Live Blogging the Iowa Caucus

So, here’s what’s happening now.  Registered Republicans are entering the precincts.  Each candidate will have a surrogate (if they are lucky) who will give a 5-minute (or less) speech on behalf of their candidate. Then blank papers are handed out and caucus participants write down the names of their preferred candidate. Those votes are tallied and the results announced at the meeting and phoned in.

Each precinct, meanwhile, has an allotted number of delegates, based on turnout at that precinct in the last presidential election.  Those delegates will be apportioned in rough proportion to how the candidate does.  At this point, the actual delegates are chosen by a vote of the caucus participants and they will represent their candidates at the next stage of the Iowa process at the county level in March.

When the doors close, the networks will start releasing results from the entrance polls. Keep in mind that these aren’t necessarily accurate – early returns in 2008 overstated Romney’s support.

Note as well that delegate projections based on today’s results are largely meaningless, given that delegates are not pledged to any candidate and therefore can change later as the process moves to the county, district and finally the state level.  Really all we care about are the vote proportions.

The first entrance polls, according to the AP, tells us that as expected, Romney, Paul and Santorum are leading.

Note that when this process ends in June, Iowa will send 28 delegates to the national convention – that’s half of their allotment from four years ago, and that is because the state was penalized for moving the caucus ahead in order to maintain its first in the nation status.

8:20 Ok, we are getting the first numbers in: Paul and Romney tied at 24%, with Santorum third.

Why is Iowa first in the nation, you ask?  It’s actually by accident.  When the McGovern-Fraser commission issued new rules governing the nominating process, it included a 30-day notice before caucuses to select delegates could be held. (Previously party bosses wouldn’t bother advertising caucuses in order to control results.)  Because Iowa uses this multi-step process,they had to start the process early to comply with the new rules.  Of course, no one paid any attention to this until Carter in 1976 realized he had an empty field in Iowa.  Even though he finished second to “uncommitted”, the media played up his “victory”, and that gave him momentum to take the nomination.   Ever since, the media has played up the results.

Btw, Chris has broken the ice with comments.  Join in….we typically have a good community discussion going during these.

Some more history as we wait for results.  Since the presidential vote was considered a “beauty pageant” vote with little meaning very early in the caucus’ history, vote totals were often not recorded in all precincts.  So, as late as 1980, there’s still dispute regarding who actually won the Republican race –  Reagan supporters are convinced the final totals weren’t even reported accurately in all precincts, and that their guy actually beat Bush.

Chris Abbott has a great question re: the use of social media  to measure candidate support.  I’m not sure how useful it is at this point since obviously social media use is skewed toward the younger voters, and they are disproportionately going to support Paul.

Some early entrance polls results indicating – in good news for Mitt – the evangelical voters appear not to have “solved” their coordination problem; they are splitting their vote among four candidates.  This, of course, is great news for the Mittster.

@Michael – the immediate consequence of there being no 15% threshold is that it is easier to translate vote totals into delegate totals, since you don’t have to waste time reassigning some votes in precincts if they don’t reach 15%.  You can’t do this in the Democratic caucus.  For example, in 2008, Edwards beat Clinton in the vote, but Clinton earned more delegates due to the 15% threshold.

It also means Bachman (and Huntsman ) will get to keep their popular votes. Otherwise it doesn’t mean much in terms of a bigger impact.

Ok, they are releasing the entrance results – and it shows Paul 24%, Romney 23% and Santorum at 19%.  This may or may not reflect the final results, but it is not good news for the Mittster if it holds.

I should add that there’s been a lot of talk about how no one has ever won Iowa and New Hampshire, and if the Mittster did this it would suggest he’s going to close this out.  This reminds me of the old saw that was floated in 1988 about how no vice president had won election to the presidency in his own right since Martin Van Buren (or some such guy).  This seemed really impressive and caused alot of people to count George H. W. Bush out.  But it was a stupid argument because a) there were so few case and b) the historical contexts were so different.  I think this holds as well for this stupid Iowa/NH argument.

But this is a reminder that how the media plays the expectation game can trump the actual results.  It is almost certain that Mitt is not going to do better than he did in 2008 which to me is evidence that he is a weak candidate who might win this caucus with the lowest vote total in history.  That suggests that if Republicans coalesce behind someone else, Romney could be in trouble.  And if comes in second here, and then wins New Hampshire easily, that may not help him as much as pundits think if the the media decides New Hampshire didn’t really count since it is Mitt’s vacation home state. Again, it’s the expectations game that matters.

