Pic Of The Moment: Putting That Trump Iowa Landslide In Perspective

[EarlG]

Iowa caucuses see record-low voter turnout

Population of Iowa

Number of registered voters and registered Republican voters in Iowa

Iowa Republican Caucus results

[dalton99a]

1. Kick

[Fla Dem]

2. Perfect illustration of how meaningless the Iowa caucus was.

[riversedge]

3. But Trumps mountain of Lies tries to make up for the little votes-and Maga will believe him no doubt

[ProudMNDemocrat]

4. 56,260 out of 718,901 registered Republicans...

Not YUGE by any stretch of the imagination.

[flashman13]

16. For you math freaks (like me) that's less than 3% of registered voters.

That's not what I would call a biggly yuge landslide. And that also means 49% of Iowa Repugs want someone other than Trump.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

17. Similar thing when it comes to rain predictions...

Chance of rain 40%.

Which translates to me, a 60% chance that it WON'T rain. I like those percentages better.

[keithbvadu2]

27. It's not so much what you say, it's how you say it.

[NJCher]

53. And here's another one

Compliments of my dad: Figures don’t lie but liars do figure.

[ProfessorGAC]

30. I Find It To Be Very Low...

...for a candidate who has been the party's national standard bearer for almost 8 years now, and was POTUS just 3 years ago.
Did he win by a lot, proportionally? That could be said.
But given the situation, I'd expect much more dominant performance.

[TwilightZone]

5. None of that really means anything.

He still won by a record margin. All of the rest of it is just spin.

I don't understand why it seems so important for us to obsess over the results of a race that means very little in the big picture and somehow convince ourselves that it's some kind of loss. The argument that a 30% win is a loss is just silly.

The funny thing is that we constantly complain that the media wants a horse race for November, while we try to desperately twist and turn and spin the GOP primary into one. One of those things is much more likely to be a horse race than the other. Guess which one.

My concern is that people are going to buy into the nonsense that this indicates that Trump has no GOP support and is going to lose big in November and we'll get complacent. We heard the same arguments in 2016 (65% of GOP voters are voting *against* Trump!) and we know how that turned out.

[EarlG]

14. In my defense, of course it's spin

I don't do fake news -- there are no lies in the image, the figures are correct. But I spin!

Trump was obviously going to win Iowa, and is obviously going to win the Republican nomination, by a significant margin. He'll be Biden's opponent. I still think it's fair to point out that Trump's record margin of victory in Iowa happened during a record low turnout. Yeah the weather was bad. But this is Trump's cult we're talking about here. Big landslide victories against other Republicans in the primaries won't mean much in the general *if* overall Republican enthusiasm for Trump is low. Of course it remains to be seen if this is the case, but the Iowa numbers don't bode well for the GOP at large. In fact they suggest that if anything, it might be Republicans that have a complacency problem.

I don't think that arguments about Democratic complacency in 2016 really translate over to 2024. Dems were blindsided in 2016 -- we thought we had it in the bag, and that was a big mistake. Trump was essentially an unknown quantity, a political outsider running a completely unprecedented campaign, and he managed to persuade just enough leaners to give him a chance to see what he could do -- one of his campaign pitches was, "What do you have to lose?"

But he wasn't able to persuade those same people to re-elect him in 2020, and since 2016, he has basically done nothing but cause the GOP to lose a ton of elections that they should easily have won.

Of course Trump can win in 2024. However, he is now a very known quantity, and he's weaker and more extreme than he was in 2016 and 2020. So I plan to spend the next 10 months metaphorically kicking him while he's down, rather than standing back and worrying that he might get up again

[BlueMTexpat]

56. I personally very much

enjoy your kicking him because our corporate-controlled M$M certainly won't.

I share your pics on my social media as well. Hopefully, they will bring others into the DU fold.

[Farmer-Rick]

20. What was the record margin?

I really don't know.

If it was a record win then that's something to consider.

[EarlG]

24. Trump beat DeSantis (who came second) by

just under 30 percentage points. The previous record for margin of victory was 13 points by Bob Dole over Pat Robertson in 1988. So, a massive margin of victory.

But as mentioned, there is additional context: Trump's 30 point record victory also came from record low turnout.

Expectations for turnout at the Iowa caucuses had been high heading into the year, following record-shattering attendance in the last competitive GOP contest.

But just over 110,000 voters participated in the 2024 caucuses, falling well below the high expectations for turnout in 2024.

(snip)

In 2016, Republicans set a new record for turnout at the caucuses, with almost 187,000 GOP voters. Though the total made up only about a third of all registered Republicans, turnout at the 2016 caucuses greatly outnumbered the 2012 contest, which had about 122,000 voters. And in 2008, the turnout was similar, with 120,000 voters, making the 2024 Iowa caucuses turnout the lowest in more than a decade.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iowa-caucus-turnout-2024

In 2016 Trump came second in Iowa with 45,429 votes. (Ted Cruz won with 51,666.) 8 years later Trump has the entire GOP on lockdown, he's a former president, and he's running to try and beat the man who defeated him. He got a significant *proportion* of the votes.

