The Iowa caucus revisited
You’ve probably heard a lot — maybe too much — about the Iowa caucuses, but I’d like highlight one number that isn’t getting much attention: turnout. I mentioned this last night and the final figures are stunning:
The Iowa Democratic Party said that with 96 percent of the precincts reporting, they were seeing record turnout, with 227,000 caucus attendees. In 2004, their turnout was about 125,000 caucus goers.
The Iowa Republican Party is also projecting record turnout, with 120,000 people taking part in the Republican caucuses. About 87,000 people took part in the 2000 Republican caucuses.
The Democratic-to-Republican ratio went up, from 1.43 to 1.89, while total attendance went up 63%. Both are very positive developments.
I have always believed that the more people who participate in our democracy, the more progressive our government will be.
Update: The Democratic estimate is now up to 239,000.
TPM is actually reporting even higher turnouts than the numbers you’re quoting: 239,000. Whoa, dude.
Credit for this is largely due to Obama and Ron Paul, both of whom have made consistent strides at appealing to young voters and the disaffected stragglers in our system. I also think that, as I’ve pointed out, this skews the numbers of every poll out there predicting based on “likely voters,” and the surprises are not over just yet.
Oh, yeah: the link to TPM.
We think alike — I saw that on TPM and was putting it in just as you were commenting.
Don’t think Paul had that big an effect. He only drew 13%.
Well, Paul didn’t have an effect on the campaign, but my point is simply that he was serving up 4 and 5% numbers prior to the caucus. The simple fact that he doubled his numbers and (to my great glee) actually outranked Giuliani is an amazing testament to the numbers of young voters.
I saw Ron Paul on Meet the Press and I see why some people like him so much. I don’t agree with him at all, but he adds to the debate in a positive way. I would probably feel differently if I thought there was any chance that he might get elected!
He’s been described as a “gadfly,” and in the most positive sense that word has to offer, Ron Paul is a gadfly. He’s willing, like Kucinich or Al Sharpton, to say things which are politically costly for others to say.
That’s beneficial to the process, forcing others to discuss things that they may not want to. The shame of it is, the media outlets that have moderated the debates have taken him even less seriously than the candidates.
As for his MTP appearance, I saw the same thing. I couldn’t get past the Civil War reference, though. Drove me nuts, that did.
Paul is excellent on “corporatism”, and progressives would do well to adopt some of his positions and rhetoric on that issue.
We always get huge turnout when the populace is unhappy. I credit Bush’s supreme ineptitude with the high turnout. Maybe that’s cynical. I’d love to believe that it’s just increased so dramatically because some candidate is so enticing that they repel apathy but I think the war and the Bush/Cheney Horror Show are the real reason.
There’s high and there’s sounds-like-a-typo high. This is the latter. It’s not just disenchantment with Bush-Cheney.
Something is going on and it may be the Obama campaign.
It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of the Obama campaign’s ability to turn out new Democrats. Not Independents, not crossover Republicans, but new, young Democrats. This is the holy grail sought by Edwards in ‘08 and by Dean in 2004. But it was Obama who did it.
Josh Marshall has a good post on this phenomenon. It’s a game-changing big deal if it continues past Iowa.
It’s huge, I agree.
This is something I thought I would never say: the Democratic campaigns have been terrific in general. We’ve seen a lot of real debate, great fundraising numbers, and now huge turn-out. There’s no one candidate who has knocked my socks off, but I’ve never seen a campaign where there were so many candidates that I like.
It’s like we’re looking through the looking glass. This time, it’s the Republicans who are factionalized and hating each other, and Democrats generally think they’re choosing the best of a good set of contenders.
Huckleberry would be a dream candidate for Dems to run against in the general, and R’s know it. Panic in the streets of Washington.
[...] number of Republicans, in roughly the same number of precincts. If this keeps up, it will tell us Iowa was no [...]
[...] turn-out in today’s Nevada caucuses was huge, just as it was in Iowa and New Hampshire earlier in the month: ÂÂ Another contest, another day of record turnout for [...]