Similarly, this may be Paul’s strongest state, given his rather unorthodox credentials and his strength in small turnout caucuses. If he wins Iowa, neither Santorum nor Gingrich (nor, for that matter, Perry) are going to be discouraged by Paul’s showing since it is not likely to be replicated in larger primary states.

Perhaps the biggest impact Iowa will have is in reminding Gingrich that this is about winning votes – not scoring debating points. Gingrich was far too docile in the wake of the unprecedented volume of attack ads directed at him – I doubt he’s going to make that mistake again.  But that’s a reminder that only Romney has been through this process before and it has shown in how he’s been able to stay on message and limit his media exposure to favorable outlets.  Remember, he made a very small number of visits to Iowa, basically keeping his power dry until the last week when he decided the polling suggested he might win.

Ooops- looks like they forgot to add the three entrance polls waves together – when they do, Santorum pulls into a tie with Mitt!  If Mitt finishes third, all those Mitt can close this out pundits are going to look foolish.

Tom – you are precisely right.  Mitt would be a distant third if the evangelicals could coalesce behind a candidate.

Here’s what happening: because there is no Democrat caucus to speak of, independents are flocking to this race, and that’s boosting Paul’s support.  If he wins this, it will be discounted among Republicans.  In short, this is – so far – a very bad night for Romney.  Romney is getting the lowest support among the Tea Party voters. Eventually, the reality on the ground – that Republicans don’t like Romney – is going to trump the obstinacy of the Republican establishment who are trying to create a groundswell behind Romney.  So far the Tea Party isn’t buying it.  Note as well that this caucus is turning on economic issues – supposedly Romney’s strong point!

Some more entrance polls results: independents are at 24% of voters – that’s high, but not extraordinarily so.  Paul is cleaning up with them, taking 48%.  But among Republicans (74% of the vote) Santorum -not Romney – leads 27% to 25%. Not good for the Mittster if he can’t win Republicans.  He’s also losing self-identified conservatives (82% of voters) to Santorum 26% to 20%.

@Conor – Mitt was never expected to do well among independents here – that was always going to be Paul’s core group, which is why I kept saying that the big key tonight was the percent of independents that participated.   But you are right about low-income voters – those are the Tea Party people, and they don’t like Mitt.

Note that 64% of caucus participants describe themselves as strongly or moderately supporters of the Tea Party – and Santorum won both groups.

As I’ve been noting for weeks – and in a preview of 2012’s general election – this vote turned on the economy, not social issues.  32% cited the budget deficit as the biggest issue, and 42% cited the economy.  Romney wins the economic voters – but Paul took the deficit group.  Four years ago the top issue was immigration.

More bad Romney news: 30% of voters said they had reservations about their candidate.  Who leads in this dubious category?  You guessed it: Mitt Romney with 28% of his support soft.

Interestingly, 18% of voters made up their minds today.  Not surprisingly, most (32%) went for Santorum, and 22% for Romney. But Gingrich finished third with 18% choosing him today, suggesting his more aggressive demeanor the last three days may have paid off.

By the way, men outnumbered women, 57%-43%, which favored Paul.  Both Santorum and Romney do better among women voters.

(Jeff – I didn’t hear Sharpton call Huckabee “Huckleberry”.  That’s why no college would ever pay money to have him come give a talk.  Oh wait – never mind. )

btw, I’m using CNN as my election feed.  If anyone else is hearing interesting things from other sites, please chime in here.

Big picture time, take 1: Rick Santorum is going to get a boost coming out of here, but it’s not clear how strong he will run in New Hampshire. His strongest support may come from income workers, but he’s going to have to fight with Paul for them.  Meanwhile, Romney’s weak performance so far may give Huntsman a NH boost.  Gingrich will compete in NH, but this performance isn’t going to help him there.  So South Carolina looms large for Gingrich and Perry.

And what of Bachmann?  I suspect this is the end of the road for her. She’s underperforming so far, indicating that some of her supported melted at the last moment and went toward Santorum.

Note that right now Santorum is polling in single digits in New Hampshire. Gingrich and Huntsman are neck and neck there, just behind Paul.  As for Romney – a lackluster performance here may cost him in NH – not in terms of losing there, but of failing to win by as much as expected.  It’s going to be really important for Gingrich to finish a strong third in NH.

Note: at this time in 2008, this election was already called.  This is going to be long night. It’s a long way from the Ames straw poll.  If you’ll recall the media fell all over itself to anoint Bachmann as the front runner.   Note also that her retail strategy didn’t help her here – but that’s because going door-to-door doesn’t matter if you don’t have a message that resonates.   In the end she wasn’t viewed as credible.  The kiss of death, of course, will be when the money dries up for her.

