# Iowa Caucus Discussion **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 4, 2020, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465 "2020-02-04T03:01:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/81 "2020-02-04T15:11:20Z")
> [@Fiddle\_Peghead](#): > > Well, yes, he’s a politician. That’s what they do. The whole “bean bag” thing, which politics isn’t. 🙂 But in fairness to him, if even the numbers from the Bernie camp quoted above are close to being true, he does have something to crow about. I watched his speech and I’m pretty sure I didn’t hear him claim outright victory. No, he didn’t say “I am claiming victory”, but he repeatedly said things like “Tonight, Iowa chose to turn the page on the old politics”. Anyone watching that speech out of context would have assumed he won. They all KIND OF did the same thing, but Pete was far more blatant about it than anyone else. Can’t blame him, if it turns out he lost he’ll look foolish but his campaign will pretty much be over anyway, so… ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/82 "2020-02-04T15:13:23Z")
Pete absolutely needed to win Iowa, and get a bump from winning it, to have any reason to continue. So the worst thing that happens if it turns out he didn’t win is that he loses, which is what would have happened if he waited. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/83 "2020-02-04T15:13:35Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > There was never a need for an expensive custom app to send a few dozen numbers from point A to point B, especially when most of the users are going to be random volunteers selected without regard for their comfort at adapting to new technology. > > I still think that a substantial component of this is going to turn out to be that a bunch of precincts fucked up the math, and fucked it up in 2016 and 2008 and 2004 and 2000 and 1992 and 1988, but they never had to show their work before, and now they do. Would you trust random volunteers from the common clay of your community to do your tax return for you? That’s basically what they did here. There’s a big book of rules, and counting, and multiplication, and division, and remainders. And it’s all done on the spot under time pressure. Yes, exactly, this. The app was part of the problem, but the amount of data that needed to be collected and reconciled was clearly part. Last night on MSNBC they talked to a precinct chair who was on hold for two hours waiting to give his results…and then when he did get through, it took him twenty minutes to report said results! Twenty minutes times 4000 or so precincts…this could take a while. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/84 "2020-02-04T15:17:14Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > No, he didn’t say “I am claiming victory”, but he repeatedly said things like “Tonight, Iowa chose to turn the page on the old politics”. Anyone watching that speech out of context would have assumed he won. > > They all KIND OF did the same thing, but Pete was far more blatant about it than anyone else. Can’t blame him, if it turns out he lost he’ll look foolish but his campaign will pretty much be over anyway, so… Actually I just saw this on CNN: > [@](#): > > “So we don’t know all the results, but we know by the time, it’s all said and done, Iowa you have shocked the nation. Because by all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious,” Buttigieg told the crowd in comments that drew criticism online. I literally must have dozed off during that line, because I didn’t hear him say “victorious”. He left himself a slight “out” by saying “by all indications”. But the rest of the speech is fine by me. ETA: I’m not sure a second place loss, if it’s fairly close, means he’s out of it. I would bet on it that he won’t think so. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/85 "2020-02-04T15:21:28Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I think the simplest explanation is the most plausible- they got themselves an app that wasn’t ready for prime time and used it. It doesn’t sound terribly difficult to program but somehow somebody messed up. > > I predict whatever the results, the Bernie Bros will whine about being cheated because that’s what Bernie Bros do. Even if he wins big, you have to discount it slightly because of the lack of diversity in the state. Sanders and Buttigieg can win big with white liberals, but can they compete for the “Reagan Democrats” the way Biden can? That was forty years ago and the Reagan Democrats are mostly dead. You do know Bernie is leading with Hispanics, right? I don’t think the IDP would completely humiliate themselves in public just to slightly blunt Bernie’s Iowa bounce. I think it’s a win-win situation for Bernie; if he wins, he’ll certainly get _some_ bounce, and if he loses, it’s good to have it get less attention. If the first election people pay attention to is New Hampshire, that’s not a bad thing for Bernie. The guy getting screwed here is Buttigieg. This was his one chance to make enough of a splash to stay in the race, and now even a win won’t help him as much as it should have. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/86 "2020-02-04T15:25:57Z")
