I’m too tired to do a complete rundown of the caucus results tonight. The whole thing disgusts me. I just want to remind you of something. Here were the results in Iowa eight years ago.
Barack Obama: 940 delegates, 37.6% of the total, earned 16 delegates to the convention.
John Edwards: 744 delegates, 29.7% of the total, earned 14 delegates to the convention.
Hillary Rodham Clinton: 737 delegates, 29.4% of the total, earned 15 delegates to the convention.
Let that sink in.
Even today, the president gets all sentimental talking about his great victory in Iowa that netted him a one delegate advantage over Clinton and a two delegate advantage over Edwards.
This whole spectacle is a sham. Whether Bernie ekes out a tiny victory or suffers a minute loss, he stands to pick up or lose one or two delegates at the most. Even if the results were less close, this basic math wouldn’t change much.
Iowa barely has any delegates in the first place, but they’re going to be divided nearly equally no matter what happens, and that’s been the case ever since Sanders got over 40% in the polls.
On the Republican side, four years ago was a complete fiasco. The first count said Romney won. The second count that came out after New Hampshire, said that they’d lost some votes and couldn’t say for sure who had won but that their official count was giving it to Santorum. And then Ron Paul wound up getting the delegates to the convention.
Ted Cruz won tonight. Four years ago, Santorum won. Eight years ago, Huckabee won. Tonight, Santorum came in last place and Huckabee dropped out. Going back further, in 1988, Dole came in first, Pat Robertson came in second, and Poppy Bush came in third.
So, good for Ted. It’s better to win than to lose. But Iowa likes to vote for losers.
Donald Trump learned a lesson tonight about relying on polls, about the importance of a ground game, and about the foolishness of running away from Megyn Kelly if your whole schtick is that you’re the toughest guy in the race.
I absolutely love that he got his ass kicked and I thought he might cry during his brief shellshocked press conference.
These results resolve almost nothing, but the media spin will be ferocious. I can already see the outlines of a fight between the Clinton and Sanders camp over who really won, but you could do just as well by converting a single superdelegate from the other camp into your own. That’s how little it matters mathematically who actually “won” tonight, and it’s also at least as likely as not that the “winner” will have actually received fewer votes. That’s because of the way the delegates are assigned.
Finally, Iowa is a nice state. My father grew up in Iowa City while my grandfather was teaching there. But they aren’t representative of the country. Tonight decides nothing and it shouldn’t decide anything.
Final verdict?
Marco Rubio won.
Just looked at Politico, supposedly 50 of 52 Iowa delegates awarded, including superdelegates (who can, of course, change.)
27 Clinton, 21 Sanders, 2 uncommitted.
With 91.3% in. Clinton 49.8%, Sanders 49.5%
All of this pretty tentative/preliminary of course.
Which I think shows Sanders’ challenge with the delegate math – Sanders needs to find a way to impress the superdelegates or they will break against him.
Recall that in 2008, most of Obama’s margin of victory came from superdelegates.
If HRC wins this largely because of the supet delegates its going to rip the party apart.
Worse happened in 2008, which is why the PUMA movement occurred. Most of them got over it by November.
Lots of vocalization in the spring, maybe into July, but they came around by November.
Appears headed that way…
I think that troll rating you got shows that Hillary has already ripped the party apart.
we don’t know who maythirteenth is, could be a troll
Shows up intermittently to toss donuts on anyone that says anything not approved by Clinton, Inc. and rewards comments that are aligned with the neoliberalcons.
ah, thanks
does it say what the results are if you exclude superdelegates?
No, can’t tell from what they have posted.
It is on their front page, here:
http://www.politico.com/
times web site has sanders and Clinton tied at 21/21.
right, which could change by one at most at this point.
NYT this AM:
Clinton 43, Sanders 41
Showing again that the fix is in. And Democrats complained about Bush being the selected one.
According to CNN, there are 44 delegates up for grabs in the caucuses and 8 super delegates for a total of 52.
At the same time, CNN claims Hillary won 24 and Sanders won 21. That’s 45 delegates. Which is wrong? In 2008, Obama, Clinton and Edwards divided 45 delegates.
