The day of the caucus
we posed several questions about the demography of the electorate
that we said would determine the winner in Iowa and beyond. A
quick look back at Thursday night, comparing CNN entrance polls from
2008, 2004, and 2000, reveals:
Democrats 1) How many independents choose to vote in the Democratic primaries? In
2004, 79% of the voters in the caucuses were Democrats; this time it
was 76%. That’s not an appreciable difference though it’s worth noting
that the “outsiders” went for Obama, as opposed to Clinton, better than
2-1.
2) Who dominates the electorate: the upper middle class or the lower middle class?
Last time, the number of caucus attendees who made under $50,000 a year
was 53%; this time, it was 41% and it cost Clinton, who runs better
among less well-off voters. (Just to illustrate the trend of
participation, in 2000, a full 60% made $50,000 or less. If that had
been the case last night, Clinton would have lost by 2%, with Edwards a
distant third.)
3) Is there an unexpected youth vote? There
was. Last time, 17% of the Democratic caucus attendees were under 30;
this time, it was 22%. But given the large increase in turnout overall,
that’s a substantial number of new young voters -- and they went for Obama, as opposed to Clinton, by better than 5-1 -- an astounding blowout. (Again, just to
illustrate the overall trend, in 2000, the under-30's were only 9% of the total Democratic caucus universe.)
4)) As the lesser-known candidates stumble, where do their votes go?
The second-choicers seemed to go slightly to Edwards, though,
admittedly, Clinton placed third in this category, which didn’t help
her either.
Of the four factors, the
especially worrying one to Clinton in New Hampshire Tuesday should be
the income of the average voter. In New Hampshire in 2004, according to
a CNN exit poll, those with incomes of more than $75,000 comprised 35
percent of the Democratic primary electorate — an extremely high
total. If that’s replicated, she may be in trouble. GOP 1) How many evangelical Christians show up and how do they break?
A high 60% of the GOP voters in Iowa (60%) described themselves as
evangelical or born again. Huckabee won them 46%-19% over Romney, while
losing the other 40% (33%-14%).
Huckabee actually finished fourth among non-evangelical voters. 2) What percentage of the electorate is female? Only
44% of the caucus attendees were female; Huckabee was hoping it would
be about half. But Huckabee did so well among women (beating Romney by
16 points) that it didn’t matter.
The
problem for Huckabee is he’s unlikely to find another electorate that
is as strongly evangelical or born again Christian as this one. That’s
certainly true of New Hampshire. 
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