Univ. Of Iowa Dorms Won't Be Open For Caucus — Which Dem Benefits?

Comments (30)

DTM wrote on December 3, 2007 12:14 PM:

Just a couple more factoids:

I have read that a significant number of students live off campus, so those students in particular would not need temporary housing.

Also, supposedly up to something like 1/3 of University of Iowa students originally come from the Chicago area (which wouldn't surprise me: I know Iowa is a popular school in Chicagoland).

LJ wrote on December 3, 2007 12:16 PM:

Why can't the students caucus in their home towns?

carrenderb wrote on December 3, 2007 12:24 PM:

Would it be legal for candidates to purchase lodging for caucus-goers? Couldn't that be interpreted as "buying" votes?

Anonymous wrote on December 3, 2007 12:25 PM:

Students from Iowa can and will caucus in the home towns, and that will pretty clearly benefit whoever has the most student support, so this could actually be doubly good news for the candidate with the strongest college student support, with fewer supporters having a bigger impact in Iowa City and other supporters helping out in their home towns.

I don't think there is any possible way that 1/3 of U. of Iowa students are from Chicagoland. Where did you see that?

Michael L wrote on December 3, 2007 12:26 PM:

LJ--they can, and in fact, that is arguably a further boon to the Obama campaign. It will be harder to organize young voters when they're spread all over the state, but if his campaign can organize them, they'll have even more impact by spreading out their votes over a wide variety of rural/suburban precincts, instead of just in one population center.

Basically, this presents a big organizational challenge for the Obama campaign, but if they can pull it off, it will be a huge boon.

Keith wrote on December 3, 2007 12:26 PM:

I think the largest portion of U of I and ISU students, live in and around the University in off-campus housing. Plus, I recall that, at least Obama's campaign, was working to coordinate places for people to crash locally in and around Iowa City, where U of I is located.

Only 5500 of the 29,000 U of I students are from Illinois. I believe less than 1500 of the 18,000 ISU students are from Illinois as well.

Keith wrote on December 3, 2007 12:28 PM:

And just a note, the Obama campaign has been actively working to link students up with the precinct captains in their hometowns. I believe it was even posted here on TPM, but I could be wrong.

votenic wrote on December 3, 2007 12:37 PM:

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DTM wrote on December 3, 2007 12:51 PM:

Here is the sort of thing I have seen on the issue of Chicago students at Iowa:

http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2007/11/13/living/402/doc4738e07fc55b9384262870.txt

"Obama has perhaps placed the greatest emphasis on the youth vote.

At 46, his relative youthfulness and message of change resonates on campus. And at the University of Iowa, where nearly a third of undergraduates are from the Chicago area, he also enjoys something of a home-field advantage."

I can't vouch for that, however.

TheraP wrote on December 3, 2007 12:55 PM:

Wouldn't this also suggest, however, that there is a huge pool of potential supporters free to help out with the campaign during their break?

Blue in IA wrote on December 3, 2007 12:58 PM:

I believe that the student body at U of Iowa is one-third out-of-state, with a large bloc of those students coming from Illinois, but by no means the whole third. The quote DTM put up seems to conflate the two figures.

DTM wrote on December 3, 2007 1:00 PM:

Blue in IA,

For what it is worth, that makes sense to me as the source of the confusion.

Keith wrote on December 3, 2007 1:04 PM:

Here's a link to the Office of Registrar at U of I, where you can run a search of current students.

The figures: 5,511 (undergraduate and graduate) from Illnois. 28,421 total students. 19.4% of U of I.

Keith wrote on December 3, 2007 1:04 PM:

http://www.registrar.uiowa.edu/profiles/default.aspx

Forgot the link.

DTM wrote on December 3, 2007 1:17 PM:

By the way, I believe the Chicago Area is sometimes defined to include a bit of Indiana and Wisconsin, but I agree the 1/3 claim looks incorrect.

Blue in IA wrote on December 3, 2007 1:23 PM:

Thanks Keith. I hadn't realized it was as high as 20% for just Illinois, though that will also include plenty of downstate Illini as well as Chicago suburb kids. (It does, however, confirm one's sneaking, anecdotal suspicion based on the number of SUVs with Illinois license plates careening around IC...)

ISU, fwiw, IS opening some limited dorm space for returnees.

Ron Thompson wrote on December 3, 2007 1:52 PM:

Don't people have to vote where they're registered? If so, a student who registered listing the dormitory as his residence could not vote at the caucus in his parents' home town, nor vice versa.

Genghis wrote on December 3, 2007 2:04 PM:

This issue is overblown. There are 30K students at U of I (1% of the population of the state). 1/3 of the students are grads, and the majority of undergrads live off campus anyway, so we're talking about fewer than 10K possible democratic caucus-goers. Moreover, the student areas are fairly concentrated, so those districts will probably be heavily influenced by off-campus students anyway, and the other districts will be unaffected. Finally, if it's a squeaker in Iowa, it won't matter much who actually gets the delegates, since the Iowa caucuses are more important as a gauge of public opinion than for the delegate count.

