While most of the attention has been focused on the Democratic Caucus, we thought we would focus tonight on the upcoming Iowa Republican Caucus. President Trump faces opposition from two Republican challengers, former Representative Joe Walsh and former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld. Neither Walsh nor Weld is polling in double digits, with most polls showing their support well below 5%. Nevertheless, President Trump is taking nothing for granted. Tonight, Trump headlined an energetic rally at Drake University with over 7000 people. The size of Trump’s rally was in stark contrast to the 275 attendees who turned out for Joe Biden’s town hall earlier in the day.
The rules of the Republican caucus are somewhat different than the Democratic caucus. On the Republican side, the allocation of delegates is strictly proportional. Each caucus precinct takes a secret ballot count of presidential preference. The statewide votes are aggregated and then delegates are allocated equal to the # of votes for a candidate multiplied by 40 divided by the total # of votes in the state. In contrast to the Republican caucus, the Democrats require a minimum threshold of 15% at each precinct for a candidate to be considered “viable” and then force supporters of the non-viable candidates to select a preferred candidate among the viable candidates. The Democrats also award delegates by congressional district, rather than the statewide approach used by Republicans. The cumulative result is that the Democratic process is both more complicated and potentially much less democratic than the Republican caucus.
We will be watching closely to see Trump’s margin of victory and the number of Republicans who turn out to participate in the caucuses. A solid margin of the vote for Trump would be anything over 90%, a very strong result would be above 95%. We note that in 2012 President Obama faced minimal opposition and won 98% of the caucus vote in 2012. We don’t expect Trump to reach that level, but would not be surprised by a vote in the low 90% range.
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NewEnglandPolitics.com 