What to look for on Iowa Caucus Night
Presidential election in Iowa, 2016
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 Date: November 8, 2016 |
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January 29, 2016
As the Republican and Democratic White House hopefuls wrap up the final hours of stumping in Iowa, their campaigns are gearing up to turn out their supporters for the February 1 caucuses that kick off the balloting for the parties’ presidential nominating contests. Iowans will start to assemble in 3,362 precinct meetings (1,681 for each party), around 6 p.m. local time (7 p.m. EST).
Registered Republican voters or precinct residents who register as Republicans at their caucus sites are eligible to participate in the GOP caucuses—no Independents or Democrats can crash the party. Likewise, only registered Democrats or precinct residents who register as Democrats at the caucus are allowed to participate in the Democratic caucuses.
The television networks will conduct an “entrance poll” for both the Republican and Democratic caucuses by stationing survey takers at dozens of caucus precinct meetings for each party across the state. The survey takers will randomly sample Iowans as they enter the caucus and ask them to fill out a brief questionnaire. This poll can help the networks project the outcome of the two contests and provide demographic data on the caucus participants and valuable information on what motivated caucus-goers to support their respective candidates.
Starting a little after 7 p.m. EST the “entrance poll” data will start to churn through the networks’ computers, but the information gathering probably won’t be completed before 8:30 p.m. EST. Even then, it is unlikely that the networks will be able to make any projections on the outcome of the Republican or the Democratic caucuses. And if anyone tells you they know who’s won early in the evening, don’t believe them.
The “entrance poll,” like the more common exit polls used for primaries and general election contests, provide a lot of valuable information for understanding the electorate and even projecting the outcome of elections that are not close contests, but they are not perfect. Members of the TV networks’ decision desks will take great care before they call the winner of this year’s Iowa caucuses. Some candidates have more enthusiastic supporters who are more likely to show up at their caucuses early and thus skew the initial findings of the “entrance poll.” In all likelihood, the networks will wait until they have been able to analyze the actual caucus vote, which the two state parties (Iowa Republican Party, Iowa Democratic Party) collect.
Even when the actual caucus results start to be reported from the 99 counties across the state, it’s very possible that the outcome of the caucuses won’t be known for some time. One challenge for the presidential campaigns (and the networks) is that the overall voter turnout can vary from caucus to caucus, thus complicating the calculus of figuring out how many more supporters need to turn out for a candidate to win.
Below are overall turnout figures for past Democratic and Republican Iowa caucuses. (When an incumbent president is seeking re-election and is unopposed for the nomination, the party in power often skips a full-fledged caucus.)
| Past Iowa Democratic Caucuses Turnouts (estimates provided by IDP) | |
|---|---|
| Year | Number of voters |
| 2008 | 239,000 |
| 2004 | 124,000 |
| 2000 | 60,760 |
| 1992 | 30,000 |
| 1984 | 75,000 |
| 1980 | 100,000 |
| Past Iowa Republican Caucuses Turnouts (based on actual straw vote count) | |
|---|---|
| Year | Number of voters |
| 2012 | 121,590 |
| 2008 | 119,207 |
| 2000 | 87,665 |
| 1996 | 96,451 |
| 1988 | 108,838 |
| 1980 | 106,051 |
In 2016, both parties have strong contending candidates who are likely to benefit from a higher turnout. On the Democratic side, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is more likely to prevail in the Democratic caucuses if turnout is relatively high. One of his campaign’s tests is to get his passionate supporters to the polls. This year, it’s unlikely that Iowa Democrats are going to match the record 2008 turnout when Barack Obama upset Hillary Clinton. But Sanders probably needs turnout north of the 2004 mark when John Kerry won the Iowa Democratic caucuses.
On the Republican side, the conventional wisdom is that Donald Trump may need a record turnout to win the GOP caucuses. His supporters are enthusiastic, but they are also more likely to be non-traditional or infrequent Republican caucus attendees. Reports of a big GOP turnout will be a good sign for Trump. And, given the competitive nature of this year’s GOP contest with a number of relatively strong candidates, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Republicans set a turnout record, approaching or even exceeding 150,000.
Given these and other variables—and the competitiveness of the two races—it’s quite possible that we won’t know the winners of these races until after 9:30 p.m. EST—or perhaps far later than that. In 2012, the GOP contest between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum was so close that it wasn’t until the early hours of the next morning before the Romney camp was able to claim victory—and that result ended up being reversed after a re-canvassing of the Republican caucus straw vote was concluded 16 days later.[1]
James A. Barnes is a senior writer for Ballotpedia and co-author of the 2016 edition of the Almanac of American Politics. He has conducted elite opinion surveys for National Journal, CNN and the online polling firm, YouGov. This Insiders survey was conducted January 22-25.
See also
- Presidential election in Iowa, 2016
- Presidential Nominating Index: Clinton rules, but Sanders also rising
- Presidential Nominating Index: GOP elites tilt to Trump
- Presidential candidates, 2016
- Presidential debates (2015-2016)
- Presidential election, 2016/Polls
- 2016 presidential candidate ratings and scorecards
- Presidential election, 2016/Straw polls
Footnotes
