Tag Archives: iowa

It’s Mitt…I mean Rick…I mean Newt

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If you are anything like us, you are wondering what in the world is going on with the Republican Presidential Nomination process.  Just a few days ago, we learned that Rick Santorum won the Iowa Caucus.   As far as we know, Mitt Romney still won New Hampshire and now, we know that Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary.  It seems like every time conventional wisdom concludes that Mitt Romney will be the nominee something happens to change that.

Really though, if you think about it, we should have expected these results.  It may simply be that Republican voters are selecting the most viable regional candidate.  In Iowa, the split may have been because of Rick Santorum’s Pittsburgh roots versus Mitt Romney’s Michigan roots.  In New Hampshire, Romney’s Massachusetts ties made him the favorite son.  In South Carolina, Georgia’s own Newt Gingrich was the obvious choice.

In spite of what the pundits have said, this may prove to be an exciting race to the wire.  It is much noted and frequently lamented that the Republican Party has become a Southern party and that may place Newt Gingrich in an interesting place as the nomination race winds it way through the South.  We would be interested in hearing what you think.

 

TheFactFile.com: The Week in Review

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TheFactFile.com is a non-partisan fact-checking site that analyzes the facts behind the big issues of the day. Our goal is to let facts and data speak for themselves, regardless of whether that makes us appear “liberal”, “moderate”, “conservative”, or something else entirely.  This first week has been a lot of fun for the staff at TheFactFile.com, seeing our dream come to life.  If you had seen the excitement when our first retweet happened and our first comment arrived you would have retweeted and commented all day.

While we work on more articles for next week, we decided to give you an easy way to catch up with what was up on TheFactFile.com this past week.

 

Monday:

Fact Checking the Fact Checkers - In this article, we answer the big question of why we decided to start TheFactFile.com.

The Iowa Caucuses: A Primer - The Iowa caucuses mark the start of the election season. But what is a caucus? And how important is Iowa in selecting nominees for president?

 

Tuesday:

The Iowa Caucuses: Voter Turnout - This article analyzes past trends in voter turnout for the Iowa caucuses. And the result? Turnout is extremely low, even in “hot” years.

The Iowa Caucuses: Is Iowa Representative of the Rest of the U.S.? - Is Iowa representative of the rest of the US? Here we analyze official demographic/economic data to show that the answer is… yes and no.

 

Wednesday:

2012 Iowa Caucuses: Trends in Last Night’s Voting - This article looks at how demographic and economic characteristics affected voting in the 2012 Iowa caucuses.

Income Inequality in the U.S.: Are the Rich Really Getting Richer? - Is income inequality increasing the the US? Here we answer this question by examining CPS data from 1967-present. The short answer: yes.

 

Thursday:

The Endless Campaign for the Presidency - If it seems like presidential campaigns are getting longer, well…they are. Here we look at the average length of campaigns from FDR to today.

 

Friday:

New Year’s Resolutions: Six Days and Counting - 75% of people who make New Year’s resolutions fail within 6 months. This article looks at research on the determinants of success or failure.

 

Please remember to register so you can comment on TheFactFile.Com without having to fill out the captcha box each time—it is free and easy!

 

2012 Iowa Caucuses: Trends in Last Night’s Voting

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The Iowa caucuses have come and gone, and while we all know the big (?) winner of last night—Mitt Romney—we were left wondering about the underlying demographic and socio-economic trends from last night’s voting. Did one candidate dominate the youth vote? Did educational backgrounds affect one’s choice in candidate? And how about income?

Among the most interesting results found in MSNBC’s exit polling are the following:

  • Age: Ron Paul dominated the youth vote, receiving 48 percent of the votes among 17-29 year olds compared to 23 percent for Santorum and only 13 percent for Romney. Conversely, Romney received the most support among voters 65 and over with 33 percent, compared to 20 percent for Santorum and only 11 percent for Paul.
  • Education: The top three candidates received similar shares of the vote across the “more than a high school graduate” and “high school graduate or less” categories. Santorum received the highest share of votes from those in the “more than high school graduate” category with 26 percent, compared to 25 percent for Romney and 22 percent for Paul. Romney received the most votes from high school graduate or less with 22 percent versus Paul’s 20 percent and Santorum’s 19 percent.
  • Income: As with age, there were big swings in support depending on the voter’s total family income. Paul received the most support of voters with incomes under $50,000 with 31 percentcompared to Santorum’s 19 percent and Romney’s 16 percent. Santorum received the most votes in the $50,000-$99,999 category with 29 percent compared to Romney and Paul’s 21 percent. Finally, Romney received the most votes among those with incomes of $100,000 or more, with 36 percent compared to Santorum’s 24 percent and Paul’s 14 percent.
  • Ideology: The largest swings among the three top candidates were seen in voters’ political ideology. Among those self-identifying as “very conservative,” 35 percent supported Santorum with Romney (14 percent) and Paul (15 percent) trailing far behind. In contrast, Romney received the most support among “somewhat conservative” voters, with 32 percent compared to Paul’s 21 percent and Santorum’s 19 percent. Finally, Paul narrowly edged Romney among “moderate or liberal” voters with 40 percent of the vote compared to Romney’s 35 percent. (Santorum’s support among this group dropped to only 8 percent. 

In short, what we saw last night are large vote swings depending on one’s demographic and economic characteristics. Support varied the most depending on one’s age, income, and political ideology.  

