2020 Iowa turnout might meet low turnout of 2016. Bad omen for November.

[LonePirate]

Link to tweet

Alex Seitz-Wald @aseitzwald

Just in: Our first official statement from the Iowa Democratic Party.

The big news here is TURNOUT. They say it's on pace for 2016, which is LOW. 172,000 turned out in then, down from the record-high of 240,000 in 2008.

It looks like any hopes of defeating Sen. Ernst and turning the state red in November are all but dead now. If our large field cannot inspire a large turnout and without widespread weather problems, Iowa is now an afterthought come November.

[Iliyah]

1. It is not . . .

Keep the eye on the prize . . .

[lunasun]

2. I had thought large turnout would be the big news of the night regardless of who won 😟

[getagrip_already]

3. so much for bringing out new voters.......

No revolution. Just pollution.

But the races before sc don't really matter anyway. Never have. It's just a media event.

[former9thward]

27. They completely matter.

The winner of Iowa has won the nomination in 9 out of the last 11 election years.

[TheRealNorth]

28. I would think beating Sanders or Warren would have been a slam dunk then

You really should refrain from poisoning the well of goodwill because you will need those Sanders and Warren supporters come November.

South Carolina means about as much as New Hampshire. The real tests will be PA, WI, MI

[ecstatic]

4. Undecided voters who are "anything but trump"

might skip caucuses and primaries because they're voting blue no matter who. I skipped the 2008 primaries for that reason.

A lot of us just want trump removed and we're willing to go along with whoever can attract the most support. Whatever it takes.

[Mz Pip]

18. That would be me.

I haven’t decided on a candidate. Any one of them would be better than Trump. I’ll vote for someone in the primaries since all I have to do is some bubbling on my dining room table and affix a stamp. If I had to go out on a cold Iowa winter night I might have stayed home, too.

[Fiendish Thingy]

5. There were years with much lower turnout, and youth turnout was way up

Young voters were 27%, up from 18% in 2016.

Total turnout in 2000 was just 60,000.

It’s all in your perspective.

[hlthe2b]

6. Bullshit... Caucuses do not in any way equate to voter turnout in a classic election.

I don't get why those who have never participated in one (and I most certainly have until Colorado wised up and got rid of them post 2008/2016) keep acting as that were not the case.

Caucus participation is inherently limited to those--no matter how motivated the electorate-- who can show up and spend hours in the evening. It requires not only motivation but access to child care, time off work for those who work shifts, transportation and most of all PATIENCE from society now most motivated by ENTERTAINMENT--something it clearly is NOT. The first time I found it interesting. The second time only moderately tolerable since even under the best of circumstances (two only feasible candidates) the need to train volunteers to do all that is required makes the process long and often interminable. Civility does tend to win the day, but that does not mean the peer pressure for one candidate or another does not become unpleasant.

Bottom line, I do not in any way believe caucus turn-out predicts voter turnout in the Fall. Nor should you.

[democrattotheend]

7. No, but high turnout shows excitement

The high turnout in 2008 foreshadowed an election when Democrats were way more enthusiastic than Republicans, and look how well we did that year.

[hlthe2b]

9. Very clear that you did not read/comprehend my post at all.

[democrattotheend]

10. I did

But all of the issues you cite with caucuses were no less true in 2008 than they are today. So the low turnout compared to 2008, the last time we had a competitive primary and won the presidency, is not a great sign.

[hlthe2b]

11. Again. You are equating election turnout with caucus turnout. NO caucus has ever produced

the magnitude of turnout of the most competitive primary elections. It is a ridiculous notion that only underscores you've never participated in one and don't get the differences.

What is motivating you to want to perpetuate this "all is lost" narrative?

[Kentonio]

15. What are you talking about?

They’re comparing the Iowa caucus turnout of 2008 and the Iowa caucus turnout from yesterday, and it shows a much lower turnout. They’re perfectly justified to be worried, I am too.

[hlthe2b]

16. For you to understand a discussion between two posters & interject-- you need to read the subthread.

When you interject without any attempt to do so, you just look foolish and uninformed.

[Kentonio]

17. I read all of your frankly quite rude and patronizing replies

And it was very clear you misunderstood what the poster was saying. Maybe go back and reread the posts yourself before digging any deeper.

[hlthe2b]

19. You were not part of the discussion and rudely interject without attempting to catch up.

If you want to engage, read the thread and leave your caustic insults elsewhere. Neither I nor the other poster deserve your attempts to redirect the discussion to a strawman argument that was never there.

[democrattotheend]

30. Thank you

You understood my post just fine. I don't know why the other poster said otherwise.

[D_Master81]

21. You're really comparing this to '08?

When there’s a historic candidate on the ballot who is 1 of the best public speakers of our generation again then maybe it’s comparable. But much of that year was the fact that an African American and a woman were battling to be the 1st to be nominated as a major party candidate. I feel like this year the excitement is way more around removing trump than the candidates themselves. Hopefully that can carry us in the general but you tend to need something to vote FOR rather than just against something.

[denem]

8. 2008 was exceptional. 60% were first time caucus goers.

There's no Obama in this race.

