It’s the Turnout, Stupid: The Real Story of Iowa Caucus

My caucus in Iowa City had 60 fewer people than four years ago. Tepid turnout will re-elect Trump for sure.

We arrived at 6:25 p.m. on Monday night at our caucus location in Iowa City, assuming there would be an overflow crowd. Sure, there was a line, and the crowd was packed. But within 20 minutes, I was sitting snugly in my seat in the high school auditorium.

Despite the pre-caucus hype of record turnout, my caucus in our university town, one of the largest in the state, checked in at 875 people—a decrease of 60 from 2016’s total of 935. That turnout appears to be the general rule across the state, even as we await final tallies, which now place Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg in a tight race, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren not far behind.

Here’s the real wakeup call for Democrats, coming out of Iowa: We can’t put our heads in the sand and ignore the middling turnout, in a time of bonafide historic upheaval.

If Democrats don’t put together an unprecedented get-out-the-vote effort in 2020, far exceeding anything from the past, we are setting ourselves up for failure.

The Iowa caucus is a case study of this reality. While Republicans reveled in record turnouts, Democrats faced an entirely different scenario.

Forget about problems with the Iowa Democratic Party’s apps. Put aside your dismissals of Iowa’s antiquated caucus process.  My precinct secretary tallied our two rounds of votes and posted the final delegate numbers on social media later that night.

 

CPO1

Article URL : https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/02/05/its-turnout-stupid-real-story-iowa-caucus