The Iowa Caucuses: Is Iowa Representative of the Rest of the U.S.?

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Given the disproportionate importance of the Iowa caucuses in choosing presidential nominees, we decided to look at how representative Iowa voters are of the typical American voter.  To be brief, it depends on what we’re comparing: on measures such as the racial characteristics of the population and it’s unemployment rate, Iowa is not at all representative of the nation as a whole. However, in other areas (i.e,. age, education, occupation), state averages mirror those of the nation.

As is clear from the following chart, with a population that is a 92.6% white compared to the US average of 74.5%, Iowa is far more racially homogeneous than the nation as a whole:

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2005-2009 American Community Survey

Similarly, both the percentage of foreign-born citizens (3.8%) and the percentage that speaks a language other than English at home (6.4%) fall far below the nation-wide averages of 12.4% and 19.6%, respectively. (For further demographic trends in Iowa compared to the US as a whole, refer to the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey).

In addition, the economic characteristics of the population also differ with the rest of the U.S. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Iowa had the 6th lowest unemployment rate in the U.S. (5.7% compared to the U.S. average of 8.6%) as of November 2011.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics.

 

That said, on other measures the population of Iowa is perhaps unexpectedly representative of the nation at large. For example, the next chart compares the occupations of workers aged 16 or older in Iowa and in the US more broadly:

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2005-2009 American Community Survey

As is clear from this chart, Iowa is almost a perfect mirror image of the U.S. as a whole when it comes to occupation. And for a state that is generally known for farming, it may come as a surprise that only 1.1% of the population has farming as an occupation.

The Iowa Caucuses: Voter Turnout

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As mentioned in yesterday’s post, caucuses are only open to registered voters of each party. As such, the percentage of Iowans who vote in caucuses is clearly going to be low. For the second in our series of posts on the Iowa caucuses, we look at just how low turnout has been in previous presidential election years. (To cut to the chase: with the exception of 2008, turnout tends to fall in the range of 5-7% of the voting-age population in Iowa).

The next chart presents estimates of the number of caucus-goers in 2000, 2004, and 2008, as a percentage of the total voting population in Iowa.

Sources: US Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0398.xls); NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/04/us/politics/04elect.html?pagewanted=all); Des Moines Register (http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/99999999/NEWS09/41208005/0/caucus)

 

Aside from the 2008 caucuses, in which approximately 239,000 Democrats (10.5% of the voting-age population) and 108,000 Republicans (4.7% of the voting-age population) participated, the proportion of the Iowa population participating in presidential caucuses has ranged between about 5% and 7% of the voting-age population. (As point of comparison, national voter turnout in presidential election years normally exceeds 50 percent of the voting-age population.)

Furthermore, these caucus-goers tend to be different from the typical general-election voter, with a higher proportion of party activists and donors. In a recent survey by the Des Moines Register, for example, 34% of likely Republican caucus-goers described themselves as “very conservative” (34%), with an additional 41% describing themselves as “mostly conservative”. (In comparison, a gallup poll from October 2011 looking at nation-wide trends in political ideology found that 21% of Republican survey respondents identified as “very conservative.”)

 

The Iowa Caucuses: A Primer

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The Iowa caucuses are just a day away, and with them begins the frantic process of selecting the next Republican presidential nominee. In this series of posts, we take the opportunity to explore the background of the event to help our readers better understand this relatively uncommon format of selecting presidential nominees. First up is a primer on caucuses, including what they are, how they differ from primaries, and how important they have proven to be in presidential election years.

Caucuses vs. Primaries

Primaries and caucuses are both methods used to choose delegates who will subsequently go on to select the presidential candidates at each party’s respective convention. While primaries are (with some exceptions) conducted in the same way as general elections—i.e., open to all registered voters, voting done by secret ballot, etc.—, caucuses are private meetings open only to registered voters of each party. During a caucus, party members divide themselves into groups based on the candidate whom they support (“uncommitted” is also a group). In the course of the meeting, members of each group try to persuade those of other groups to shift allegiances, and at the end of the evening a final vote tally is taken to determine how many delegates each candidate has won.

In Iowa, residents of each of the state’s 1,784 precincts meet at precinct caucuses to select delegates to the corresponding county conventions. Voting rules differ by party: Republican caucus-goers vote in a simple straw poll (either by paper ballot or show of hands), while Democratic caucus-goers physically stand in “preference groups” for their candidate. Each preference group must receive support from at least 15% of caucus-goers to be among the viable groups; individuals in non-viable groups must move on to their second preference. For both parties, at the end of the night the number of convention delegates each group is entitled to is tallied and subsequently added together at the state level to determine the overall winner.

Importance of the Iowa Caucuses

Since 1972 when the Democratic Party changed its scheduling, the Iowa caucuses have been the first major event in the presidential nomination process. (The Republican Party followed suit in 1976). The event has proven to be extremely important on the road to the nomination: excluding caucuses where one candidate was unopposed (e.g., when an incumbent president was up for reelection), 56% of Democrats (5 out of 9) and 50% of Republicans (3 out of 6) who won the caucuses went on to win their party’s nomination. (These figures are for 1976-2008). In addition, every candidate who has won both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries (which we’ll discuss next week) have gone on to win the nomination; only George McGovern (D) in 1972 and Bill Clinton (D) in 1992 won the nomination after losing both.