@Chris- if Paul bolts and goes third party, the Republicans are likely sunk come November.  And he’s just cranky enough to do it. Maybe that’s an incentive to put him on the ticket?

Btw, if Romney comes in third, you are going to hear the drumbeat for another Republican to jump in the race.  Keep in mind that it’s not easy to do at this point, although it’s not impossible.  But anyone who does jump in will have already missed registration deadlines in several key states.  Doesn’t mean they can’t compete however, since most delegates will still be up for grabs as late as March.

Btw, turnout doesn’t look like it is much higher this time around – it’s about 120,000, the same as it was four years ago.

Wow, with about 50% reporting, Santorum is ahead, and Paul is slipping back.

@Sam – you are precisely right re: Paul’s ceiling as reflected in the very few late deciders he won here.  He’s going to get his 20% here but he was never going higher.  Similarly, he’ll get his 16-20% in New Hampshire but no more.  And now that Santorum has won here, at least in terms of the expectations game, he’s going to get the Gingrich treatment in negative advertising.   So that means identifying the non-Mitt guy is more crucial than ever, because he’s probably the frontrunner for this nomination – whoever it might be!

@Tim – If a Republican jumps in now, s/he would be able to get on the ballot for many states.  However, some states that have been missed don’t allow write in votes.  Virginia, for example, in which only Romney and Paul made the ballot, doesn’t allow write in votes.   If I can, I’ll dig up the info on which states are still in play in case Sarah Palin decides to jump in.  There, I said it!

@Tom – My first instinct is to say that Perry will stick this out through South Carolina, but I didn’t see the “body language” interview at Fox.  He has the money, that’s for sure.  One thing to keep in mind is that this process enacts a huge psychological toll on candidates.  You pour yourself into this race, plead for support, and then most of the people piss on you.  I’ve no doubt Perry is discouraged  right now, but that is precisely why he shouldn’t make a call on whether to drop out now.  My guess is he stays in, but I can’t read his mind.  There were rumors before today that he got in largely because his wife pushed him, and that he doesn’t have the fire in the belly.

One thing to keep in mind if you are Newt Gingrich – John McCain won 13% in Iowa four years ago – exactly where Gingrich is polling now.  I’m in a minority on this, but I think he remains very viable in this race.

By the way, this might be a good time to remind you that I never ever thought Rick Santorum would win Iowa.  Instead, I thought he was in danger of being winnowed. Keep that in mind when I make my projections.  Right now, with 54% of precincts counted, Santorum is ahead by 400 hundred votes.

59% in – Santorum stretching the lead to 600 votes. This may be his highwater mark of the 2012 election.   What is going to happen when he becomes the guy at center stage at the next New Hampshire debate?  He will be target central.  Meanwhile, Gingrich will come out smoking in those debates.

However, neither Gingrich nor especially Santorum have the money – yet – to take on Romney in an advertising war.   The frustrating thing for the Tea Party is it is clear that you can beat Romney – if you could only decide who to back against him.   In that respect, you want some candidate to drop out after tonight.  Alas, if history is a guide, at most we might see one person gone.

Woah!  with close to 80% of the vote in, some returns came in from Romney strongholds, and he’s suddenly ahead by about 400 votes. I know we are going to finish with essentially a dead heat, but I think perceptions matter here, and Romney really needs to finish first, since he’s not even going to get the percent of votes that he got four years ago.

But wait!  No sooner do I finish typing than Santorum takes the lead!  And down the stretch they come!

88% of precincts reporting, and Santorum is up by 400 votes.  If he wins, does that change his google profile?

Ok, time to update the big picture.  Perry has essentially abandoned NH – he has said he’s going to straight to South Carolina.  Gingrich has been polling a distant third in New Hampshire – does he have the money to risk competing there?  The risk is that he finishes 4th behind Huntsman which may – and I say may – put his fundraising in jeopardy there.

Meanwhile, Paul has demonstrated his strengths – but also his weakness.  He has a committed following, but it is not enough for him to win anywhere. This was really his best chance to win in this process, and he’s going to finish third.

So far, the big winner tonight is Santorum – the loser (but not fatally) is Romney – unless he wins this outright, which is still possible.  But he’s not going to get a huge boost coming out of Iowa.

