Official Iowa Caucus Results Thread

[Torie]

I can't believe what we're seeing out of Marion and Jasper. Can somebody more familiar with Iowa than I am explain what it is about those counties relative to the rest of the south-and-east-of-Des Moines part of the state?

Seriously. Not only why is Santorum doing so well, but also Romney doing particularly poor there?

Marion County (Pella) is where the Dutch decamped in a mad land rush to Sioux County: i.e., it's a Dutch influence county. If Sioux County gives a big vote to Rick (like pushing 50%), that is the best available hypothesis:  Rick's social conservatism appealed to the Dutch, who are a very different breed from those free thinking Dutch in Amsterdam.

[Torie]

I suspect Rick will finish first. I suspected Dallas County would be Romney country (it is about the only more wealthy suburban tinged county in the state), and it is, and it is almost all in. Rick is running well in Des Moines with more down market Pubs.  He running really strong in Catholic areas. Who gets second and third places is more difficult to guess.

[Torie]

Oh, Mitt got 33% in Catholic Dubuque. Rick got 26%. So Mitt is running strong in Catholic areas too.

[Torie]

Carl Rove just pointed out what may put Mitt in first, although I think it is an uphill battle. Des Moines is only 33% in, and the late precincts are probably big, and middle class, with a couple upper middle class. So if Mitt gets a big lead in a few big Des Moines precincts, that plus what is out in Dubuque, may be enough to offset whatever lead Rick gets in the 5 western counties that are still out, which Mitt carried last time, but he was positioned a bit differently last time. Mitt is trashing Rick in Johnson County (U of Iowa), with Paul coming in first of course, and a fair amount of it is out too I see.

[Torie]

Any guess when a call will be made?

At least an hour.  And this one is very hard to project, particularly since the turnout in precincts varies so much, and who turns out, and media markets and so forth.

[Torie]

Well it's clear Paul will come in third now.

[Torie]

Romney wins Polk County 29-22-22

Yup, Rove was sort of right. Paul was ahead in Polk earlier. I guess the Drake U area came in first.

[Torie]

Rick got 46% in Sioux County, so yes, "blame" the Dutch for Rick's good showing in Marion and, to a lessor extent, Jasper.

[Torie]

If Santorum wins in large part because Sioux County held to it's extremist nature and came in BIG for him (I suspected it would ).

Rick should become an old fashioned Calvinist. They love him!  

Here is a county map of Iowa, which is helpful to me at least. Those who know geographic patterns, if any, can see where the counties out are located. Rick is leading in Woodbury by about 7 points, with quite a bit out, but other bits and pieces are out, or were, such as about 10 precincts in the county my mother grew up in, Scott, where Romney is leading by about an equal margin. Hopefully the precincts out there are all in Bettendorf!   That is the bourgeoise burb of the quad cities area. If you have money, you live in Bettendorf these days (due to the school situation in part, which so often drives these little class divides). Next to no middle class kid goes to the public schools in Davenport more central Davenport that my mother went to.

[Torie]

Madison will probably deliver for Santorum, which could help give him the edge.

Nah, Madison (Winterset) is fairly upscale, sort of an exurb of Des Moines, with a most impressive housing stock really (the family farm is a mile to the south, which is my responsibility now, so I know the place well now). Romney should carry it.  And from what I can tell, it is fairly light on both Catholics and Evangelicals. Maybe my great grandfather's skeptical view of religion (he never went to church, and chose on the Sabbath to walk his farm) had an impact back when.  

[Torie]

Santorum up by 72 now, 93% in

But Woodbury has shot it's wad now, and what was left came in as those precincts before, with about a 7 point Santorum lead. So that Rick node is out of play now. Maybe it will come down to "my" county, Madison County.  

[Torie]

Santorum up by 72 now, 93% in

But Woodbury has shot it's wad now, and what was left came in as those precincts before, with about a 7 point Santorum lead. So that Rick node is out of play now. Maybe it will come down to "my" county, Madison County.  

Madison just gave Romney 17% of the vote, congrats.

4 of 10 precincts (is the west side of Winterset in?), but yes, surprising to me based on a demographic model. But these darn caucuses are tricky.

[Torie]

It would seem to me with only 7% reporting in Story and 74% in Dubuque that Romney has this in the bag.

What am I missing that y'all are seeing?

Some rural counties are part out, which tilt Santorum.  Other than that, we'll have to wait and see what Story truly holds.  7% is not necessarily representative.

