Tag Archives: Iowa

2/3 Iowa Caucus 2020 Live Blog

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

LiVEStream coming of Bernie Addressing His Supporters in DM:

We’re heading into Caucus Night in Iowa. Weather conditions are cloudy and temps are hovering around freezing. There has been a forecast for some drizzle, but hopefully it won’t stop too many from driving and getting in line.

Already the Biden Camp is lowering Expectations…

Biden allies lower expectations for Iowa: ‘Most feel it’s not going to be great’

While some campaign aides were unsure how the results would turn out hours before the caucuses would begin, they expressed some apprehension about the outcome.
“Most [aides] feel it’s not going to be great,” one longtime Biden ally who has had conversations with top aides inside the campaign, acknowledged Monday.
Biden’s aides and allies said they were hoping to place in the top three. But even if they fall short, the campaign is “built for the long haul,” one Biden confidant said.
Biden said in an interview with NBC that “my gut tells me things are going well.” Still, he added, that the results would be “close.”

The official results are from The Caucus website. But of course, the AP is the one that calls the race.

Here’s the Caucus process.

There are three main parts to the caucus:

  • Introductory Business: During this time the caucus will elect the permanent chair and secretary, hear a message from the state party chair, hear from local elected officials, and if time allows hear from local candidates for office.
  • Presidential Preference: During this time you will determine viability, break into preference groups, and elect delegates to the County Convention.
    Party Business: During this time you will elect members to the county central committee and discuss platform planks to the county convention.

PRESIDENTIAL PREFERENCE — PICKING A CANDIDATE
Getting Started
The caucus chair will kick off the meeting with general party business, including a letter from IDP Chair Troy Price.

To determine the viability threshold for each preference group the Caucus Chair will count the room of caucugoers by passing out numbered Presidential Preference Cards to each caucusgoer.

The viability threshold for most precincts is 15%, and can be higher in precincts electing less than 4 delegates on caucus night.
4+ delegates = 15%
3 delegates = 16.66%
2 delegates = 25%

Each Precinct Chair will have an opportunity to make a brief speech in support of their candidate.

First Alignment
Eligible caucusgoers divide to form Presidential preference groups—simply by standing in a section of the room devoted to their candidate. The Caucus Chair and Precinct Captains count the caucusgoers in each group and agree on a final number for the first alignment.

Support for viable preference is locked after the first alignment. Caucusgoers in viable preference groups will fill out the Presidential Preference Card, sign it, and turn it in. Those caucusgoers can choose to leave or observe the final alignment before participating in the Party Business portion of the caucus.

Final Alignment
Caucusgoers in non-viable preference groups have the opportunity to realign for a final time. These caucusgoers can either: (my note: the is the first time that there is only one final alignment. There’s generally a lot of horse-trading of caucus-goers, but tonight, they have to do the following..)

Join a viable group
Earn support for their group or another non-viable group

Form an uncommitted or other group (this is what we have to look for–it’s possible that many may be uncommitted if they can’t get their alignment)

In the rare event of a second alignment with more viable preference groups than total electable delegates, the smallest group(s) would need to realign another time.
.
Before leaving, caucusgoers will fill out the Presidential Preference Card, sign it, and turn it in.

Delegate Allocation
Delegates are awarded to the final, viable preference groups based on their size.

The formula to determine a viable preference groups’ delegate allocation is:

# of people in group X # delegates precinct is electing
______________________________________________
# of caucus attendees

Caucus Chairs and Precinct Captains will calculate the delegate allocation for each group and match their counts before reporting the results to the IDP.

REPORTED NUMBERS
The IDP does not declare a winner, the party’s role is to present results. The IDP encourages outlets to use the reported SDE number to determine a caucus winner.

First Alignment: Reflects total number of participants and initial support in that precinct caucus.

Final Alignment: Reflects movement in the room and final voter count.

SDE: State delegate equivalency is the projected number of state party convention delegates the candidates will receive based upon results of the precinct caucuses.
National Convention Delegates allocation will be reported as part of the caucus results. That number can only be calculated upon receipt of all precinct caucus results and will be reported at that time.

All of these numbers now how to be reported as raw counts, then final count. Also new is the satellite caucuses. There are 87 of them, more than half are in Iowa nursing homes, local libraries, etc. As reported in the last thread, one caucus met at lunch in order to accommodate those who cannot attend a caucus at 7pm.

