Category: 2016 President

When Barack Obama won Iowa in 2008 and 2012, college students were a key part of his winning coalition, turning out at record rates. For Hillary Clinton to overcome Iowa’s Trump-trending voter base, she’ll need to at least come close to generating the same turnout among young students. She’ll also have to tamp down third party defections from young progressives who earlier backed Bernie Sanders. Sanders himself is returning to Iowa for an extensive two-day swing today and tomorrow, hitting up each of the state’s three largest public universities. His task is to persuade holdout and skeptical voters, as well as motivate the […]

The Iowa Secretary of State’s office released the new voter registration totals this morning. Iowa gained 36,809 new registered voters in the month of October. There were 10,296 new registered Democrats, 9,622 new registered Republicans and 15,112 new registered No Party voters. The advantage of the new No Party voters shouldn’t come as a surprise, as the trend particularly with young voters is to not align themselves with a specific party. Most of the new registrations came in counties with college campuses. Registering new voters is typically not a major focus of Iowa campaigns, or at least not compared to […]

One week to go, finally. We’re at the point of the campaign cycle in Iowa where campaigns cease signing up new people for absentee ballots and go solely into ballot chase and GOTV mode. The increases in requested ballots in the daily totals from here on out will be mostly from people who voted in-person that day. For mail absentee ballots, while they can be requested as late as Friday, there’s just not enough time to reliably get them sent out and returned. Let’s take another in-depth look at the early vote numbers, as we’re to the point where many […]

The final days of the 2016 campaign are closing out ugly in Iowa, and not just in how candidates attack each other. An act of homophobic vandalism against a gay candidate in Waterloo and racist fliers on the campuses of Iowa State University and the University of Iowa were reminders that Iowa politics isn’t quite what it used to be. Chris Schwartz, Democratic candidate for Black Hawk Board of Supervisors, woke up Thursday morning to find his political yard signs and home vandalized. “I was heading out this morning at about 9am to take my recycling to the curb when I first noticed that signs […]

After weeks of national controversy led by Donald Trump over supposed vote rigging and voter fraud, an actual case of voter fraud occurred in Iowa. It was committed by a Trump supporter. Terri Rote was one of three people in Polk County reported to the police by the Polk County Auditor’s office for voting twice in the November election. Rote was the only one arrested so far, and told Iowa Public Radio that she decided in “the spur of the moment” to vote a second time at a satellite voting location because she feared her original ballot would be switched to Hillary Clinton […]

Finally, someone has polled Iowa again. It had been 21 days since a highly credible poll had surveyed the state, but a new Quinnipiac Poll released this afternoon confirmed what many on the ground have thought: it’s all tied up. Literally, exactly tied. Both Clinton and Trump stand at 44% in the new poll, with Gary Johnson coming in with 4% of likely voters’ support. Many had wondered where the Iowa race would stand after the Access Hollywood tape and three debates played out. The state has been trending much more Republican than usual this year, so even while Arizona […]

It’s crunch time for Democrats’ and Republicans’ early vote efforts in Iowa. With just two and a half weeks left until Election Day, campaigns are scrambling to pick up absentee ballots and turn voters out to early voting locations. There’s plenty of numbers to pore over, so let’s get right into it. First off, a check on the statewide numbers of absentee requests compared to this time in 2012: Requests Party Today Then % Diff Democrat 182,064 217,964 84% Republican 150,169 147,112 102% No Party 88,673 112,131 79% And now a look at the statewide numbers of who has already voted compared […]

For months now, nervous Iowa Democrats have looked at electoral prediction maps with despair as states like North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona head to toss-up status while Iowa remains in a light red hue. Today a poll found that even Texas was only three points in favor of Trump. There’s been a frustrating lack of reliable polling for Iowa since the 2005 Access Hollywood video surfaced, but there’s concern among Democrats that the perennially purple state hasn’t moved enough from its solid pro-Trump reputation this cycle. For Iowa to be the only state Barack Obama won in 2012 to go for Donald Trump would […]