> [@Fiddle\_Peghead](#): > > Actually I just saw this on CNN: > > I literally must have dozed off during that line, because I didn’t hear him say “victorious”. He left himself a slight “out” by saying “by all indications”. But the rest of the speech is fine by me. > > ETA: I’m not sure a second place loss, if it’s fairly close, means he’s out of it. I would bet on it that he won’t think so. I would think that a close second place with Biden imploding would be a very good result for Buttigieg, since it would leave the “moderate lane” wide open. But Nate Silver’s model disagrees for some reason, dropping him into the low single digits in any scenario where he loses even narrowly. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/87 "2020-02-04T15:29:15Z")
> [@mistymage](#): > > At the end of the night Biden and Klobuchar each got a delegate to send to the State caucus. > [@Sterling\_Archer](#): > > We ended up with the delegates going 2-2-2-1, for Sanders, Pete, Warren, and the 1 to Biden. One small problem: not all “delegates” are equal. For example, a county delegate in Des Moines County is worth 0.36 State Delegate Equivalents, while one in Davis County is worth only 0.03, and one in Dallas County is worth 0.4143. [Source](https://datastudio.google.com/reporting/19QRje8XoOcxo0QMj0PUQGVKc_zUZCPPu/page/MLVAB); a county’s SDEs = its total state delegates (first number) divided by its total county delegates (second number) > [@Alessan](#): > > Does the Democratic Party have a legal obligation to accept the results of the caucus? “Legal” in what way? The national party requires that each state submit a Delegate Selection Plan, and Iowa’s says that it will use its caucus to determine its delegates to the national convention. Presumably, the party has every right not to admit, or count, delegates from a state if they were not chosen in the way that the state said they would be. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/88 "2020-02-04T15:36:34Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > I would think that a close second place with Biden imploding would be a very good result for Buttigieg, since it would leave the “moderate lane” wide open. But Nate Silver’s model disagrees for some reason, dropping him into the low single digits in any scenario where he loses even narrowly. Okay, fair enough, and now that you mention it do recall Five Thirty Eight saying something like the Iowa winner has a 60% chance of getting the nomination, or something like that. So in that respect, yeah. But again, Pete isn’t going anywhere for a while. ---
**Author:** ![Boycott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boycott/32/6741_2.png) [@Boycott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boycott)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/89 "2020-02-04T15:40:57Z")
First time caucus-goers are down 9% from 2016. Trump couldn’t have asked for a better night for the SOTU address with the results farce and low turnout. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/90 "2020-02-04T15:42:10Z")
Pete still has a big problem with black voters no matter what he does in IA and NH. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/91 "2020-02-04T15:53:58Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > You will recall that a few years ago Iowa managed to tell Romney he won only to change it a week or so later. Rick Santorum was the big winner. Both of these facts seem to indicate that Iowa cannot be trusted to be so important in the process. And when all was said and done… Ron Paul won the Iowa Caucuses that year. That year Iowa ended up sending 22 Paul delegates and 6 Romney delegates to the national convention. [Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidential_election_in_Iowa#Republican_caucuses) ---
**Author:** ![vislor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vislor/32/5933_2.png) [@vislor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vislor)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/92 "2020-02-04T15:54:17Z")
Iowa person here. I’m so, so sorry. At my precinct, Pete did well with the most delegates, Klobucher didn’t get any. We did have five people there for Steyer and all but one moved after not viable. Yang didn’t make it and they moved around. Warren didn’t make it first round but did second. That’s all I got; it’s all I know. I’m disappointed in what happened as well. ---
**Author:** ![Unreconstructed\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/76d3ee/32.png) [@Unreconstructed\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unreconstructed_Man)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/93 "2020-02-04T15:58:35Z")
If the sole point of the app was to take a bunch of numbers from a few dozen point As and send them to a centralised point B then…well, shit. I’m not exaggerating when I say I could’ve built something that would’ve done the job just fine over a couple of weekends. I’m not an expert coder by any means, but if this shitty app’s job was as simple as it seems then you don’t need experts. Either there’s more to it, or these people are incompetent on a level that beggars belief more than any vote rigging conspiracy theory. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/94 "2020-02-04T16:00:34Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Pete still has a big problem with black voters no matter what he does in IA and NH. Indeed. And I think that the common wisdom says that a part of that is because he is gay, but I haven’t seen polls or anything else to support this, not that I’ve looked all that much. I do see [this](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/pete-buttigieg-addresses-black-voter-problem.html): > [@](#): > > He’s tracking roughly as well with black voters who lean Democrat as Mike Bloomberg (4 percent), Andrew Yang (3 percent), Tom Steyer (2 percent), and — before he dropped out of the race on Monday — even Cory Booker (4 percent). The article goes on to suggest that it’s more to do with his positions, and the large support black Americans have for Biden. So I would think that if Biden doesn’t survive Iowa and the next upcoming primaries, Biden’s supporters have to go somewhere and maybe if Pete is the last person standing, they would see their way to voting for him. That is just conjecture at this point though. ---
