iowa

At The Washington Post, Chris Cillizza takes a look at the new top ten swing states. This idea of a "swing state" is a little dated, especially since the Democrats adopted the "50 State Strategy" and saw positive results in 2006. But at the end of the day, even if we do compete in all states, a few will be more competitive than others, and it is inevitable that these states will receive an inordinate amount of attention from the media, the campaigns, and 527 organizations looking to influence the outcome.

That said, here are your new swing states. Learn them well.

This looks somewhat familiar. Remember this from November 2004? These are the states where John Kerry would have won the election if only voters under 30 had cast their ballots:

I can't prove any direct connection or major demographic shift in these states at this point, but it definitely bears more looking into. It's also nice to see some states with active youth organizing making the list of "new" swing states (Colorado, Virginia, New Mexico).

CIRCLE has released its final data set on the Iowa youth turnout (pdf). Here's a quick snapshot of their findings.

• 13% of all Iowans under the age of 30 participated in the caucus. This was up from 4% in 2004, and 3% in 2000.
• Turnout among those under 30 tripled.
• The younger you went, the higher turnout was. 15% of 17-24 year olds turned out, vs. 9% of those between 25 and 29 years of age.
• 73% of young caucus-goers participated in the Democratic caucus vs. 27% in the republican caucus (46,640 vs. 10,235 out of 64,080 caucus-goers under 30).

The Democratic Caucus

• Young voters made up 22% of Democratic caucus-goers, up from 17% in 2004.
• The majority of young Democratic caucus-goers were female, the reverse was true for the Republican caucus.
• More than 4x as many young independents participated in the Democratic Caucus than the Republican caucus (~9,500 vs 2,000).
• In the Democratic Caucus, Obama drew the support of 57% of both the 17-24 and 25-29 groups.
• Among young caucus-goers in the Democratic caucus, the under 25 group was the most liberal of all demographics. 77% of Democratic caucus-goers under 25 identified as "liberal," compared to 54% of the entire Democratic caucus electorate.

Republican Caucus

• Young voters made up 11% of Republican caucus-goers.
• Among the Republican caucus-goers under 30, 40% of voters under 30 chose Mike Huckabee.
• 65% of caucus-goers under 25 described themselves as "born again" or "evangelical."
• Republican caucus-goers under 25 were the least likely to describe themselves as "very conservative" (30% vs 45% for all caucus goers).

I'll have specific numbers on 2004 turnout and current population for New Hampshire later today. That will be the baseline against which tonight's youth turnout should be measured. But people will inevitably reach for an Iowa comparison as well, and this data from CIRCLE is the best out there.

It's true that Barack Obama brought a lot of new, independent young people into the party (almost 25% of all young democratic caucus-goers), but of particular interest, I thought, were the number of young Democratic caucus-goers who identified as "liberal." That's the face of post-partisanship?

In the wake of her loss to Barack Obama in Iowa, and defeat among younger voters by a margin of more than 5-1, Hillary Clinton changed her strategy and started to reach out to younger voters. The day after the primary, Clinton was quoted as saying "I'm running for president to reclaim the future — the future for all of us, of all ages, but particularly for young Americans."

Apparently, not all of her campaign surrogates are on the same page. Sacha Millstone, a member of the Clinton National Finance Committee and keeper of a large Clinton fundraising list, sent an email to her network earlier today in which she trashed young voters and cast doubts on the legitimacy of the Iowa caucus - in large part because of the overwhelming level of student attendance.

The expansion of the Democratic electorate is a good thing for all Democrats, up and down the ticket. It's pure pettiness and short-sightedness to denigrate such a large and newly engaged portion of the electorate just because they don't like your candidate. It's certainly not a way to win their votes, which Hillary must do if she's going to have any chance of defeating Obama. Clinton is in serious trouble here.