Martin says it is 21-21 with only one more delegate to be won. That’s only 43 delegates, one short of the 44 CNN says are at stake and two short of the number given out in 2008.
What gives? Isn’t it the number of delegates won that determines the winner? Shouldn’t we have this information?
Television News can never get numbers right.
They seemed to do better before 2000, but maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention back then.
ah, CNN. did they also say that Sanders is a republican?
Yes, this list says 44 delegates and 8 superdelgates for Iowa:
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/D-Alloc.phtml#Alph
This morning, by parsing several websites I think Clinton has won 22 delegates, not including 6 superdelegates, for a total of 28 including the superdelegates. (However, in the wikipedia list of democratic superdelegates, I only count four Iowans in the Clinton camp. So that’s an issue. I think the wikipedia list may be incorrect.) Sanders has 21 delegates as of 12EST, I don’t think any of those are superdelegates. There are two uncommitted delegates (other superdelegates?) according to Politico, giving a total of 51. Where is number 52? On vacation?
Aha! Number 52 showed up finally (must have been in the bathroom), allotted to Clinton for a total of 29 (including the 6 supers) , to Sanders 21, and 2 uncommitted.
“It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”
“Mourning is coming” -Ted Cruz.
Entertaining to hear the new spin that Cruz is the first to be attacked by Trump and come out the other side a winner.
But yeah, Trump must be kicking himself for leaving Rubio unsmacked. Tomorrow he’ll be out with guns blazing and the only question will be will Trump become unhinged when he starts shooting?
And what are the super delegates for? A system put in in the wake of McGovern to ensure that the people never again pick a candidate. A return to the smoke filled room.
Yet despite that, Obama won in 2008. They’ll change their votes if the writing is on the wall.
Obama had about a third of the Superdelegates at the beginning of primaries, it was a firewall against them taking it away from him.
By Sanders totally eschewing them, he leaves himself vulnerable and not taking the process seriously
As of tonight Trump supporters have something new to think about; do they support a loser?
Is that link right? Less than 1400 people voted?
Fewer people voted in the Democratic caucuses than voted for Rick fucking Santorum, the MOST UNPOPULAR Republican?
those are delegate equivalents, Democrats in Iowa don’t report actual votes
Thanks for the explanation.
No.
1681 districts
AP results now = 1632 of 1681 Precincts Reporting – 97%
0682 for Clinton
0678 for Sanders
0008 for 0’Malley
0000 for Other
0000 for Uncommitted
1368 total ≠ 1632 “districts reporting”
Found it. Apparently there are a total of 1,406 total “votes.” So…
AP results now = 1671 of 1681 Precincts Reporting – 99%
0696 for Clinton
0693 for Sanders
0008 for O’Malley
0000 for Other
0000 for Uncommitted
1397 total (with 9 electoral units [“votes”] from “missing” precincts)
Interestingly, at this moment, if you divvy up the six coin flips so far that were all won by Hillary 50/50, the “vote” count would be exactly reversed from where it is now with Sanders ahead 696 to 693 for Clinton.
Clear winner:
Rubio. Did better than expected. Better than anyone expected. Sure as hell did better than I expected. Strangely, he lost all but 5 countys in the state. Is Rubio everybody’s 2nd choice?
Bernie. Didn’t get beat. Expectations mean everything in Iowa (lord knows there aren’t enough delegates to mean anything) and Bernie met or exceeded pretty much all expectations.
Clear Loser: Trump. The combover king didn’t win outright. I wonder if his no show for the debate was a big factor. He’s hitched his star to the bitter, angry, xenophobic crowd. Maybe they just stayed home from the snow?
Clear Not Loser: Clinton. At this point she is heaving a sigh of relief that the Bernie hoped for huge turnout of support was not so huge. This isn’t a good result for Hillary by any means, but its not a disaster, either. NH looks to be pretty bad news at this point. The is a breakwater coming tho: SC. However, things DO change quickly. I don’t see it happening in SC, but stranger things have certainly happened.
Not too sure: Cruz. He won. Outright and by 3 percentage points. However, he’ll probably get creamed in NH (‘buncha heathens up there, ya know), and until tonite was looking pretty anemic in SC. That could change in a flash, tho.
