iowa results

[ukchris82]

Sorry if these questions seem stupid, but I'm still learning!


What time will the results be out?

What about exit polls?

Cheers

[ukchris82]

i'd like to apologise for the bad name of this entry too.
I hope it doesn't get anybodies hopes up.

Sorry

[MODU]

As far as the results go, I believe they will start coming out around 7pm EST, if I remember the what the guy on the radio said.

[Mr. Morden]

Link:

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/01/03/545314.aspx

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Presumably the entrance polls will come out *very* soon after the caucuses are called to order.

Don't know exactly when real results will come out, but here's a thread from 2004 discussing Iowa results:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=426.15

and zorkpolitics posted the first results (13% of precincts reporting in) at 8:47pm Eastern.  Also, this blog post from National Review:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTY0OGJjMGUwYzNkNmFlMWYwN2Y3YjBjOTk5MWIzNTg=

has 32% of precincts reporting at 8:54 Eastern back in 2004.  Don't know if the caucus start time was the same back then, and don't know if the GOP results would come out on a similar timeline.

[angus]

If you're watching US programs like CNN or FOX then you'll get constant analysis interrupted by results almost instantaneously.  English TV news isn't quite as sensationalistic, and generally plays real news instead of focusing on the one or two big stories of the day, ad infinitum, so you may not get it instantaneously if you're watching ITV or BBC. 

As a former paid primary results reporter (I worked for UPI ever year when I was in college for minimum wage) I have a little knowledge about how it worked then.  Bear in mind that I started college in the fall of 1986 and things have changed since then, but what we did is hang out at the county clerk's desk.  A big hall in a big old courthouse.  Cold.  Ill-heated and poorly-lit.  We'd wait for some dorky looking fellow to come in.  (In the 80s we all had mullets and wore bright colors and fluffy shirts.  Think of that band Flock of Seagulls.  So if you had short hair you must be dorky.  Do they even say "dorky" anymore?)  Anyway, a middle-aged person, sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, always a white person, would come in carrying a box.  In that box there'd be ballots.  They'd give the results to the County Clerk, an elected official.  My particular clerk was a nice fellow and had agreed to let all us part-time newsies hang around and get the results first-hand.  I immediately phoned in the results to a 1-800 number for UPI, who then reported them.  CNN existed at that point, but FOX and MSNBC did not.  Nor did cell phones or laptops.  And, of course, Al Gore had only recently invented the internet so we didn't have that yet.

Of course, that was then.  This is now.  And this is Iowa.  But my guess is that the human logistics are the same.  Lots of reporters and their paid flunkies hanging around waiting for officials with tallies.  And I have no doubt that the major American networks will be running long shows with analysis by Pat Buchanan, Bill Schneider, James Carville, and all your favorites.  And you'll see interviews "on the ground" with folks like Carl Cameron or John King (depending on which brand news you prefer) standing in ankle-deep snow out in an abandoned cornfield and suddenly they'll interrupt the report with, "oh, we're getting results--" and it'll be like that.  Bit by bit strung out over two hours or so beginning at 7 pm Central Standard Time.  (Greenwich minus six, I think.)

[Eraserhead]

I won't expect much until around 9 PM.

[ukchris82]

I'll catch the results in the morning - it'll be like Christmas eve tonight

[MODU]

I'll catch the results in the morning - it'll be like Christmas eve tonight

hahaha . . . don't worry.  I'll be getting home from the gym around 9pm, and the last thing on my mind will be turning on the news to hear "fluff" between numerical reporting.  I'll check around 11pm, to see where things stand, and then go to bed. 

[Democratic Hawk]

I'll no doubt be climbing to bed around 4.00am GMT, at the earliest

Dave

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

i'd like to apologise for the bad name of this entry too.
I hope it doesn't get anybodies hopes up.

Sorry

DAMN YOU!  I thought somebody leaked an early exit poll!

[Verily]

i'd like to apologise for the bad name of this entry too.
I hope it doesn't get anybodies hopes up.

Sorry

DAMN YOU!  I thought somebody leaked an early exit poll!

No one has even gone to the caucuses yet. The Democratic caucuses start at 6:30, the Republican ones at 7:00 (EST, I think, so 5:30 and 6:00 in Iowa).

[Mr. Morden]

No, that's actually 6:30 and 7:00 Central Time:

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/01/03/545314.aspx

[AndrewTX]

I go to the gym around 8 at night, so I'll probably be watching them come in while I'm there.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

i'd like to apologise for the bad name of this entry too.
I hope it doesn't get anybodies hopes up.

Sorry

DAMN YOU!  I thought somebody leaked an early exit poll!

No one has even gone to the caucuses yet. The Democratic caucuses start at 6:30, the Republican ones at 7:00 (EST, I think, so 5:30 and 6:00 in Iowa).

I know - it was a lapse of logic and I just got excited from the thread title.