**Author:** ![Sterling\_Archer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Sterling\_Archer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterling_Archer)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/95 "2020-02-04T16:01:57Z")
Agree the app should have been simple but geez emails or even a chat could have been used to calculate results too. But that may have problems with making it official, not sure. They didn’t have the usual staff or phone lines ready to receive 1700 results calls within an hour or so, so that’s the main reason for the delay here. ---
**Author:** ![Unreconstructed\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/76d3ee/32.png) [@Unreconstructed\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unreconstructed_Man)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/96 "2020-02-04T16:02:59Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Pete still has a big problem with black voters no matter what he does in IA and NH. Pete’s “problem” with black voters seems to be that they’re irrationally attached to Joe Biden. Like, they don’t seem to care much for anyone else. Warren’s struggling to get them on board. Klobuchar has almost no black support at all. Bernie is doing well with black voters under 35 but older black voters have no time for him at all. X has a big problem with black voters is true for every candidate except Joe Biden, so it’s not really much of an argument against any specific challenger. And when Biden inevitably drops out that problem will solve itself. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/97 "2020-02-04T16:14:10Z")
- Dems paid company literally called Shadow to create caucus app - Buttigieg campaign also paid Shadow, FEC records show - Caucus app fails - Buttigieg declares himself Iowa winner with no results ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/98 "2020-02-04T16:23:35Z")
For those interested I made a Pit Post just now that is relevant to this thread. [Fuck Caucuses](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=22119123) ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/99 "2020-02-04T16:25:46Z")
> [@MortSahlFan](#): > > - Dems paid company literally called Shadow to create caucus app > - Buttigieg campaign also paid Shadow, FEC records show > - Caucus app fails > - Buttigieg declares himself Iowa winner with no results BernieSandersFan? ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2020, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465/100 "2020-02-04T16:26:41Z")
> [@Unreconstructed\_Man](#): > > If the sole point of the app was to take a bunch of numbers from a few dozen point As and send them to a centralised point B then…well, shit. I’m not exaggerating when I say I could’ve built something that would’ve done the job just fine over a couple of weekends. I’m not an expert coder by any means, but if this shitty app’s job was as simple as it seems then you don’t need experts. Either there’s more to it, or these people are incompetent on a level that beggars belief more than any vote rigging conspiracy theory. “A few dozen”? Try 1600 different sites - and each one has to provide three numbers for each candidate that got any votes. I’ll give you an example based on a photo of a calculation sheet at CNN - Pottawattamie County precinct CB09, with 13 county delegates. The final vote totals were, Klobuchar 31, Biden 24, Buttigieg 21, Sanders 18, Warren 17. Each one is divided by 112 (the number of voters in the first round - apparently, one left, as the final numbers add up to 111), then multiplied by 13 (the number of county delegates that precinct elects) and rounded to get each candidate’s county delegate count; Klobuchar got 4, Biden got 3, and the other thre got 2 each. The precinct captain has to send three sets of numbers: (a) The “first round” votes - Biden 21, Buttigieg 19, Klobuchar 29, Sanders 17, Warren 17, Yang 8, Uncommitted 1 (this is where “112” comes from); (b) The “final round” votes, listed above (c) The State Delegate Equivalents - Pottawattamie County has 48 state delegates and a total of 400 county delegates, so multiply the county delegates by 48/400, which is 0.12, to get the State Delegate Equivalents: 0.48 for Klobuchar, 0.36 for Biden, and 0.24 each for Buttigieg, Sanders, and Warren. I would not be surprised if, in the app, they only had to enter the first two vote counts and the final number of delegates, and the app could calcualte the SDEs automatically based on the county, but without the app, either the precinct captain or the person taking down the numbers had to calculate them manually. Remember, that’s just one precinct; do this about 1600 more times. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iowa-caucus-discussion/847465.md?page=6)