Everyone else:
Carson is still on drugs, Rand is still asking for handouts, Bush is still low energy, and Francisco Franco is still dead.
The pollsters are the big losers. The final week of polling, and including the averages, all of them blew it.
“The Gold Standard” – DMR – was off by almost two MOEs for Sanders. Quinnipiac was closest to being accurate — but only for Sanders, fell a MOE short for Clinton and therefore, will be dismissed for having Sanders ahead.
Not sure. For one, people put way too much weight in individual polls, Selzer or otherwise.
The pollster aggregate was Clinton 47.7 and Sanders 44.6, with O’Malley at 3.7; depending on how you figured O’Malley supporters would swing when he was eliminated, that polling aggregate is pretty damned accurate.
The Republican side was a miss, but about 1/3 of the voters polled were committed to one of the “marginal” candidates. What’s interesting is that the polls from two weeks ago seem a lot more accurate on that side than the ones conducted more recently. Seems like that late Trump “surge” in Iowa was just noise.
“Marco Rubio won. ” Yes.
Did those hideous mailers of Cruz actually WORK?
Probably not. It was his daddy pounding the pulpits for at least a year and with Carson collapse and Huckabee disappearing that support had to go somewhere.
As would be expected, too many couch potatoes Trump’s support base.
With 99% reporting:
28% Cruz
24% Trump
23% Rubio
9% Carson
5% Paul
3% Jeb
2% Fiorina
2% Kaisich
2% Christie
0 Gilmore
Unlike most years, I suspect Iowa might influence the NH GOP results. Not Cruz’s natural territory. But could see a flight from Christie and Bush to Kasich.
That’s what I’m thinking, Marie3. And we want Katich to get up in the spotlight pretty soon so all can see his true colors so he can fade back into the pack before the convention. heh heh Meanwhile, the Great Dem Horse race is on and we’re gonna be talking about single-payer and min wage and BLM and women’s pay etc on the nightly news, in addition to everywhere else. Good year for Dems comin’ up!
Could there be an effect of crossing over party lines? I did hear an early report quite a few Republican voters registered as Democrats to place their vote in the caucus yesterday. Wouldn’t surprise me of potential Trump voters (large lead in polls) voting strategically againt HRC. Surprise, surprise. 😉
Actually the republican caucus turnout rose by well over 65,000 people over their previous high. 2016 turnout 186,795 votes this time vs 121,503 in 2012.
The while high, democratic caucus goers didn’t top their 2008 record of over 240,000 caucus participants. More new registrants on the gop side this time.
Ben Carson Accuses Ted Cruz Of Using ‘Dirty Tricks’ To Win Iowa
True enough — but doesn’t appear to have much, if any, impact on the outcome. Dr Ben’s RCP average was 7.7% and the “gold standard” pollster only had him at 10%. Carson should be happy that his joke of a campaign garnered 9.3% in the caucuses. Far exceeding what the other two “men of god” received (1.8% for Huckabee and 1% for Ricky) and those two have actually been elected and served in public offices in the past.
This does give a good indication that Cruz fully intends to use any and all dirty tricks in the books that he can find.
The MSM Trump play has peaked. The MSM needs another story. They now have this great Dem horserace. Coverage for Bernie and Hillary is going UP for the next who knows how long. Which means coverage of our issues is going to get batted around like front page stuff. That could not be better. I am not given to over-excitement but this really has some great potential for a cool year for Democrats, I believe.
At least two Democratic Iowa caucuses were determined by a coin flip
Clinton won both.
Reports that three districts in Iowa Democratic caucus decided “winner” by coin toss. (In all three, Clinton won the coin toss though vote counts were a tie, or something.)
No one’s saying much about turn out, so I guess it wasn’t huge.
Perhaps I’m being overly suspicious, but something hinky has crept in that has echoes of the middle of the night vote count 2000 FL. Vote tallies in one large county were fixed in the dead of night and those ballots were never recounted even once.
there aren’t really ballots in a caucus though so probably just a reporting issue
All the more reason why there should not have been any delay in the reporting. Count heads, add it up, report, everybody goes home.
even if this is what truly happened it wouldn’t have changed the results of that caucus site. Delegates would have been assigned the same way. Remember it’s delegates not voters that are reported in caucuses
Rubio on paper is a more exciting candidate than HRC and an empty suit in reality. Shades of Bush II.