Ron Paul is on live now – the crowd behind him looks very subdued.  I think they really thought he was going to win this.  This is a disappointment for him and his followers, but the reality is that it has almost no impact on the overall Republican race.  This guy was never going to get more than about 23%, and he won’t do much better anywhere else.   He’s got to be thinking about whether the third party route is the way to go.

(If you are watching his speech, look at Rand Paul behind his father – if looks could kill!  He must be wondering if he’s next….)   Meanwhile, his father proclaims, “We are all Austrians Now!” That says it all … and now he’s riffing on the need to reestablish a gold standard!  This is why he won’t get 20% anywhere else.

Meanwhile, Mitt is back in front by about 300 votes.   He really needs to win this – perceptions matter.

Body language signal of the night:  When Ron Paul said we need to head to NH, Rand lowered his head and looked away.  He knows it is over – not that Paul was ever going to win anything.  But this has to be a disappointment to his followers.

Meanwhile, 89% of votes in, and Romney is up by 14 votes.

The Newster is on, with Callista at his side.  Let’s listen in:

He praises Rick for running a positive campaign, which is more than than he can say for other candidates.  (Who does he have in mind? Thinking, thinking….Buddy Roemer…..no, wait a moment…….it will come to me….)

Are you watching Newt’s speech?  He’s clearly learned his lesson – this is an unabashed pitch to New Hampshire voters. He’s just called out Ron Paul as essentially unqualified to lead in foreign policy (do we want Iran to have a nuclear bomb?) and he’s after Mitt Romney as a nasty, moderate Massachusetts politician.

Newt is taking the gloves off. He’s pissed. I can’t wait until the next New Hampshire debate.

Meanwhile, with 93% of the vote in, Santorum has pulled back in the lead by 100 votes.

Back to Newt – he’s really found his voice here.  He’s laying out the themes for New Hampshire.  Unlike Perry, Gingrich has laid down the marker in New Hampshire.  He’s basically said he’s all in there.  It’s going to be interesting to watch the fight there for second between Paul, Gingrich and Huntsman.  Keep in mind as well that it’s probably not enough for Romney to win New Hampshire by 5% – he needs to crush the opposition there.

Bachmann is on – this can’t be easy.,,,this sounds like a concession speech…she’s just going through the motions here, but it really seems like the fight has gone out of her. Does she concede?  And if she does, does she endorse someone else?

Ooops!  Never mind – she’s not dropping out!  Sigh.  This will only help Romney at this stage….let’s see how the donors respond to her last place finish.

@Michael – I think Newt’s blast is designed to help him – not anyone else.  He’s definitely signaled that he’s taking the gloves off, beginning with the upcoming NH debates.  I don’t think Santorum has much support in NH, whereas Newt actually can appeal to some of those NH independent voters.  I wouldn’t count the Newster out as yet. But as you note, he’s clearly targeting Mitt.

@Chris – Give Bachmann a day to think about this.  She may reassess her chances as she gets time to think about the results.  I suspect, based on her speech, that she’ll hang in there for a bit longer – at least long enough to get through the NH debates.  But the money will drive her decision.  I think she’s going to drop out, but she’s going to do it on her own terms.

With 96% of the vote in, Santorum is hanging in there with about a 500 vote lead.  But now Perry is on. Pay attention to his body language… ;

And he chokes up reading the first letter….

I thought Perry would do better in Iowa than he did (he’ll finish 5th).  Again, this is a reminder that it’s not easy to step onto the national stage.  There’s nothing that really can prepare you for it, and it is pretty clear that Perry was in over his head initially.  The key question is whether he can overcome his shaky start to remain viable …whoah!  he’s just acknowledged that he might drop out!

Wow, I will be surprised if if Perry drops out. But if he does, the big winner is Gingrich and, to a lesser extent, Santorum.

Meanwhile, Iow  is still too close to call – but it’s clear Romney is doing is worse than he did four years ago.

OK – Santorum is on.  Meanwhile, with 98% of precincts reporting, Romney is back on top by about 400 hundred votes.  If this holds, he’ll win Iowa with 25% of the vote – almost exactly what he received four year ago.   It could have been better – but it could have been worse.   He’s going to finish in a tie, for all intents and purposes, with Santorum.  That will be enough to claim victory – but it won’t be enough to dissuade the critics from claiming that he has demonstrated that he can’t get more than 25% of Republican support.

I’m signing off, but keep in mind that New Hampshire is a week away…… more tomorrow!

Last update: with 99% of precincts of reporting, Santorum leads by five votes.

Good night  America….. more tomorrow….