It may be a lengthy evening. Bernie is on his way, but I hope his plane makes it in, with a lot of cloud cover. It’s also Feb 3rd in Iowa.

Clear as mud?

Join us at the Nest! Post your tweets, videos, articles, etc in the comments.

UPDATE: Prelim numbers by The Hill:

1/14 Bernie Leads with GE Indie Voters in Morning Consult Poll; 7th DNC 2020 Live Blog Debate & Open Thread

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Tonight’s DNC debate is the first for the 2020 year, but the 7th one since June. The debate site is Drake University in Des Moines and will start at 6CT. CNN and the Des Moines Register are airing/streaming the event, but this time Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will not be the moderators; instead, it will be Wolf Blitzer and Abby Phillip, along with Brianne Pfannenstiel of The Register.

How to watch the debate?

The debate will air exclusively on CNN, CNN en Español, CNN International and CNN Airport Network and will stream live in its entirety, without requiring log-in to a cable provider, exclusively to CNN.com’s homepage, across mobile devices via CNN’s apps for iOS and Android, and via CNNgo apps for Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, Chromecast and Android TV. The debate will also air live at DesMoinesRegister.com and Democrats.org, and can be heard on CNN’s SiriusXM XChannels and the Westwood One Radio Network.

The debate likely will feature some sharpening of words. Will CNN focus on the Politico innuendo created by the Warren campaign about the Sanders campaign? Will Klobuchar join forces with Biden and Warren to slam Bernie, allowing Buttigieg not have to answer for his lack of experience? Can moderators allow plenty of discussion about the differences in foreign policy views to inform the viewers, especially those of Steyer and Sanders?

From CNN:

Trump’s decision to order the strike that killed a senior Iranian military commander gave rise to a new crisis in the Middle East — and is forcing Democratic presidential contenders for the first time to seriously detail their own views of foreign policy and the United States’ role in the world.

Biden’s campaign is convinced this new reality helps the former vice president the most: He has decades of foreign policy experience and worked alongside former President Barack Obama to craft international deals like the Iran nuclear agreement, which Trump scrapped. He has long argued he’s the candidate best prepared to work effectively on the world stage immediately after taking office, and — in an effort to draw contrast with Trump — is emphasizing the stability he would offer in television ads, statements and campaign appearances.

But Sanders sees an opening, too: He’s lambasted Biden for voting in 2002 to give then-President George W. Bush authority to use military force in Iraq. It’s the issue that helped propel Obama past Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary, and could retain some of its potency 12 years later.

As for Tom Steyer, CNN also notes that slid into this debate on the very last qualifying day. How?

Steyer barely made Tuesday’s debate — he got in with a pair of Fox News polls, one from Nevada that found him at 12% and another from South Carolina that found him at 15% — but the question for Steyer and his campaign is whether he can make the appearance count.

Bloomberg News reports that Steyer has already spent over 100 million in advertising in the early states. However, Steyer insists it’s his experience to led him to run for the presidency.

The Iowa caucus is Feb 3rd. From an Iowan’s perspective about tonight’s debate, Dan Guild, a longtime caucus attendee writes at Bleeding Heartland

If you are familiar with the history of the Iowa caucuses, you know just how unprecedented this cycle is:

  • A two-term VP of a popular president cannot break 25 percent in Iowa.
  • Incredibly, three Iowa polls have been taken since the start of the new year, and among the four candidates the highest any has received is 24 percent and the lowest is 15 percent. There has never been a race this close among four candidates.
  • With the caucuses a mere three weeks away, only about 40 percent of voters say they have made up their mind.
  • Is there any trend here? Bernie Sanders is up in all three most recent polls, and there are significant downward moves for Pete Buttigieg in two of them. For the most part, though, this is a glorious mess. Who is ahead? No one knows.

Add to this uncertainty:

  • A Democratic electorate still in shock over the election of Donald Trump, a man most Democrats regard as completely unfit to be president (and that is putting it mildly).
  • A breaking controversy between Sanders and Elizabeth Warren which has escalated over the past 24 hours, reminding many of the fight between Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean that took both candidates down in 2004.
  • Evidence in some Iowa and New Hampshire polling that Buttigieg may be following the trajectory of Dean in 2004 (peaking too soon).

