{"id":14900,"date":"2024-01-19T10:35:07","date_gmt":"2024-01-19T18:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14900"},"modified":"2024-01-21T12:21:06","modified_gmt":"2024-01-21T20:21:06","slug":"outsized-coverage-of-minuscule-iowa-turnout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=14900","title":{"rendered":"Outsized Coverage of Minuscule Iowa Turnout"},"content":{"rendered":"

The headline from Fox “News” typified what passes for “coverage” in right-wing media: “Trump wins massive victory in Iowa<\/a>“. That contrasts sharply with The BradCast’s<\/em> headline: “Trump Underwhelms in Iowa<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

One core factor in analyzing the significance of either a Caucus or Primary Election is voter enthusiasm, as reflected by turnout.<\/p>\n

Even when the especially harsh winter conditions are taken into consideration, the turnout for Iowa’s 2024 Republican Caucuses must be regarded as dismal. The number<\/a> of votes cast, 110,298 — down from nearly 187,000 in 2016<\/a> — represents<\/a> less than 5.3% of Iowa’s 2,083,979 registered voters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 56,260 ballots cast for Donald Trump represented a meager 7.8% of Iowa’s 718,901 registered Republicans.<\/p>\n

The 51% Trump received in the 2024 Iowa Caucus is only 3 points greater than the 48% Lyndon B. Johnson, a then incumbent President, received<\/a> in the 1968 New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Primary. LBJ’s opponent, Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-MN), received 42%. Johnson’s narrow “win” in NH was followed by his decision<\/a> to drop out of the race. <\/p>\n

And while the 21,085 votes that third place finisher Nikki Haley received was also minuscule, any objective observer should not ignore a poll revealing that 43% of Halley Republican voters<\/a> said that, if Trump became the nominee, they would vote for President Joseph R. Biden in the general election.<\/p>\n

So which is it — “massive victory” or “underwhelming”?<\/p>\n

* * *<\/strong><\/center>Ernest A. Canning is a retired attorney, author, and Vietnam Veteran (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968). He previously served as a Senior Advisor to Veterans For Bernie<\/a>.<\/span> Canning has been a member of the California state bar since 1977. In addition to a juris doctor, he has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science. Follow him on twitter: @cann4ing<\/b><\/a><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The headline from Fox “News” typified what passes for “coverage” in right-wing media: “Trump wins massive victory in Iowa“. That contrasts sharply with The BradCast’s headline: “Trump Underwhelms in Iowa“. One core factor in analyzing the significance of either a Caucus or Primary Election is voter enthusiasm, as reflected by turnout. Even when the especially […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[675,479,786,1611,1934,14,74,781,170],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-14900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bradcast","category-donald-trump","category-election-1968","category-election-2024","category-eugene-mccarthy","category-fox-news","category-iowa","category-lyndon-johnson","category-new-hampshire","bb-type-bradblog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14900\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14900"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=14900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}