But while he only managed to get about 11,000 votes more than he did the first time around, overall the number of votes cast *dropped* by roughly 77,000 votes, or about 41%. That's a BIG drop, even with the bad weather. Remember -- in 2016 the US had just had 8 years of Obama and Hillary Clinton was on the ticket. Republicans were massively motivated to turn out. This time around, they appear to be less motivated than they were in 2012 or 2008.

Edited to add: You know what, there's another important factor here. Trump is essentially operating as the incumbent in the GOP primaries. He was their most recent president, from 2016-2020, and he's running again, after just one term, for a rematch. Usually when incumbents run in primaries they only get token opposition, if any. So maybe it's more instructive to compare Trump's win and margin of victory to other Republican incumbents:

Ronald Reagan, 1984
Vote share: 100% | Margin of victory: 100 percentage points (he ran unopposed, there was no primary)

George H. W. Bush, 1992 (essentially the incumbent)
Vote share: 100% | Margin of victory: 100 percentage points (he ran unopposed, there was no primary)

George W. Bush, 2004
Vote share: 100% | Margin of victory: 100 percentage points (he ran unopposed, there was no primary)

Trump, 2024
Vote share: 51% | Margin of victory: 30 percentage points

I think the technical term for that is a "loss of mojo."

[Farmer-Rick]

39. Thanks so much

That was very informative.

[shrike3]

45. Anecdotally, I see no Trump signs, no flags.

No Trump parades. We live in a very red area. They were everywhere in 2016, everywhere in 2020. After Jan. 6, the local GOP had a Trump parade every week. I do not exaggerate. Now, granted it's early. But I do not hear buzz. Trump supporters are around, obviously, but they're not obvious, and they are definitely not noisy. We'll see if that changes.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

38. traitortrump likes to brag. It behooves us to point out the false parts of his brag.

[NJCher]

55. This is the real problem

My concern is that people are going to buy into the nonsense that this indicates that Trump has no GOP support and is going to lose big in November and we'll get complacent.

Take a look at the bigger picture, which is why this is a graphic that is sorely needed and which I’m going to send all over the place because it rectifies a media failure.

For weeks, in talking about the Iowa caucus, all these words go into the media’s sentences about trump: commanding lead, front runner, dominant, undisputed leader of the Republican Party.

Being a person with a media background, this troubles me because what the viewer or listener hears is “trump is powerful,” “dominant,” etc.

They are creating an image for this sick, pathetic idiot of a person that does not exist! That of “dominant,” “commanding.”

It is important because as a true political party, there isn’t one. We see that because we follow these matters closely every day. The average American does not see that, though. So what you have is an American public that is being presented with the idea of a functioning political party being lead by a strong, dominant leader.

That’s why this graphic is important. It shows in pictorial form what is really going on .What is needed on top of it is for the media to emphasize the pathetic reality of his “win”. That needs to go on for weeks.

That won’t happen, though. It’s way too analytical for a story.

[Blue Owl]

6. Much ado about nothing

[qwlauren35]

7. That's fascinating.

Slightly reasonable, given that lots of people don't vote in the primaries. But you would think that Iowans would be higher than those in most states.

[gratuitous]

8. Indeed

As important as Iowa touts itself for its placement in the primary schedule, you'd think every red-blooded son and daugher of the Hawkeye State would brave anything to remain worthy of their status to set the agenda for the rest of the country. Instead, they don't seem to care any more than the rest of us about their silly caucuses.

[usaf-vet]

11. Especialy when TFG ordered you to get out in the dangerous weather and vote for him..then it's ok if you die.

We now know how many idiots live in Iowa who haven't figured out they are only important to him for the money they send him and the votes they cast.

Wake up, morons. He wanted his VP hung, and it was alright if you braved dangerous weather JUST to vote for him and then DIED!

[FakeNoose]

9. I love this illustration!

It's perfect. Great job EarlG!

The word "landslide" belongs in quotation marks, because it was anything but.....

[EarlG]

34. It's a bit of a weird one because

technically you can call it a landslide -- he beat his nearest opponent by 30 percentage points. But when you zoom out and take a look at the larger picture, the historically low turnout plus the "incumbent factor" (which I talk more about here) really do add extra context.

[niyad]

10. KNR

[dobleremolque]

12. The Main Stream Media (MSM) is bound and determined

to cheapen the meaning of the word "landslide." So they'll continue to use it to support the horse race narrative they need.

[progressoid]

13. As someone else on DU pointed out. That's fewer people than attend a Iowa Hawkeye football game.

[3catwoman3]

48. What a delicious bit of information!

Love it.

[J3AC4]

15. Percent of Iowa population for Trump

1.76332288%

[Pinback]

40. That's a lot of numbers!

More numbers than any other presidential candidate, EVER!

[limbicnuminousity]

18. Described it elsewhere as:

The 2024 Iowa Republican presidential caucus was held on January 15, 2024. Weather conditions were such that an estimated 14% of registered Republican voters turned out to caucus. The landscape of Iowa on that evening has been described as a frozen tundra, presumed to be nearly as white as the voters who braved the unkind elements in desperate support of their leader. Despite the ghastly weather conditions, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis gathered in the wake of a friendly non-debate five days prior to display their pitiful inadequacy to the task of challenging Inmate Number P01135809, who could not be bothered to show, for the title of Court Jester. The results were unsurprising, yet still illuminating.