Against this fluid backdrop, it is hard to imagine a more important debate. Make no mistake: Iowa debates matter. An example: Gary Hart entered the Iowa debate under 5 percent with a mere seven days to go before the 1984 caucuses. Polling the next day showed that Hart went from 3 percent to 7 in a single night.

Yet as is so often the case, most of the reporting that night missed the moment. The New York Times the next day, for example, suggested Hart had done well, but certainly did not pick up anything to suggest he would increase his support by 13 points in a week.

So what are we likely to see during the January 14 debate?

Sanders and Warren have, as of this writing, essentially accused each other of lying. It was in the interest of neither to go there, but it is hard to imagine their exchanges will not be a lead story. My guess is they will each try to minimize the dispute, but it may be too late for that.

Joe Biden must love this turn of events. Just 48 hours ago, he was trying to explain his vote on the Iraq War. (He would be much better off saying he was simply wrong and move on.) Sanders will almost certainly attack him on these grounds, and both Biden and Sanders benefit from attacking each other in a way, because it solidifies their ideological bases.

Some were questioning whether Warren was slipping out of contention in late December, and with the lack of polling and her prior trajectory, it was a reasonable guess. The most recent polling suggests she is certainly in the mix. Warren has been fighting a two-pronged fight, one against Sanders for the left and the other with Buttigieg for those who want new leadership.
Buttigieg’s position is perhaps the most interesting. The major fights over the last 48 hours do not involve him. He may win the debate simply by watching the other three major candidates attack each other. Buttigieg’s problem is Amy Klobuchar.

This is really Klobuchar’s last chance. For her the task is simple: take down Buttigieg and become the younger alternative to Biden.

This afternoon, Vice News released the results of a poll conducted with Ipsos:

Just as many African-Americans say they’d consider voting for Bernie Sanders as Joe Biden, according to new a VICE News-Ipsos Poll, suggesting Sanders might not have as much of a problem wooing black voters if he’s the Democratic nominee as some have assumed.

Fully 56% of African-Americans said they’d “consider voting for” Sanders in 2020 — a statistical tie with the 54% who said the same about former Vice President Joe Biden and significantly higher than any other candidate.

Only 23% of African-Americans said they wouldn’t consider voting for Sanders, about the same number as the 24% who said they wouldn’t consider voting for Biden.

Sanders does even better relative to Biden and the rest of the field among Hispanics: 47% say they’d consider voting for Sanders, while 37% said they’d consider voting for Biden. More Hispanics say they wouldn’t consider voting for Biden (37%) than wouldn’t vote for Sanders (31%).

(The video is 2016, but applies to 2020).

What’s on your mind? Join us in the comments section.

TGIF:Bernie Sanders leads the Iowa Poll for the first time, just weeks before the Iowa caucuses & More…

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

from the Des Moines Register:

Sen. Bernie Sanders leads the Democratic field three weeks ahead of Caucus Day in Iowa — narrowly overtaking his closest competitors, who remain locked in a tight contest just behind him.

A new Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows 20% of likely Democratic caucusgoers name Sanders as their first choice for president.

After a surge of enthusiasm that pushed Pete Buttigieg to the top of the field in November, the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor has faded, falling 9 percentage points to land behind both Sanders and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Warren is at 17%; Buttigieg, 16%; and former Vice President Joe Biden, 15%.

“There’s no denying that this is a good poll for Bernie Sanders. He leads, but it’s not an uncontested lead,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., which conducted the poll. “He’s got a firmer grip on his supporters than the rest of his compatriots.”

The poll of 701 likely Democratic caucusgoers was conducted Jan. 2-8 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

Biden, Buttigieg, Sanders and Warren have remained clustered atop the Register’s Iowa Poll throughout the 2020 campaign cycle, though no one has definitively pulled away from the pack. Instead, each of the top four has now led the Iowa Poll at some point this cycle as the field continues to shift.

The percentage of those who say their mind is made up about which candidate to support on caucus night has risen to 40% — up 10 percentage points from November. But that leaves 45% who say they could still be persuaded to support someone else and another 13% who have not picked a favorite candidate yet.

(chart courtesy of RCP)

More in the comments! TGIF…and mocktails/cocktails!