Here's the email (emphasis mine):

Hi all,

When I visited Iowa in early December and did some phone calling and canvassing, within two days it was obvious to me that our campaign had a big challenge. A very large number of Hillary's supporters were telling me that they supported Hillary and would vote for her in November, but they were not going to go to the caucuses. Old people, people who work night shift or 2 jobs, working moms, single moms all have a really hard time going to the caucus. These are our supporters. I was alarmed and talked with campaign staff and indeed the campaign knew in October that this was a huge obstacle for us. This is why I spent most of the month of December in Iowa and asked others to do the same. I felt that it was critical to pull out all the stops. The last two weeks my hope was that we could finish second. We tried very hard to convince our supporters to go to the caucus. About 70% of our supporters had never been to a caucus before. We told them that if 1/3 of Hillary's supporters did not go to the caucus she would not do well in Iowa. We trained them on the caucus. We organized rides and buddies for them. They got this message multiple ways throughout the month. There was not a single supporter that was overlooked. We had a huge contingent on the ground working on this and support from unions and EMILY's List. We got 70,000 people there when normally about 150K total participate. But it was not enough.

I was very surprised as I travelled around the state that I did not encounter any groundswell for Obama. For this reason I thought that Obama would come in third. Edwards was strong and I thought he would likely win. In the week prior to the caucus, many undecideds I spoke with broke for Hillary and Edwards. I did not find many breaking for Obama. I was in Creston, Ottumwa, Marshalltown, Iowa City, Dubuque, Fort Madison, and Mason City. I got the same story from every field organizer. They felt good. They felt our support was solid. They did not see movement toward Obama but there was movement towards Edwards and he was our competition. These field organizers were not in touch with one another so the fact that each told me this independently was significant. I was really surprised that Obama was so confident the two days before the caucus. There were many undecideds still. It was not at all clear what the outcome was going to be. I found it very disturbing that he was so confident.

The caucus itself was shockingly unorganized. The email below from a friend of mine says it all. In Iowa you can simply show up and vote. No one even checks your i.d. I was at a middle school in which about 7 precincts met. There was mass confusion – many people had no idea what ward or precinct they were in. There were no computer facilities to check – I happened to have a rough map I let people look at. I'm sure many were in the wrong rooms. In the precinct where I was no one was at the door to the caucus room making sure that people registered. People could just walk in. At the registration table there were 2 people checking in 122 participants. Many participants were brand new and clearly not known to their neighbors. There were people in the room who were not residents and it was the honor system whether they voted or not. The person who was chair and ran the meeting was inexperienced and he did not have control of the crowd. The rules were not followed. When an experienced person tried to have the rules followed, people got very confrontational with him. So it was a mess. In the precinct I attended Hillary won, Obama was second and Edwards was third.

My opinion is that the Iowa caucus system should not be any kind of litmus test for our nominee. Unfortunately it is one. The campaign always knew Iowa would be tough for us – they thought it would be one of our toughest states. We have our work cut out for us, that's for sure.

From my friend:

I wish there were time for the real story of Iowa to emerge.

The Iowa caucus process is a broken and flawed process. It was designed to allow for the active party Dems generally known to one another to assign delegates and was not designed to handle a flood of students and independents. It was a system designed to give more power to Dem party loyalists. In the tension over whether the candidates should be chosen by the party or by the general public, the Iowa caucus was designed to give the party the advantage. For this reason, the Iowa system failed on Thursday.

I saw a tv interview of an African American radio talk show host who was very close to the Obama campaign (Anderson Cooper 360, I think). He described how the Obama campaign felt as if they had gotten away with something by getting students to the caucus. It was as if they had taken advantage of a loophole. He said: "in past caucuses it was perceived that the student vote would be seen as unfair, but hey it is on the books so the Obama campaign took advantage of this technicality." I notice that Axelrod in press spin today in Post is making point to say that Obama won among "women, men and liberals, and those under 45. I bet if you took out the student vote in Iowa, this would not be true. " It is as if Axelrod wants to downplay the student vote. He wants to spin that the Iowa victory was broad based. But how broad-based can a vote by less than one tenth of the number who will vote in general and made up largely of students be?

Another problem with flooding the caucuses with students is that the system was not designed for this. The system is an honor system for attending the caucus in the precinct where you reside. This presumes a small group and general knowledge of the expected attendees (party Dems in a given precinct). When students flood in this honor system does not work. The Iowa rules allowed students to participate in the caucus if from another state and attending college in Iowa and register for the first time at the caucus. Students are a transient group living in dorms and apartments with roommates. Giving an address is not the same as for permanent residents. The honor system does not work in the same way for students as for more permanent residents. In addition, because of Illinois's proximity to Iowa, the Obama infrastructure could identify Illinois residents who attend college in Iowa and organize them to vote in the Iowa caucus.

