Republican Iowa Caucus results thread (entrance poll @8pm ET)

[Torie]

Did anyone else see all the empty seats at the Trump rally in Waterloo?  That might be a cause for concern for him.

The clips of Trump at his rallies in the last couple of days have him seem surprisingly low energy. He needs to juice himself up with more testosterone. Cruz has the ethics of a Tom cat in heat.

[Torie]

A few interesting things, just looking at the precinct map. Rubio's vote of course was heavily correlated with wealth and class. Higher income urban precincts went for Rubio in a big way, such as in Bettendorf, Iowa in Scott County. That was true all over the state. And there was one other area where Rubio can strongly, in the Dutch NW corner of the state, where Trump's vote disappeared. I guess the Dutch don't like Trump's crassness, and there Carson did particularly well. I suspect Rubio did well, because the farmers there are really wealthy. It's basically a relatively rich rural area.

The other interesting thing, is that in the southern tier of counties, Rubio's vote essentially came close to all but disappearing, and Carson did particularly well, as if those counties were the northernmost reaches of the South. They do tend to be poorer counties. In poorer rural areas, where some of the residents are not commuting to an urban area to work, Rubio did poorly. You can see that in Madison County, where Rubio did well in Winterest, particularly the wealthier part, where some folks commute to Des Moines, but very poorly in the southern part of the county, which is the poorest part of the county, with more hilly not very valuable farmland, and where folks do not commute to Des Moines.

Cruz won by doing well also with higher income voters (much better than Trump in most places), along with better than Rubio in poorer rural areas.

[Torie]

Santorum is staying in, heading to SC:

https://twitter.com/costareports/status/694328162113564672

Why.jpg

He still has money to spend from his rich friend. Santorum is a narcissist.

[Torie]

Apparently a lot of Trump people broke for Rubio last minute LOL

Probably from the more moderate, more secular, more upscale cohort of Trump voters. One lady was interviewed by Fox in the Des Moines area before the voting began who seemed like that.

[Torie]

Apparently a lot of Trump people broke for Rubio last minute LOL

Probably from the more moderate, more secular, more upscale cohort of Trump voters. One lady was interviewed by Fox in the Des Moines area before the voting began who seemed like that.

Traitors! Instead of voting for working-class hero TRUMP they preferred the limp-wristed, metrosexual, establishment bitch who pals around with kiddie-porn barons.

LOL.  Just my type. I just added up the Pub total vote on my excel spreadsheet, with I guess not quite all the votes counted: 186,676, exceeding the 170,000 figure that the gurus thought might be the absolute maximum, and the suggestion that it really might get that high was derided in most quarters.  It is amazing Trump tanked with such a massive turnout. That is where the CW blew it the most. Trump's support must really have eroded rather massively at the end there. With that vote turnout, one would have thought that Trump would have garnered something like 33% of the vote or thereabouts, rather than 24%. The Cruz numbers guy on Fox said they were amazed that Trump did so poorly with such a high turnout, and Cruz so well.

Where's Lief? Will we still be hearing from him as much on his favorite topic in the future, or will he spend most of his time doing a number on the hot booted dude now? I really like his smile by the way.

[Torie]

CBS News' entrance poll was something like 29% Trump, 22% Cruz, 20% Rubio.

When this came out I chortled to partner Dan that my prediction was close to spot on, and I looked forward to accepting my accolades on Atlas. But then something happened.

[Torie]

My math on the GOP entrance poll:

Trump ~29%
Cruz ~22%
Rubio ~19%
Fiorina ~4%
Huckabee ~3.5%
Bush ~3%
Christie ~3%
Paul ~3%
Kasich ~1.5%
Santorum ~1.5%

I wonder if Rubio picked up some votes from Fiorina after the caucus speeches.

[Torie]

So far with 7 percent of precincts in, Cruz leading 30 percent to 29 percent for Trump, 18 percent for Rubio. Raw votes so far much closer between Trump/Cruz than entrance polls indicated, and Rubio further down. BUT, this could be misleading: These are most likely tiny, more rural caucus sites that are easier to count fast. For Trump and Rubio, bigger is better. As YUGE suburban precincts start reporting votes, I’d expect Trump and Rubio’s numbers to go up.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/iowa-caucus-presidential-election-2016/?#livepress-update-13989497

Real dumbness from 538. They failed to look at the counties, and see that Cruz and Rubio were running about even there, with Trump way behind, except in the west.  So that meant Trump was destined to go down, not up. And the cities are where the money is, and Trump's base was poorer folks in general. FAIL.

[Torie]

Nevermind. Trump only trailing 3 points with nothing reporting Debuque or Cedar Rapids, that's probably good news.

