become one of comparative litmus tests. So, here's the deal on that: I like Clinton and Sanders both, and I like each of them for both overlapping and different reasons. As a life long Democrat I'm glad to see such good candidates running. I will decide whom to support in the Minnesota Caucus some time after I walk into the building, most likely. Then, later, I will decide which candidate, if any, I might work for during the time between our…
gregladen | February 1, 2016As of 8:45 or so PM:
Cruz 28.9 Trump 25.6 Rubio 20.8
I'm privileged to live in Minnesota, which is Iowa's neighbor and thus not so different from Iowa, except our college football teams are better.
And it isn't just the corn, but also, the caucus. We do that here too. Our caucus system is similar enough to Iowa that one can have a sense of what goes on over the border just with some local experience.
So let me tell you a story. I volunteered one day to help out a friend with a local campaign. The idea was to show up at the local VFW post and engage in a caucus to determine a DFL (that's…
gregladen | February 1, 2016UPDATE (Tuesday Morning):
In the Democratic Caucus, Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders by an amount so small that the caucus results have to be regarded as tie.
Clinton: 49.86%
Sanders: 49.57%
O'Malley: 0.57%
Lesson learned: Those who caucused for O'Malley for ideological reasons, knowing he could not possibly win, account for a larger percentage of the overall caucus than the difference between the top two contenders. If most of those O'Malley voters would have been Sanders voters had O'Malley not been in the race, then they effectively Nadered Sanders.
Ted Cruz won the GOP caucus.
Cruz:…
gregladen | January 22, 2016The answer: One Republican and One Democrat/Independent.
The Iowa Caucus is pretty much up for grabs in both parties. Over recent days, a clear Trump lead has been erased, and Cruz is now ahead in recent polls. Over roughly the same period, a clear Clinton lead has been erased, and Sanders is now ahead in recent polls.
FiveThirtyEight (Nate Silver) is still predicting a Clinton victory for the Dems, but a Cruz victory for the GOPs. The Clinton victory prediction is of high confidence, while the Cruz prediction is not, and Trump is close behind.
One way to look at the polls is to track…
grrlscientist | January 3, 2008tags: Iowa caucus news, politics, Obama, Democrats
With 97% of the Iowa precincts reporting, there finally is a clear winner;
Barak Obama 38% (16 delegates)
John Edwards 30% (14 delegates) Was John Edwards really in second place? If so, why did he end up with one delegate fewer than Hillary Clinton? Or maybe the delegates were not yet assigned as reported?
Hillary Clinton 29% (15 delegates)
239,000 people turned out for the Democrats, a historic high for Iowa Democrats -- slightly more than 10% of the state's registered voters. (124,000 turned out in 2000). Incidentally, 28% of all Democratic…
grrlscientist | January 3, 2008tags: Iowa caucus news, politics, Huckabee, Republican
Is this an indication of the deep chasm that separates Americans today?
With 86% of precincts reporting;
Mike Huckabee 34%
Mitt Romney 25% Apparently, his former prochoice and "don't ask, don't tell" positions really hurt him.
Fred Thompson 14%
John McCain 13%
Ron Paul 10%
Rudy Guiliani 4%
112,000 Republicans turned out for the Iowa caucus tonight -- less than 10% of the state's registered voters (89,000 turned out in 2000). Huckabee had fairly even support across all groups, which included evangelicals, home schoolers and other…