[twodogsbarking]

19. I hope none of them died getting there to vote.

[Crowman2009]

21. For all the complaints about secure voting by the GOPers, why did they pass around paper grocery bags to put...

...ballots in?

[JoseBalow]

22. drumpf thinks tiny things are HUGE

His mistresses, not so much

[BumRushDaShow]

23. I know I posted that severely underreported fact about the actual turnout - lowest in over 20 years

https://www.axios.com/2024/01/16/iowa-caucuses-turnout-trump-weather

-and-

Iowa caucus turnout for 2024 and how it compares to previous years

By Kaia Hubbard

January 16, 2024 / 11:17 AM EST / CBS News

Expectations for turnout at the Iowa caucuses had been high heading into the year, following record-shattering attendance in the last competitive GOP contest. But just over 110,000 voters participated in the 2024 caucuses, falling well below the high expectations for turnout in 2024. Former President Donald Trump handily won the contest, trailed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.

There could be a number of reasons for the low turnout: A lack of enthusiasm among Republicans plus record-breaking weather seemed to stand in the way, keeping some voters home amid the unprecedented caucus cold, while others braved the frigid temperatures.

The 110,000 voters who participated in the 2024 cacuses accounts for just under 15% of the state's 752,000 registered Republicans. Still, though the attendance didn't shatter records, the Iowa GOP celebrated the turnout as a demonstration of Iowans' "resilience and determination."

(snip)

How does 2024 Iowa turnout compare to 2020 and 2016 caucuses?

In 2016, Republicans set a new record for turnout at the caucuses, with almost 187,000 GOP voters. Though the total made up only about a third of all registered Republicans, turnout at the 2016 caucuses greatly outnumbered the 2012 contest, which had about 122,000 voters. And in 2008, the turnout was similar, with 120,000 voters, making the 2024 Iowa caucuses turnout the lowest in more than a decade.

(snip)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iowa-caucus-turnout-2024/

[Warpy]

25. Cults of personality are motivated to come out in bitter cold

to stuffy houses and other venues to testify for their lard and savior.

Sensible people stay home in weather like this.

It's why Iowa has never been much of a predictor state for the general election.

[Initech]

26. That's literally half of the number of people that can fit into the University Of Michigan stadium.

And the MAGA dude bros are acting like they already won the election, when they just won the coin toss.

[lastlib]

28. Great illustration!

(I can imagine that a similar chart could be used to illustrate the Pustule's little mushroom-head thingy.... The biggest square would illustrate what he told women about it; the second-biggest would illustrate how big he thought it was; the SMALLEST square would represent how big it ACTUALLY is.....)


- - - -

[FemDemERA]

29. The numbers that intrigue me are

2.08 million and 718,901. So way less than half of the registered voters in Iowa are Republicans?

[EarlG]

32. Yes, and

there are more registered Republicans than Democrats. The remainder are not affiliated with either of the two major parties.

[dchill]

31. So now the mainstream media agree...

...with Trump's perspective and estimation of his huge specialness. I love it when a plan comes together!

How do YOU spell kowtowing?

[FailureToCommunicate]

33. I guess a lot of MAGA republicans we actually smart ...

enough to NOT risk dying just to vote for their dear leader! Sad.

[Faux pas]

35. I had to check the stats

out yesterday. Between the weather and nobody caring, the assholes will win every time

[markodochartaigh]

36. It's true,

It wasn't a lot of voters, even for the sparsely populated state of Iowa. But it was also only five votes that handed the presidency to Bush II.

[Renew Deal]

37. The only people that matter are the ones that show up.

Numbers like the one above are good for trying to explain to the outside world that we're not as bad as we seem. They're not particularly useful other than trying to make us feel better.

[Reader Rabbit]

41. Can someone please forward this to the major media outlets?

Math is hard, but the pretty pink boxes make it easy to understand.

[brooklynite]

42. What does saying this is insignificant accomplish?

Does it mean Trump ISN'T likely to be the Democratic nominee?

Does it mean Trump ISN'T likely to win Iowa in November?

I don't understand the fixation on this point.

[struggle4progress]

43. Handful of pundits excited by small number of Iowans moronic enough

to risk freezing to death to support Stinky Guy

[BigmanPigman]

44. I love charts and graphs

Visual aids really help me in understanding tons of info very quickly.

[kacekwl]

46. All that matters is

How many electoral votes do they have that can be stolen.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

47. K&R

[kimbutgar]

49. He only got 8% of registered repukes in the state and I rounded up from 7.83%!

Doesn’t seem like such a landslide win when you do the math!

[Martin68]

50. Excellent analysis and graphic explanation of the significance (or insignificance).

Shared on Facebook to spread the news.

[Freethinker65]

51. Yeah, but he did handily beat all of the other Republican contenders.

[Demovictory9]

52. Kick

[C Moon]

54. Media outlets like Yahoo are joyfully screaming that Biden is done for.

Yahoo News: Jolly jokers.