Cedar Rapids was expected to be a bad area for Trump, and was. At this point, it seems clear that Trump had clearly lost. The later precincts reporting tend to be the bigger urban precincts, where Trump was weakest, and Rubio strongest, so the writing is on the wall that Trump was going to go down and Rubio up, and the issue was whether or not Rubio could close the gap with Trump.

[Torie]

Well the one thing I was right about in this election, is that my favorite bellwether county, Warren, turned out to be pretty good.

[Torie]

Santorum won a precinct?

Below is the one that I noticed. I suspect that Santorum spent time there with a group in somebody's living room, who was well respected in the neighborhood, and the host spoke on his behalf at the caucus, and out of respect, folks voted for Rick, knowing that he would know, if they did not.

[Torie]

Apparently a lot of Trump people broke for Rubio last minute LOL

Probably from the more moderate, more secular, more upscale cohort of Trump voters. One lady was interviewed by Fox in the Des Moines area before the voting began who seemed like that.

Traitors! Instead of voting for working-class hero TRUMP they preferred the limp-wristed, metrosexual, establishment bitch who pals around with kiddie-porn barons.

LOL.  Just my type. I just added up the Pub total vote on my excel spreadsheet, with I guess not quite all the votes counted: 186,676, exceeding the 170,000 figure that the gurus thought might be the absolute maximum, and the suggestion that it really might get that high was derided in most quarters.  It is amazing Trump tanked with such a massive turnout. That is where the CW blew it the most. Trump's support must really have eroded rather massively at the end there. With that vote turnout, one would have thought that Trump would have garnered something like 33% of the vote or thereabouts, rather than 24%. The Cruz numbers guy on Fox said they were amazed that Trump did so poorly with such a high turnout, and Cruz so well.

It's useful to note that Trump got the type of numbers he expected. He did get the most votes ever except for Cruz. My initial look is that Cruz turned out evangelical voters who weren't registering as definite or probable caucus goers to polls like the Selzer/DMR and they swamped Trump's otherwise great turnout. Rubio benefited from switchers from lesser candidates, but also got a much better response from evangelicals than expected and that added up to his nearly overtaking Trump. I'll start a thread later today where I give more of my take based on two precincts in rural eastern IA.

Hopefully you will share your story of your evening in beautiful downtown Cedar Rapids, or wherever you were in the area. I was going to ask you to do that by PM.  Do you think you changed any votes with your "Land of Lincoln" eloquence, as you waxed rhapsodic about you envisioning the young and energetic and genial team Rubio-Ryan working together like a Swiss watch to save the Fruited Plain from the approaching abyss?

[Torie]

A few interesting things, just looking at the precinct map. Rubio's vote of course was heavily correlated with wealth and class. Higher income urban precincts went for Rubio in a big way, such as in Bettendorf, Iowa in Scott County. That was true all over the state. And there was one other area where Rubio can strongly, in the Dutch NW corner of the state, where Trump's vote disappeared. I guess the Dutch don't like Trump's crassness, and there Carson did particularly well. I suspect Rubio did well, because the farmers there are really wealthy. It's basically a relatively rich rural area.

The other interesting thing, is that in the southern tier of counties, Rubio's vote essentially came close to all but disappearing, and Carson did particularly well, as if those counties were the northernmost reaches of the South. They do tend to be poorer counties. In poorer rural areas, where some of the residents are not commuting to an urban area to work, Rubio did poorly. You can see that in Madison County, where Rubio did well in Winterest, particularly the wealthier part, where some folks commute to Des Moines, but very poorly in the southern part of the county, which is the poorest part of the county, with more hilly not very valuable farmland, and where folks do not commute to Des Moines.

Cruz won by doing well also with higher income voters (much better than Trump in most places), along with better than Rubio in poorer rural areas.

Rubio's performance in Calvinist Corner was striking to me as well.  I had sort of assumed Cruz, who seems tailor made to appeal to a conservative Reformed audience, would improve on Santorum's 2012 performance there.  But Rubio in his frequent appeals to his faith and message of American exceptionalism is a very good candidate for a significant section of the Protestant right which is tad more culturally and politically moderate than that which appeals to Cruz. (I know both types from personal experience.) From realisticidealist's excellent map, one can see that Sioux Center and Orange City rivals Rubio's best precincts in the larger urban centers. My guess is the difference between Cruz and Rubio in various precincts in the NW is more directly related to differences in educational attainment and cultural interaction than wealth.   
A casual glance at the map doesn't suggest Cruz's position on ethanol hurt him in his rural support, though it might be interesting to compare the results map to the location of major ethanol refineries.

My guess, is that it is a mix of Calvinist wealth there (the most expensive farmland in Iowa, and Dutch thrift and some Dutch village tourist trade), plus a dislike of Trump's crass style, and casualness and/or disingenuousness about his faith. I was surprised too.