What Did — And Didn’t — Go Down In The Iowa Caucuses

The caucuses just got underway in Iowa. So … when will we know who won? We’re supposed to start getting results in about 30 minutes, but to get some idea of when we might expect to know who won, I took a look at when a winner was declared in Iowa in the past three presidential cycles. Last time around, the media called Ted Cruz’s Iowa win at about 10:30 p.m. ET. However, the 2016 Democratic contest between Clinton and Sanders was so close that we didn’t get a call until the next day! In 2012, the GOP race between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum was also close, and it took until about 2:30 a.m. for the Republican Party of Iowa to declare Romney the winner by 14 votes. However, that was premature, as more than two weeks later the Iowa GOP said Santorum had actually won, by 34 votes. And in 2008, Mike Huckabee was declared the Iowa GOP winner by 9 p.m., while it took until 9:30 p.m. for Barack Obama’s win to get called.

Obviously, the closer the race has been, the later the call has tended to come:

But there’s an added complication this year that could affect how quickly we know the Democratic results and even how we interpret them. Not only will we get the traditional “state delegate equivalent” figures that determine how many national delegates each Democrat wins, but there’ll also be two vote totals: voters’ first choice and voters’ final choice after supporters of candidates who didn’t have enough backing at their caucus site — usually at least 15 percent of the vote at that site — shift to other candidates.

So, when might we know the winner? Potentially by 9 or 10 p.m. ET if the race isn’t that close, later if it is close, and maybe even later either way, given the new reporting procedures. That was helpful, right?

I had a striking conversation with a woman at a satellite caucus earlier, Nathaniel, who said that she really, really hates caucuses because they make her feel so exposed. She doesn’t enjoy the feeling of being scrutinized by her neighbors and friends while she votes. And it’s an understandable perspective! Lots of people clearly arrived here with their friends and sat in candidate groups together. Hard to be the odd person out in that social context.

Nathaniel, that’s true about the lack of anonymity being a sticking point for people who want to do away with caucuses altogether. But the lack of a secret ballot is also the reason why caucuses might be the only kind of election where a secure online vote would be possible, as I wrote earlier today