This is fairly old news, frankly. The only candidate not worried is apparently Senator Clinton who does not rely on the young vote. The two candidates who have support in this age group are Obama and Edwards.

This didn't just spring into view, BTW. The campaigns have known about it for some time; it was known that January 14th was the "best" date to ensure the young college vote.

I just have to speculate on the reasons for Iowa changing to earlier than the 14th; it's best we not twist ourselves about the GOP causing the loss of votes when we have these shenanigans in Iowa that are attempting to disenfranchise college primary voters. It is certainly not a hidden effect, now is it?

Sigh. What Stlounick said (except that I'm not so sure that Edwards is counting on young voters -- he doesn't seem to do much with campus organizing -- and Clinton had been doing better with young voters than expected). Some of your faithful readers (ahem) have been pointing this out for, well, months.

One key fact that isn't in the DMRag article is that the main campuses in Iowa (U of I, ISU) each have between 30 and 40 percent out-of-state students. That's the real "ouch" to focus on, not just whether Iowa students will in fact caucus in their home counties over break.

Also, Stlou, even the 14th would've been bad for Obama, since U of I doesn't start until a week later.

If I understand the caucus/delegate issue in Iowa, this is actually a good thing for Obama. First, almost 70% of students at University of Iowa and Iowa State are Iowans. Over holiday break they are going to be in, you guessed, IOWA. Second, these students will be at home, increase Obama/Edwards support in their home precincts. So instead of having a huge victory in Cedar Rapids or Ames and fewer delegates throughout the state, they have an opportunity to pick up more delegates. At least that's how I understand it.

And, just an aside, given this much prior notice, isn't it possible the campaigns are already addressing this with their supporters? And how many of the out of state students are registered to vote in Iowa?

Keith,

Normally, out-of-state students can participate in the caucus (you can register at the caucus itself). Given that a large number of the out-of-state students at U of I are from Illinois, I'd be shocked if many of them weren't Obama supporters. That's the ouch.

Yes, it's possible that dispersed college students could bring Obama up above the viability threshold if they caucus at home. My concern there would be a combination of turn-out and being able to stand up, since the caucuses can be rather intimidating. Going and casting a ballot is one thing, disagreeing with your parents, your extended family, and your neighbors in a very public setting is another. It might work, it might not.... More power to the Obama organizers if it does, but I have a hard time seeing this as a good thing for the campaign.

BTW, U of I is in Iowa City, not Cedar Rapids.

Students at the University of Iowa who registered to vote on the 21 ordinance a couple weeks ago will have to re-register in their home districts for the caucuses unless they want to return to Iowa City on Jan 3. I believe the Obama campaign is on top of this, based on emails I've exchanged with student volunteers for the campaign on campus. However, they need to really hammer this message home if they want students to caucus in their home districts.

Blue in Iowa:

Thanks for correcting me on the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City thing, I could never keep it straight.

As for this story, I did some digging around and found some facts on Iowa students:

Blue in Iowa is right, Illinois students make up a significant portion of the U of I students (5,511). But a relatively small portion of ISU students (1,190).

Of the U of I students from Iowa, 4,184 live in Johnson County, 2,025 live in Linn County, 2,220 live in Polk County, and 1440 live in Scott County.

Of the ISU students from Iowa, 2,588 live in Polk County, 1,646 live in Story County, 703 live in Linn County, and 652 live in Scott County.

So a significant number of students live in and around their university (Johnson, Linn and Story) and a significant portion in Des Moines (Polk County).

Here's the delegate count (based on 2004 caucus):

Polk (Des Moines): 430
Linn (Cedar Rapids): 228
Johnson (Iowa City): 141
Scott (Davenport): 161
Story (Ames): 86

My initial thoughts are that the students heading home, again, is a relative good thing. Especially if they are active in a relatively low-turnout caucus. Remember, Kerry picked up a majority of the first-time caucus-goers in 2004 (and won Linn, Johnson, Scott and Story).

Just food for thought.

Keith, thanks for the information. My guess on the out-of-state students from ISU is that many will be from Minnesota and Nebraska.

One thing I was a little unsure of from your comments is what "lives" means. Does that mean where they live while attending school, or their home county? If the latter, then students going home to Polk, Johnson, Scott, etc., wouldn't necessarily be headed to low-turnout caucuses, but they probably would be able to join active Obama groups in those counties.

Another thing that surprised in the coverage of this story is that first-time caucus-goer turnout was quite high in 2004 (as much as 45%), even though the student-age group only seems to have been around 4%. That sounds to me like Kerry was able to turn out a lot of first-timers who weren't students.

One little nudge to something someone said, "If not, his/her supporters will then have to realign themselves at the caucus; either with another candidate or an uncommitted group."

You don't HAVE to realign yourself at the caucus if you are in a below-15% group. You are free to leave, of course.

In 2004, a lot of the caucus sites in Iowa City were filled not with new voters hot for Kerry but with Deanites and a lot of Kucinich types (this is a college town...), and in individual precincts there was a lot of confusion--if you don't have a good precinct person in each precinct, the more organized groups will be able to work their wiles and skew the process. For example, the Kerry folks in my precinct worked out a deal with the Edwards group -- which would have been viable on its own -- to appoint a certain number of "Edwards" delegates if the group would join them and be reported out as Kerry people. This is attractive because of the mathematics of how delegates in each precinct are awarded, the conversations took place before the caucus, and the Deanites were blindsided. There's a set number of delegates at stake in each precinct, but the number you need to be initially "viable" as a group, and then the number needed to get a delegate depends on how many people show up at each caucus. The raw numbers aren't quite the same as how the delegates are partitioned, since if it takes 8 people/delegate, any number that's not divisible by 8 are people theoretically in play. The desire to go on to the county and then the state convention and to maybe get a ticket to the national convention can lead people to agree to join the group that offers them the best chance to go on (if that's what they want) even though it isn't necessarily in the best interests of their candidate. And I don't think most of the candidates are willing to have the kind of conversations it would take to get their "committed" caucus goers to think strategically about what to do after that first division, how to, say reduce the front-runner's glow by joining up with other smaller groups -- especially in such a crowded field. The caucus process doesn't really reflect voter desires the way a primary does, because you only see the end product, not the first partition.

DonnaG,

To be fair, there were a number of deals -- Kucinich arranged for supporters across Iowa to go to Edwards, for example -- and my impression was that in 2004, the whole system was somewhat overwhelmed by the unanticipated size of the turnout. I wouldn't call this a Kerry thing. There wasn't much actual debating at my caucus either, but I think that had a lot more to do the fact that it was already running several hours longer than expected due to the turnout. And, fwiw, we had a lot of Dean supporters who were safely corralled and refusing to talk to anyone else.