Yes, Story is quite variegated relatively speaking for Iowa. Gowns, farms, nice exurbs, and less nice.

[Torie]

I always found it passing odd that Bachmann thinks she has "accomplished" so much in public service, and influencing policy, when she has basically accomplished absolutely nothing. She leads this and that, so she claims, but whatever she is leading, seems to be ignored. Why is that Michelle?

[Torie]

Looks like most of the remaining precincts are in Romney counties, so I'm going to bed assuming he pulls ahead at the last minute.

It doesn't matter much to Rick whether he wins or loses by a hair. He is now well positioned to be the un-Romney. Mitt getting in first is worth a nickel or two, but the main action is about the un-Romney. Newt seems to be self destructing more rapidly than even I assumed. Thank heavens Perry will dump a ton of money into SC, potentially letting Mittens slip though as the winner based on the tidewater vote.

[Torie]

According to Erin Burnett on CNN, Bachmann is in it until South Carolina and is flying there first thing tomorrow.

Well she can pitch in to siphon off some votes too in SC (won't be many though). Go Michelle! 

[Torie]

Hopefully the conservatives coalesce behind Santorum now, to defeat the Mormon.

You clearly are going to keep doing this thing of yours going until Mittens wraps it up aren't you, Lief? Have fun!  

[Torie]

What is so special about Rick in keeping and re-attracting manufacturing jobs to the US?  I don't recall him being a protectionist type per se (I won't vote for a protectionist, but then I won't vote for Rick anyway, but I digress). So what makes him special?

[Torie]

What is so special about Rick in keeping and re-attracting manufacturing jobs to the US?  I don't recall him being a protectionist type per se (I won't vote for a protectionist, but then I won't vote for Rick anyway, but I digress). So what makes him special?

Considering where he's from, why is his position here surprising?

No, what is special about Rick's policy prescriptions? Mittens talks tough about China too (currency "manipulation"), although of course the US has very little bargaining power vis a vis China at the moment.

[Torie]

And thank you again for that speech, which helped remind me what a self-righteous theocrat with his own personal pipeline from God to the platform-writing committee you are and always have been.

God forbid someone be genuinely religious.    That means they think they have a "pipeline" to God.

Yes, Phil, someday after I've served a couple more years as deacon in my church, I'll hopefully get over this aversion to the "genuinely religious".

If Santorum insists on wearing his religion on his sleeve in every politicking stump speech, let alone make it clear over the course of decades in politics he'd like to enact the editorial page of the Observatore Romano into law, then neither he nor his supporters have any room to bitch when someone calls him on it.

But you belong to a secular humanist sect no, Badger? Anyhoo, Rick doesn't write his speeches to appeal to the Torie vote, much less the Badger vote - clearly.  

Having said that, Rick gave a good speech I think. He worked hard on that speech clearly, and gave it some thought. He was in a word - disciplined, a character trait truly foreign to Newt. And Rick, while rather frightening in many ways (how much of it is rhetoric, and how much real?), would clearly make a better President than Newt.

[Torie]

Why did Perry do so well in southern Iowa? Do they speak with a twang and say ya'll in those parts?

A bit. And they are the poorest counties in Iowa, with the poorest soil. I would have to look at a map though.

[Torie]

Fax has Santorum up by 4 votes, with the Clinton County precinct out, a county which went for Romney by a bit. But Rove says a GOP operative told him the digits may have been transposed in two precincts in Story, undercounting Romney's vote. So ... who knows?

[Torie]

Yeah Santorum is up by 4 votes with one precinct to go. It's Ward 2, Precinct 2 in Clinton City in Clinton County. FWIW Romney won Ward 2 Precinct 1 by 22-8 over Santorum. Not sure what that means but I'd suspect it's more likely to see Romney win than Santorum.

Rove says that if the 75 votes in the missing precinct in Clinton go 5% for Romney like the rest of the county, then it is a TIE. That leaves the Story County story about the two precincts where there may have been a data entry error. Anyway, the odds of a TIE are going up! Wouldn't that be grand?  

[Torie]

Rove says the drop to a 4 vote lead for Santorum was due to the Story County correction, and that Santorum and Romney agree on the totals for the remaining Clinton County precinct, and that Mittens statewide wins by 14 votes. So if true, the count is done.

[Torie]

Fox says the 14 vote Romney win reported by Rove, has been confirmed by a second source.