When the caucuses are flooded with high turn out a system that is already a loose honor system moves into chaos. Many of even the loose Iowa caucus guidelines were not followed. Observers are allowed but are not supposed to be involved in persuading voters, but this happened in many caucuses because of the chaos. In many caucuses the numbers did not add up (the number registered at the door did not match the number who voted overall even). The chaos of the sites made it very hard for older participants to hear and understand options for viability and second voting. Most sites did not have microphones and the precinct captains could not be heard.

It is (actually was a long time ago) time to get rid of the Iowa caucus (actually too late).

"Clinton is tough. Tested by rough politics and personal trials, she's demonstrated strength, resolve and resilience.. ..The times demand results. We believe as president she'll do what she's always done in her life: Throw herself into the job and work hard. We believe Hillary Rodham Clinton can do great things for our country."

Des Moines Register Endorsement 12/16/07

Sacha Millstone
National Finance Committee for Hillary Clinton Campaign

This is incredible. John Deeth in the Iowa Independent is reporting that in many student dense precincts, Hillary Clinton did not achieve viability - the 15% minimum of support needed to snag at least one delegate in a particular caucus.

Clinton was non-viable in Iowa City's two dorm-dominated precincts, 3 and 5. She was also non-viable in the entire core of downtown Iowa City, including the main student apartment precincts (11, 19 and 20) and in precinct 21, a mixed student-townie precinct so liberal that George W. Bush finished third, behind Ralph Nader, in 2000. Turnout was down from 2004 in the dorm precincts, where residence halls were closed, but was up significantly in the off-campus student precincts.

Hillary Clinton did not make an on-campus University of Iowa stop before the caucuses -- in fact, her only campus event was on July 3 with her husband former President Bill Clinton. Clinton 42 did appear on campus on Dec. 10, at the height of the student caucus flap, and said students should follow their conscience. "Since nobody can really say what's in your mind, it's up to you," Clinton said. "For example, if you show up to work on the campaign and have no connection here, then you shouldn't be able to caucus."

Reports of Clinton non-viability also come from Grinnell Ward 1, where the Clinton group sent supporters to Joe Biden to help him reach viability and prevent Obama from padding his already big delegate margin. Biden was also viable where Clinton was not in Ames Precinct 4-4, centered on the Iowa State campus.

Also interesting that student turnout was in fact down in some student precincts due to the early caucus date. Clinton feared students coming back from out of state to caucus, but it was "native" Iowan youth that did her in.

Two things to check out this morning while the Sunday-morning talk show blowhards try to explain the youth wave:

First, Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle, one of the best youth vote reporters during the last four years, has a piece up: Appetite for Change Finally Draws Young Voters to the Polls.

And check out this great video from the Huffington Post:

Update: CIRCLE has continued crunching numbers and they are now saying (pdf) that actual youth turnout was 13%, not 11%. So it more than tripled.
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Some more cogent thoughts now that the heat of the moment has passed and some numbers have been crunched.

Barack Obama may be riding the momentum of a caucus win into New Hampshire, but the real winner in tonight's Iowa caucus was young voters.

It's been a long and rocky road for young voters - in the media and in the party. For four years, the media has declared (incorrectly) that young voters were the downfall of Howard Dean, whose over-reliance on an "unreliable demographic" ushered in his defeat in the 2004 caucus. This, despite the fact that youth turnout at the caucus increased that year. For the last year, we've heard how Obama's strategy was foolhardy, and even from the campaign we heard that the youth vote would be "icing on the cake."

It turns out, it was the cake.

According to estimates by CIRCLE (pdf) youth vote turnout at the caucus tripled tonight, rising from 4% to 11%. Within the Democratic caucus, over 46,000 young people participated, and young voters comprised 22% of all Democratic caucus-goers. According to entrance polls by CNN, 57% of those 17-29 year old caucus goers stood up to caucus for Barack Obama. Tonight, they drove his campaign to victory.

The numbers themselves were larger than expected, especially considering the early caucus date during winter break for most colleges. But no one who has been paying attention to young voters in the past four years should be surprised that young Iowans played such a significant role in tonight's caucus. These are not isolated incidents. In 2004, youth participation in the Iowa Caucus quadrupled. In the 2004 general election, youth turnout saw the largest increase in over a decade. Turnout was also up in 2006 (pdf). Tonight's caucus turnout was part of a four year trend in young voter turnout.

