Outside of college towns, how concentrated is Sanders support in Iowa?

[Mr. Morden]

This is something that the last couple of Iowa polls have gotten me thinking about: I used to think of Clinton vs. Sanders as the traditional “beer track” vs. “wine track” split in the party, but since looking at the crosstabs now doesn’t actually reveal that much of a split in income and education, I’m wondering if it makes more sense to think of it more as just a divide on age, race, and sex.

In which case, Sanders would have as much support in rural areas as in cities (aside from college towns), since youngs and men live in the countryside too.  (And while Iowa is pretty white, the minorities who do live there are going to be more in the cities.)

Here is the geographic split in the new Marist poll:

Eastern Cities: Clinton +12
East Central: Sanders +3
Des Moines area: Clinton +8
Central: Sanders +6
West: Sanders +6

So here’s my question: Outside of the college towns, how do you expect the urban/suburban/rural split to work itself out on caucus night?

[Gass3268]

I agree this is not the geographic distribution of supporters that I was expecting. Do you have the link where they provide this information? I would like to see how they define the different regions.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

I expect the urban areas with the college towns to go heavily to Sanders, while the reverse is true with rural areas, I expect them to go to Clinton easily. Suburban lean Clinton at this point

[Mr. Morden]

I agree this is not the geographic distribution of supporters that I was expecting. Do you have the link where they provide this information? I would like to see how they define the different regions.

pdf link

[Torie]

On the Pub side, the conventional wisdom of geographic strength is contradicted as well. Trump does considerably better in the West. He's weakest in the Des Moines area (and considerably weaker). Rubio is strongest in the Des Moines area (by a lot, and really no surprise I guess if he does best among well to do urban and suburban voters), and also relatively strong in the Central region (Story county?). Cruz is also strongest in Des Moines (by a bit), and above his average in Central and East Central), while being the weakest, and by a lot, along with Rubio, in the West. So where the cattle tend to graze the most in Iowa, as the corn begins to thin out some, is also where the Trumpeters proliferate. Maybe what explains it is that the higher concentrations of methane in the West cause brain damage.

Anyway, what comes out of Polk and Dallas counties will be about Rubio's best showing, and Trump's weakest, if this poll is accurate.

[Likely Voter]

I think it's possible Sanders support is concentrated and therefore there might be a split decision win where he gets more votes but fewer delegates.

[Torie]

I think it's possible Sanders support is concentrated and therefore there might be a split decision win where he gets more votes but fewer delegates.

That's the conventional wisdom, but it seems Hillary's support is a tad more concentrated.

[Likely Voter]

To really gauage the concentration you need to get to a smaller scale, down to the county or precint level. There is no polling for that, but the word on the street is that Hillary has broader support geographically. Obama's former strategist David Plouufe (who has endorsed Hillary but knows a thing or two about Iowa) had some good analysis of the race there, watch it here.

If there is a split decision it would create headlines like this one from Nevada in 2008:
"Clinton, Romney win Nevada; Obama claims delegate victory" 

[Torie]

To really gauage the concentration you need to get to a smaller scale, down to the county or precint level. There is no polling for that, but the word on the street is that Hillary has broader support geographically. Obama's former strategist David Plouufe (who has endorsed Hillary but knows a thing or two about Iowa) had some good analysis of the race there, watch it here.

If there is a split decision it would create headlines like this one from Nevada in 2008:
"Clinton, Romney win Nevada; Obama claims delegate victory"  

I'm not sure Plouffle saw the latest poll. None of the cross tabs suggests that Bernie's strength is really that concentrated. I mean when Bernie is ahead a bit in the east, and the east does not include eastern cities, and the same thing in the central area, ex the Des Moines area, that tends to tell you that he has strength in rural counties. In short, he seems to have broad support everywhere among whites, although perhaps a tad weaker with white Catholics (and thus weaker in the eastern cities, beyond the bit higher persons of color vote there).

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

To really gauage the concentration you need to get to a smaller scale, down to the county or precint level. There is no polling for that, but the word on the street is that Hillary has broader support geographically. Obama's former strategist David Plouufe (who has endorsed Hillary but knows a thing or two about Iowa) had some good analysis of the race there, watch it here.

If there is a split decision it would create headlines like this one from Nevada in 2008:
"Clinton, Romney win Nevada; Obama claims delegate victory"  

I'm not sure Plouffle saw the latest poll. None of the cross tabs suggests that Bernie's strength is really that concentrated. I mean when Bernie is ahead a bit in the east, and the east does not include eastern cities, and the same thing in the central area, ex the Des Moines area, that tends to tell you that he has strength in rural counties. In short, he seems to have broad support everywhere among whites, although perhaps a tad weaker with white Catholics (and thus weaker in the eastern cities, beyond the bit higher persons of color vote there).

He'll overperform in in the urban areas, but I don't think he'll do that well in the rural areas and more conservadem areas

[Asian Nazi]

Yeah, I've been saying for a while that the talk of the Sanders vote being overconcentrated is overblown.  He has plenty of rural supporters, especially in a state like Iowa with so many rural white liberals, and Clinton has plenty of urban supporters, especially in areas with higher minority populations.  Yes Sanders is very popular in white college towns, but he would not be polling like he is if his support were concentrated in or limited to those areas.  

