Caucus turnout: Robust, record-setting and surprising

[newthinking]

Source: Des Moines Register

Iowa’s 2016 caucus attendance was a doozy.

Republicans counted more than 180,000 caucusgoers, topping their 2012 attendance record of 121,503 by an estimated 60,000 people.

And while Democratic numbers weren’t completely tallied at the time of this publication, all indications pointed to a robust performance, although not likely to top the roughly 240,000 total who showed up in 2008 to vote for a Democratic rock-star field led by Barack Obama, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton.

The turnouts shunned conventional wisdom that high participation would equate to a Donald Trump victory, said Kedron Bardwell, the chairman of the political science department at Simpson College.

“It’s not what people were expecting in terms of what would happen if we had an increased turnout,” Bardwell said. “This is a dynamic kind of effect. If people anticipate that Trump is going to win, it also motivates the people that want anybody but Trump.”

Read more: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2016/02/02/caucus-turnout-robust-record-setting-and-surprising/79626128/

[newthinking]

1. This Dem precinct ran out of voter registration papers. Much bigger turnout than expected

https://twitter.com/woodruffbets/status/694319025589891072/photo/1

(Note: Sounds like they printed more as things evolved)

[Bigredhunk]

3. Ours did too (ran out of new voter forms)

It's great when new people are signing up to vote.

[Helen Borg]

5. So, what did you do after you ran out of forms?

Just curious.

[Bigredhunk]

6. -

Honestly, I'm not sure. The precinct captain (or whatever you call the gal/guy running the show) told everyone he brought 2 boxes or packets of new voter registration forms, figuring that would surely be enough. He never said anything about it after that.

[trillion]

2. So the Dems have had way more caucus goers than the Repubs in Iowa? Wow, guess I learn more every

day.

[Bigredhunk]

4. -

Not sure how it shook out. A photographer for the local paper said, "They had a lot of people out at theirs too, but of course their location is smaller." We were in a gymnasium (140 people showed). They were in a high school library.

[bigdarryl]

7. According to Rachel Maddow the republicans had more people who voted than the democrats