Tonight was also a victory for the Democratic Party. Participation in the caucus almost doubled. 212,000 Democratic voters turning out compared to 125,000 in 2004. About 46,000 of those caucus-goers were young voters. Compare that to the Republicans: CIRCLE (pdf) reports that only 10,000 young people participated in the Republican caucus, just 10% of all Republican caucus-goers. This too is a trend. In 2004, young voters broke in favor of John Kerry over President Bush 554 - 45%. In 2006, young voters chose Democratic candidates 60% - 38%, increasing a growing trend towards favoring progressive candidates.

Young voters are increasingly moving in the direction of Democrats, and tonight, the Obama campaign - thanks to a savvy youth operation that reached out on Facebook and MySpace, at high schools and on college campuses - was able to capitalize on that to attain victory. His win confirms what many have been saying for years now: young people will vote if you pay attention to the, speak to their issues, and reach out. New technologies can certainly help make that initial connection, yet it's still good old fashioned face to face politicking - peer to peer organizing - that makes the difference. Years ago, when young people began voting Republican during the Reagan Era, Democrats stopped asking young voters to participate. Tonight's victory shows what individual candidates, and the Democratic Party stand to gain by courting today's young voters.

Tonight we saw the the core of a future progressive majority make its presence known in Democratic politics. Young Voters are not a hidden vote or icing on the cake, and after tonight, everyone knows it.

Thanks to my fellowship with the Center for Independent Media and good people in the Iowa Democratic Party, I'm credentialed as a member of the Press to cover the caucuses today. Basically that means I get access to the press area, a desk, and I'll also be getting real time access to the caucus results as they come in thanks to the Democratic Party. Sounds great, but thus far by initial experience in the belly of the big media beast has not been smooth. In my experience today, bloggers and online news outlets are still second class citizens in this media ecosystem.

There are two ways to get caucus results tonight (aside from watching your TeeVee), if you are a member of the media. The first through the system mentioned run by the Democratic Party, which will provide access to up to the minute results. The second is a similar online system offered by an exit polling firm, Edison-Mitofsky. From what I can tell, the differences between the two polls are these: The IADP offers entrance poll data and delegate counts, but does not break out that data by age. E-M offers exit polling data that will have cross tabs broken down by age.

As many of you know, I'm here primarily to report on youth turnout. I've already layed-out the many youth vote media narrative scenarios I see arising. Mostly I think this is dependent on whether or not Barack wins (Barack win = positive narrative, Barack loss = negative narrative). However, as we've seen in the past, the media is none too good at reporting on actual youth vote turnout. I've also noted that there are major discrepancies between what the Democratic Part (and the media) and youth vote researches have reported for 2004 turnout. With all that confusion out there, the terrible track record of the media, and the high likelihood that the youth vote story will be pivotal in explaining Obama's performance (whether he captures the youth vote or not), it's in everyone's interests that we get as accurate a picture of youth participation as possible.

Here's the rub. Edison-Mitofsky won't let me pay them for a subscription because I'm a blogger. Their representatives have stated that they only service "bona fide media organizations" and that online news outlets don't count. So not only doesmy blog Future Majority not count as a media outlet (despite the fact that my youth vote reporting has been much more accurate than what the mainstream media has reporting), but neither does MyDD, nor the Center for Independent Media, through which I have a journalism fellowship. As many of you know, the Center for Independent Media publishes the excellent news sites The Iowa Independent, Colorado Confidential, Michigan Messenger, and Minnesota Monitor. They are also

I wonder if they're denying Salon.com and Slate.com access to this data? Or is it just us lowly bloggers . . . ?

Results are starting to come in. More later on tonight's youth turnout.

Here's Mary McClelland, Field Director for Rock the Vote at a Rock the Caucus event at a West Des Moines high school:

Here's a minute with Alexandra Acker, Executive Director of the Young Democrats of America:

Throughout the day I'm going to try to do short interviews with a number of youth vote folks working in Iowa to see what they're doing and what their expectations are for the evening. Here's the first with Jane Kleeb of Young Voter PAC.