[MFM008]

12. WA is a caucus state

I did it in 2016
I wont in 2020.
I disagree with the whole thing.
You should get a primary vote.
So many for sure voters wont be attending
A caucus.

[mathematic]

13. Good news: WA switched to primaries n/t

[MFM008]

23. we did?

holy crap!
thanks.

[zackymilly]

14. And less people will probably show up at the other caucuses because of this fiasco in Iowa. n/t

[scheming daemons]

20. It's a low turnout because Caucuses suck

You can only participate if you are free from 7pm to 10pm on a week night.


This means anyone who works those hours is out.

It means anyone who can't find a babysitter is out.

It means elderly people or those with disabilities are out.



It is the most undemocrat process we could possibly come up with.

[renate]

22. turnout has been bigger in the past, but does it matter that much in a primary? especially a caucus?

If people would be equally happy with any candidate--if they would enthusiastically vote for ANYBODY with a D after their name--would they necessarily go caucus for hours for their mildly preferred person?

I know thousands of volunteers have invested thousands of hours of their lives to persuade Iowa voters, so obviously there are many people with strong preferences. But say I've got kids who have homework to do, or a job that starts at 7 am, or a sick parent at home... if I'd happily vote for any Democrat running against Trump, I might not bother to go caucus.

Also, this is Iowa, which is 90% white and is likely to go red anyway. So how meaningful, as a reflection of the country as a whole, is low turnout here?

[octoberlib]

24. Bullshit. It's not an omen for anything.

Link to tweet

Note re: turnout

The caucus process is intimidating and super time-consuming. Met lots of Iowa Ds who weren’t caucusing because 1) they’re too busy, 2) they don’t know how, 3) they’ll vote for anyone vs. Trump

Dangerous to draw conclusions from Iowa, about this or anything else

[Quixote1818]

25. 2008 was a very exciting year. A woman and a black fellow. Historic time. nt

[Tiggeroshii]

26. News said a lot of folks were waiting outside for hours to caucus

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of folks went home after deciding not to be there for hours.

[Gothmog]

29. What happened to the sanders voter revolution?

sanders promised massive number of new voters. Where are these new voters?

[Wrz]

31. It's a caucus

Caucuses are not a good judge of this. Let's wait until we have a few proper voting primaries before waving the banner of doom and gloom on turnout.

As a disabled person, I wouldn't be able to participate if my state held a caucus instead of regular ballot voting. I can barely be on my feet even leaning on a walker for more than 10 minutes at a time. I can't stand around in a school gymnasium for 2-4 hours and constantly move around. No matter how badly I want to participate I wouldn't be able to do it.

Caucuses need to go. I felt this way even before the mishap in Iowa. It's an archaic way of voting that excludes many groups of people. They are not accessible to people like me who have physical infirmities and also people who have children and/or a job that won't allow them time to stand around for hours.

Another factor is that some caucus precinct sites did not have enough chairs. I heard at some precincts Sanders supporters had to be turned away because there were no more chairs available. You don't have that problem with proper voting. And disabled people have absentee voting as an option as well so even the most infirm can still vote if it's not a caucus.

One more thing to consider is that Iowa is not very racially diverse. I think I saw one precinct that was in a mosque that had a large number of minorities. I think turnout is best measured in states that have a diverse population given minorities tend to vote blue.

Going forward, I think for Democrat primaries states with the most diverse populations should be the ones to go first in voting. Iowa most definitely should not be first -- no offense to Iowan Democrats.

[Gothmog]

32. FactCheck Posts--- Sanders Spins Young Voter Turnout in Iowa

sanders is trying to preserve the myth of his magical voter revolution and is claiming that there was increased turnout. This claim was fact checked and found to be false

Link to tweet

Sen. Bernie Sanders claimed there was a “huge voter turnout” among young caucusgoers in Iowa this year, saying the turnout was “even higher than Obama’s extraordinary victory in 2008.” In fact, about 10,300 fewer young voters turned out this year than in 2008.....

It’s true that an estimated 24% of this year’s Democratic caucusgoers in Iowa were 29 years old or younger — a higher percentage than in 2008 (22%) and 2016 (18%), according to Edison Research, which conducts entrance polls at the Iowa caucus sites for major news organizations. But far more people participated overall in 2008, including more young people.

“In 2016, participation in the Iowa caucuses was around 170,000 voters,” Edison Research said in a blog post prior to the Iowa caucus.

“But in 2008, turnout for the Democratic caucuses in Iowa reached record levels; 239,000 voters came out to participate in the caucuses that year.”

That means about 52,580 people ages 17 to 29 participated in the Iowa caucus in 2008 — which is far more than came out this year.
As the Washington Post reported, 176,000 people participated in the Democratic caucuses in Iowa, which means about 42,240 of the Democratic caucusgoers were 29 years old or younger. That’s about 11,640 more than participated in 2016 — when Sanders was also a presidential candidate — but it’s about 10,300 fewer younger voters than in 2008.

So, Sanders’ claim that young voter turnout among Iowa Democrats “was even higher than Obama’s extraordinary victory in 2008” is pure spin.

[KayF]

33. posts about omens go in the Religion/Spirituality forum n/t