Yggles isn’t too bad here
Excerpt:
The differences in demographics of age could not have been more dramatic. Under 45 and over 45 are different people. If one were ~35 at the time of the crash, one might have had some amount of wealth that went poof and it may have served to make one unwilling to risk much and/or more cynical. If under 35 at that time, has one been treading water?
Some of us have retained a youthful perspective of the world. Perhaps in memory of the obstructionist older people when we were young. Sanders is clearly a fellow traveler.
Grant Park was very formative.
What are you so hostile about? You’re the one who endorsed Hillary Clinton knowing full well she’s Hillary Clinton. Don’t tell me you’re going to go back to pining for Joe Biden to save you.
Seems like a neat and tidy little night to me. The Evangelical wins in Iowa because that’s what always happens. All those giant ratings for the GOP debates translated into big turnout. Trump’s free flowing hate has indeed hard capped his support. The media desperately wants Rubio to be A Thing. JEB! sucks and has suffered hilarious indignities on his brother’s behalf. Hillary is not now nor will she ever be super popular and would probably lose to a real campaign, instead of whatever faux revolution vanity tour Sanders is doing. This is our world now.
My open advice is that Obama dead-enders need to get going on moving through the five stages of grief already or y’all will be drinking hemlock come January.
Yes, I noticed a sour note myself… after writing Bernie off gently in the previous post.
I haven’t endorsed Hillary Clinton.
I swear, I don’t understand how people can read this blog for 10 years and still have no idea who I am.
“But Iowa likes to vote for losers.”
One of the strangest remarks from your pen.
I like Iowans as I believe they vote their conscience or from their hearts. They didn’t do too bad with Obama in ’08 on the Democratic side. What if they picked HRC by a clear margin yesterday? Losers?
The Democrats had about 90 caucus precincts understaffed and votes not (properly) (ac)counted. Seems to be the delay for the last votes to come in.
Tom McCarthy: “I’ve now heard of six caucus locations with coin flips, and Hillary Clinton won all of them.” – link DMReg
Check that coin!
A full house and a decision by a few …
Iowa caucus precinct miscount resolved by parliamentary ruling | 00:55
Iowa Republican Precinct 321 in West Des Moines had 155 votes but only 154 voters.
The issue was resolved, after many voters had left, by unanimous consent.
A tall mountain to climb for elder stateswoman HRC …
Iowa caucus result for 17-29 year-olds:
Bernie Sanders 84%
Hillary Clinton 13%
Martin O’Malley 2%
A devastating blow to HRC’s campaign, more so than the virtual tie in Iowa with Sanders.
In politics, it’s always about HOPE and the next generation.
After Iowa caucus …
FiveThirtyEight: A New Hampshire Forecast Update … Sort Of
She reportedly morphed into a full throated progressive in her “victory” speech tonight.
She morphed into master Bill himself … the chameleon of the 1992 presidential campaign.
“What does a Clinton really believe in?
You might as well ask a chameleon to
tell you its favourite colour.”
Historian Joseph Sobran
Can Hillary become the “come-back” lady?
hope you’re enjoying HRC’s “victory” photo with Bill in the background and 3/4 full shot of Chelsea’s maternity dress
also the coordination of colors – Hillary and Chelsea’s dresses, resembles what Michelle did with the dress colors for her and Sasha and Malia in Chicago. (and I assume it was Michelle herself, not some stylist)
Now this group is the least likely to suck it up and still go vote…
That’s weird. I could have sworn it was only ever a two man race. And if I do the math right, 2-1=1.
So if you go around writing for weeks that while you love Bernie Sanders’ politics and potential impact on the race, you don’t think he’s meeting necessary minimum qualifications to govern and warn his supporters to be more respectful or risk damaging the party, I gotta figure that leaves only the other choice.
2-1=1, right? Save us Joe Biden, there’s still time!
Is your “official” position now that you hate everyone and everything and are “tired” and “disgusted” and every blog post you write will be the equivalent of a loaded shotgun in your mouth? Good fun.
