The Iowa caucus

Senator Obama has opened an impressive lead in the state wide Iowa polls, and though the Clinton campaign is sinking quickly she has somehow managed to hold onto second place with Mr. Edwards consistently showing up in third, just ahead of Governor Richardson. Don’t believe the hype. Former Senator John Edwards will win the Iowa caucus on Thursday. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

In order to understand what I’m saying you have to first understand what a caucus is and how it differs from a primary. In a primary the states votes like in any election and the candidates are ranked from first to last by virtue of the number of votes received. In an Iowa Democratic caucus, the candidates are still ranked from first to last, but each county gets one list, and each list is waited equally. Confused? You should be, it’s a stupid system. Let’s look at some mach Results:

New Hampshire primary
1 Sen. Edwards 32%
2 Gov. Richardson 30%
3 Sen. Obama 20%
4 Sen. Biden 10%
5 Sen. Clinton 5%
6 Sen. Dodd 1%
7 Rep. Kucinich 1%
8 Sen. Gravel > 1%

Nevada Primary
1 Gov. Richardson 40%
2 Sen. Edwards 25%
3 Sen. Obama 20%
4 Sen. Biden 10%
5 Sen. Clinton 4%
6 Sen. Dodd 1%
7 Rep. Kucinich 1%
8 Sen. Gravel > 1%
Vs

Polk County Iowa (population 408,888)
1 Obama
2 Richardson
3 Edwards
4 Clinton
5 Biden
6 Dodd
7 Kucinich
8 Gravel



Adams Iowa (population 4,482)
1 Edwards
2 Richardson
3 Obama
4 Biden
5 Dodd
6 Clinton
7 Kucinich
8 Gravel



In primaries the rankings are done by percentage of the vote from the whole state, but in the Iowa caucus it is the percentage of the vote with in the county, then all the county scores are added together, regardless of the number of votes cast, or the county’s population. Think of it like this, eight points for finishing first in a county, seven for second and so on. Using the example above it would be a three way tie for first place if Iowa had only two counties.

Why does this matter? because in the small rural counties like Adams, with 1% the population of Polk county, the individual votes count much more. John Edwards is much more popular than his rivals in the smaller more rural counties so he is likely to clean up there where votes count more, as we see sometimes as much as 100:1, this little quirk in the system skews polling done on a statewide, rather than on a county by county basis. In fact if we look at the example above, it would be entirely possible for Obama and Richardson to have staggeringly higher vote totals than Edwards but still come out tied.

Got all that? I hope so, because it gets more complicated. To this point in our discussion the rules for the Democrats and the Republicans are the same. The major difference between the two is the 15% “legitimacy threshold”. In the Republican caucuses the voters vote by secret ballot and the rankings are done from there. For the Democrats the process is much more open, because, if a candidate fails to get 15% of the vote, their county is considered illegitimate and its votes are not counted. In this likely event, the voters discuss and revote until someone is able to break 15%. Supporters of the bottom tier candidates are wooed by the contenders to switch their votes. Since the voters are intimately familiar with all eight candidates, and their peers are not in a position to offer rewards, those changing their votes will instead vote for their “second favorite”. Statewide, John Edwards consistently rates as Iowa’s second favorite, followed by Bill Richardson and Joe Biden, this will give all three candidates a large boost that is not noted in the polls. It should be noted that John Kerry was in 6th place in some polls going into the caucus four years ago, but was the number one second choice.

You know what the bitch of the whole thing is, only about 120,000 people in each party will actually show up and vote. That’s it, and less if it snows. Less than ¼ of million people, less than 1/100th of the population of LA will take the most important step in determining the 2008 contenders. Mitt Romney figures to finish second or third, he’ll be lucky if he is able to get 15,000 votes, even though he has spent in the neighborhood of 30 million dollars, or about $2000 per vote.