[Ebsy]

There can be no split decision in Iowa, since there is no popular vote figure recorded.

I'm not sure I am buying Sanders doing better than Clnton in the West.

[VPH]

I think he'll do pretty well in some rural areas. At least here in Kansas, a lot of rural Democrats in places where there aren't too many organized Dem groups are Hightower-like populists.

[Eraserhead]

I think Sanders is going to do a lot better in rural areas than most are expecting.

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

The Sandernistas will come out in DROVES from all the colleges and chant their warcries as they caucus for their GOD Sanders

[Kevin]

On the Pub side, the conventional wisdom of geographic strength is contradicted as well. Trump does considerably better in the West. He's weakest in the Des Moines area (and considerably weaker). Rubio is strongest in the Des Moines area (by a lot, and really no surprise I guess if he does best among well to do urban and suburban voters), and also relatively strong in the Central region (Story county?). Cruz is also strongest in Des Moines (by a bit), and above his average in Central and East Central), while being the weakest, and by a lot, along with Rubio, in the West. So where the cattle tend to graze the most in Iowa, as the corn begins to thin out some, is also where the Trumpeters proliferate. Maybe what explains it is that the higher concentrations of methane in the West cause brain damage.

Anyway, what comes out of Polk and Dallas counties will be about Rubio's best showing, and Trump's weakest, if this poll is accurate.

Thats interesting,

I would have thought Cruz would have been the strongest in the western half of the State and Trump/Rubio in the urban areas.

[Erc]

Remember that due to the weird system the Iowa Democrats use to report their results, it's entirely possible that Sanders has numerically more supporters show up and vote for him at the caucus, but Clinton is reported by the Iowa Democratic Party and the media has having won the caucus.

If the turnouts are higher in pro-Sanders areas than pro-Clinton areas (compared to the baseline), that does not help Sanders as much as you'd think, due to the way the results are reported.

I think the margin is likely to be large enough one way or the other that this won't matter, but it's something to consider.

[Averroës Nix]

I think Sanders is going to do a lot better in rural areas than most are expecting.

I agree, as long as he's over 45% or so. If Clinton defeats him by a wider margin, it might be because poorer and more rural voters don't caucus for Sanders. I expect that we'll have a very interesting county results map if Sanders wins.

[HillOfANight]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/29/politics/iowa-clinton-sanders-delegate/index.html

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This is very consistent with the Marist poll margins (Clinton dominating where you least expect because she has been so focused where she lost last time). Still perplexing that he is doing good in the rural areas according to this poll. Perhaps she is expecting a floor of support in the rural areas, so even if he wins, unless he wins strongly, he doesn't get that much delegates.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

I think Sanders is going to do a lot better in rural areas than most are expecting.

He is from Vermont, after all.

Has Hillary been going to a lot of small towns in Iowa?

I don't think that Sanders did it, but going to all 99 counties can be really effective (see Santorum in 2012).

[Mr. Morden]

Nate Cohn goes through both the national and early state polls and finds that the Sanders coalition has been changing in recent months.  He’s gained support among low income voters and lost support among high income voters.  So his coalition has become more like the Clinton ’08 coalition just as Clinton’s becomes more like the Obama ’08 coalition (with the huge caveat that Sanders supporters still skew young, just like Obama supporters did).  This might help explain the “surprising” geographic crosstabs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/upshot/bernie-sanders-is-making-surprising-gains-with-less-affluent-whites.html

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[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Hillary does best with older people and richer people, which I assume means she'll do better in the suburbs. I could see a lot of Edwards voters going to Bernie.

[Torie]

Hillary does best with older people and richer people, which I assume means she'll do better in the suburbs. I could see a lot of Edwards voters going to Bernie.

You're absolutely right about the Edwards supporters. Bernie is going to get most of them I would think.

[Hydera]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/29/politics/iowa-clinton-sanders-delegate/index.html

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This is very consistent with the Marist poll margins (Clinton dominating where you least expect because she has been so focused where she lost last time). Still perplexing that he is doing good in the rural areas according to this poll. Perhaps she is expecting a floor of support in the rural areas, so even if he wins, unless he wins strongly, he doesn't get that much delegates.

That patch of yellow counties in upper Iowa are heavily scandinavian ancestry. Their probably going to Bernie.

MeanwhIle most of the rural counties won by Edwards and Obama will go to Hillary, but bernie will top hillary in the eastern iowa counties that voted for Obama. And Bernie will probably do well with caucus  goers in the cities.

[Torie]

I assume what  we will see is Hillary winning the big cities, particularly in the east (and suburban Dallas County), except for  Waterloo, Iowa City, and Ames, and Bernie winning in most other places.  In short, where Rubio runs relatively well, Hillary will run relatively well. That is what the cross tabs suggest. Those two are the most status quo in image of all the candidates running really with some traction in Iowa. Higher income folks are more comfortable with the status quo. Who knew?