Yeah. Only about 3 weeks ago I had you in the bag for anybody but Hillary. When you become invested in a candidate, you forget that others aren’t, won’t be, and don’t care.
I gotta take a break from this because I’m getting too intense (occupational hazard, I was a hacker in a former life).
I think I’m going to sit out NH, SC and NV. By that time, the air should have cleared somewhat.
The Iowa caucuses have some major disadvantages, most importantly in shutting out minority and disabled votes. There’s also a lot of advantage to having a small state get to know the candidates really, really well. I see a lot of progressives dissing Iowa, but every system they propose to replace it would disadvantage challengers. Or I should say, further disadvantage challengers, since by definition they’re fighting an uphill battle.
Anyway, love it or hate it, Iowa Has Spoken, if not with a clear voice.
I haven’t brought myself to support either candidate this year – but to all of you who did donate and volunteer, thank you! I appreciate you. It’s a great contest, whatever happens.
A well disciplined organization knows how to conduct itself in public, how to behave when the public (or news media)is watching.
Lack of discipline is not a sign of good leadership.
“discipline failure“
Yes, but it’s true: she is a helluva liar. You know that kind?
Knock yourself out …
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/
A little historical reflection.
When and why was the 2016 DEM nomination set up as if it were a contest between a sitting VP and a two or three longshots? Longshots because sitting VPs generally command a high level of intra-party institutional support and all the money that comes with that. In the past hundred years, not one current VP that has run for the nomination has failed to obtain it. GHWB was soundly defeated by Bob Dole in the ’88 Iowa caucus, but otherwise it was an easy win for him.
The advantages are even higher for a sitting president seeking re-election. Even the most unpopular Carter won both the Iowa caucus and NH primary in 1980 against challenger Ted Kennedy. The only primary election that some of us are old enough to remember that included a candidate with all the institutional advantages and that sent shock waves through a political party (and the electorate) because the candidate only managed to obtain 50% of the vote was way back in 1968. LBJ won it with the 50% and McCarthy managed to get second place with 42% of the vote. LBJ withdrew from the race before the next primary.
All things considered, Sanders did win tonight.
Diary UPDATE for fladem in Iowa – add comments in diary please:
○ Iowa midnight: of revolutions and stolen election (update 7x) by fladem
○ How Sanders caught fire in Iowa and turned the Clinton coronation into a real race | WaPo |
Looks like there were coordinated attempts to prevent caucus-goers timely entry to polling places in pro-Sanders districts in Iowa. Sounds to me like a desperate Clinton campaign resorts to Republican tactics again to eke out a victory where they desperately needed one. Not to mention no voter counts provided and coin flips (all won by Clinton) to settle disputes?
Declaring a Clinton win in Iowa is ridiculous. But so it goes. How low will she stoop this week?
Do I loathe Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and the Clinton machine? Call me a hater if that means something to you and you like defending those kinds of tactics, but my loathing for her and her campaign grows more intense daily. War!
Also, what to make now of all those polls over the past week or two from outfits like Gravis, Emerson, and Loras, showing double-digit leads for Clinton. Clearly bullshit polls. And the timing of their release, coordinated each time to come out within hours of a poll showing more accurate (closer) polls with Clinton and Sanders within a few points of each other.
Who were those pollsters, and why were they relied upon so heavily by all the aggregators (HuffPo, RealClearPolitics, even Fivethirtyeight, the latter of which has now buried the Iowa Dem Caucus page so further review of it is impossible)?
Just like 2004!
Do you have any authentic date on this? I mean sleazy shenanigans and not what can and should be expected from those a campaign enlists as precinct captains, etc. that have experience and therefore, know how to in a completely above-board fashion maximize the voters in their camp and the delegates.
I have fladem’s diary. She was there and has been posting here for years. Never have I found her/him untrustworthy. I trust your info the same way, unless it contradicts my own experience.
iirc fladem worked for Edwards in ’08, but don’t recall that he worked Iowa in ’04. IMHO, the Iowa ’04 caucuses were an exercise in the power of in-state DEM officials and operatives. Dean had been bloodied up by the sleazy TV ads (GOP and DEM), but he had self-inflicted wounds from his pissing contest with Gephardt. Only a truly extraordinary, phenomenal, candidate, the likes of which we’ve never seen, can win the IA DEM caucus with a wholesale campaign. IOW no institutional and/or ground campaign operation. Dean wasn’t even close to being that great and he had nothing much other than appealing to the somewhat stable leftwing voter base of Iowa DEMs/INDs.
