Your Next Piece of Caucus Trivia
January 3, 2008 Add a commentAnyone know where the term “caucus” comes from? Find out after the jump.
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“[Students] are going to come out … they’re going to come out in force”
January 3, 2008 Add a commentYet another news source (this time The Huffington Post) is predicting record-high young voter turnout in the Iowa caucuses. The article cites the Rock the Vote finding that youth turnout increased a whopping 24% between the 2002 and 2006 midterm elections.
“If the students do continue recent turnout trends,” the article conjectures, “the new million-dollar question becomes which candidates those students will support.” And though the recent Des Moines Register poll suggests that the majority of first-time Democratic caucus-goers support Senator Barack Obama, Rock the Caucus’s aggregations of previous Iowa polls suggest that Obama, Senator Hillary Clinton, and Senator John Edwards all enjoy strong support among young Democrats, while Governor Romney, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and Governor Mike Huckabee are most popular in Iowa among young Republicans.
Whatever the case, the article emphasizes the importance of young voters to this caucus as well as the 2008 general election: “The kids we’ve talked to are really excited about voting in this caucus, whether they’re Republican or Democrat…this election is going to be decided by young people.”
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Caucus Trivia
January 2, 2008 Add a commentHere’s some Iowa trivia for you:In what year did Iowa hold it’s only presidential primary, instead of holding caucuses?
a) 1916
b) 1932
c) 1948
d) 1964
Click “read the rest” to find out.
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Mainstream Media Begins to Recognize Iowa’s Young Voters
January 2, 2008 Add a commentTwo more recent articles have highligted the importance and prominence of young voters in the Iowa caucuses.
- An article on the newswire Reuters summarizes the struggle between Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama in their quest for support among first-time Democratic caucus goers, particularly young ones.
- An article in the December 31st, 2007 USA Today questions whether young voters will actually turn out to their caucus locations on January 3rd, ending with the assertion that caucusing “seems like something the older crowd does.” This conclusion, however, is fallacious. Young voters (17-29 year-olds) turned out to the Democratic caucuses in 2004 at four times the level of the 2000 caucuses. Caucus participants are becoming younger, not older.
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