Last night also highlighted that the GOP side is moving closer to that of how the DEM caucuses function. Their “straw poll” format means that it can’t become as institutionally entrenched as the DEM caucuses. But Cruz mobilized the fundies,* Rubio got the establishment GOP, and Trump was left with the rabble. *The “man of god” fundie voters, near 10% in Iowa, stuck with Carson.
I mean fladem was there now. I thought you were questioning that diary. I was actually a volunteer for Dean and almost went to Iowa. I know people who were there.
You said:
That’s what I was questioning. Took it to mean that some hanky-panky took place that year at the Iowa caucuses, but you may have meant the DEM primaries and campaigns that year. Not anywhere near as clean as I would prefer for a DEN primary cycle, but regular Edwards and Kerry supporters and Edwards conducted themselves well. Not sure Kerry was informed of the sleazy stuff done on his behalf; so, when in doubt, Kerry gets the benefit of that from me.
OK
Dem officials mis-informed Dean activists and Dean participants as to the location of the causcuses, amongst other things. I frankly don’t recall the other things, but fladem telling of sending the younger voters home recalled the 2004 misdirection.
OK and thanks. Understanding the Iowa caucus is like peeling an artichoke. There is always something more after pulling off each leaf.
Have no idea if any Iowa DEM officials have engaged in any tampering with results, but absent trained and skilled observers from other campaigns nobody would know if they did. Not sure Dean voters, for the most part, would have been enough aware of caucus SOP to recognize when something wasn’t according to Hoyle. A wild guess that any attempt to rig anything in favor of an opponent wouldn’t have gotten past Obama and Edwards lead caucus attendees. Sounds as if Sanders might have been a bit short of that type of worker in a few caucuses, but probably overall okay.
What occurred to me last night reading ad hoc tweets of vote counts in individual caucuses was why hadn’t anyone thought about requesting Sanders’ voters to tweet it to a central collection point at the conclusion of the caucus. There’s a lot of this data out there, but probably from only a small portion of the total caucus sites and what exists hasn’t been collated. Likely lost forever because doubt if Iowa DEM HQ actually receives voter total info that they’ll release it.
Oh dear, from this DMR article it was a bigger mess than I thought. Who knew that counting heads exceeds the abilities of ordinary people?
Apparently someone on Sanders’ team did think to request reports of counts from caucus voters. But are those reports accurate? Iowa DEM party says they will not reconsider — their declaration is final.
you didn’t read fladem’s update up there on the side?
There was one article that really made me laugh. That was the one where Debbie declared the Iowa caucuses were a “huge success” for Democrats; even though the race was too close to call. Nice to see her take credit for the lopsided turnout favoring the Republicans after she limited debates giving the Republicans a “huge success” in controlling the media narrative.
Debbie’s plan to give Hillary a big advantage with a Bernie media freeze out has backfired with Bernie overcoming a 41% Hillary lead ending with a tie in Iowa in a few short months. Given this situation Debbie now sees the light and all but doubles the number of DNC sanctioned debates giving Bernie much needed exposure to the minority communities. Maybe this was a “huge success” for Democrats after all.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/dnc-statement-huge-success-iowa-caucuses
That was only after Hillary requested more debates.
She requested the NH debate (iirc it was Sanders that conditioned his acceptance of this last minute addition to the schedule on adding two more after that) because her internally IA polling indicated that her win wouldn’t be strong enough to shift NH to a narrow loss for her. The game plan for her team has always been to win Iowa (hence her victory declaration), do okay in NH, and run the tables in NV and on SuperTuesday. Her operation, combined with her fundraising model, is too costly to sustain a long and grinding primary for months to come. Of course, her tie in Iowa could inspire the masses in her voter base to begin chipping in money to her campaign which would be on her wishlist, but she’s prefer to use all that new money to brag about herself than have to squander it on defeating the old VT socialist.