DTM wrote on December 3, 2007 2:10 PM:

Ron Thompson,

Apparently not from what I have read.

The Iowa caucuses are run by the parties, and apparently all you have to do is show up, sign a statement saying you are a resident of the precinct, and show you will be 18 in time for the election.

In theory, though, you can be fined $7,500 if you lie about being a resident of the precinct.

elisabeth wrote on December 3, 2007 2:25 PM:

Yes, you can sign up on caucus night -- but your address needs to be in the precinct... at least in my precinct we checked (especially since it can matters what side of the street you live on, and since many precincts meet in the same building, one does attempt to match people up with where they are supposed to be...) one or two people can mean the difference between "viability" or raise the number of delegates you get, which I would think would make a big difference in how things are reported out. But, I think the weather will have just as much effect as the semester schedule, not to mention which campaign is the most annoying over the holidays -- we had two different campaigns do door knocking visits on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, which didn't endear either of them to my husband, and I imagine he'll be even less enthusiastic about phone calls and visits around Christmas/New Year's Day.

Blue in IA wrote on December 3, 2007 2:25 PM:

Ron -- you can register to vote or to change your address at the caucuses, as DTM suggests. You do not need to have registered in advance. Thus, students who might have been registered at their campus address will be able to caucus elsewhere in Iowa as long as they are residents there. In Iowa, getting voters registered is not the problem; getting them to show up for a 3-4 hour caucus on a cold night is the logistical headache.

schwza wrote on December 3, 2007 3:21 PM:

i think i'm missing something, maybe someone can explain it. the author writes, "Those state delegates are apportioned according to a function of population and Democratic performance in the area — and it has nothing to do with how many people actually show up on caucus night. As such, the power of student areas will remain the same even as the number of people participating in the caucus falls."

but these "student areas" have a mix of students and non-students, right? if a lot of students are not there because of winter break then a "student area" will be relatively less student-heavy. the area will have the same power but it will vote more strongly non-student.

unless of course there are actually no students in a "student area."

even then though, the remaining student population will be tilted towards local iowans and away from out-of-towners (which might hurt obama, i'd guess).

Blue in IA wrote on December 3, 2007 3:41 PM:

Schwza -- your analysis is correct. The number of delegates awarded by "student area" precincts will remain the same regardless of turnout. But, as you suggest, most student areas (with the exception of a few mega-dorms that constitute precincts in and of themselves) are actually a mix of students and non-students. It's hard to say if off-campus students are more likely to be out-of-state or Iowan (given the low cost of real estate, a non-trivial number of out-of-state families buy homes in Iowa for their kids to live in while they go to school). The real question for out-of-state students is whether they'll be motivated enough to return to campus 2 or 3 weeks before the start of term. As Elisabeth suggests, it may all come down to weather.

Anonymous wrote on December 3, 2007 4:48 PM:

While, clearly, no part of Iowa City is 100% student housing (even the dorm precincts share a few blocks of "Goosetown"), I would guess that most areas heavily populated by students are 90%+ student. Non-students in these areas might have some disproportionate influence if students are gone, but I don't think it will be enough to make a major difference. Certainly not enough to outweigh the advantages gained by dispersion of Iowan students across precincts.

The other issue people are forgetting is that kids from Iowa will also be returning home from out-of-state colleges over break, which will counteract some of the lost student population.

John Deeth wrote on December 3, 2007 7:25 PM:

OK, I've lived in Iowa City 17 years so I know something of this.

Two Iowa City precincts are almost all dorm student, and another five or so are heavily student influenced. That's out of 25 precincts in town and 57 in Johnson County.

The thing to remember is delegate counts are set based on general election voting, not on caucus attendance. Whener 300 people show up at the dorm-dominated Iowa City Precinct 5 caucus (about what it was last time) or 30 people, the precinct still elects six delegates out of 342 county-wide.

Genghis wrote on December 3, 2007 8:45 PM:

Thanks for the details, John. I think this info underlies how little impact there will be. There are apparently 1,993 Democratic caucus precincts in Iowa, of which those 7 student-influenced precincts make up less than half a percent. I suppose there will be an impact on other Iowa campuses as well, but there aren't that many big residential colleges in the state. And yes, some students may affect some caucuses in their home towns, but the likelihood of a few thousand students (who probably won't vote monolithically anyway) tipping the state one way or the other seems small.

Go Hawks, John. I miss Iowa City.

Anonymous wrote on December 3, 2007 11:15 PM:

I go to U of Iowa and its more like 40% or more of the students are from the Chicago

calwatch wrote on December 4, 2007 4:52 AM:

Out of state population has nothing to do with residency, since most students try to establish residency as soon as possible in order to avoid paying tuition. For graduate students, it's fairly easy to do, for undergrads, they have to claim independence from their parents, which can take a year or two. The best way to check this is to look at first time freshmen admissions, but those statistics are not readily available.

votenic wrote on December 11, 2007 5:20 PM:

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The Presidential Candidates wrote on December 16, 2007 3:35 AM:

On the Republican side this should help Ron Paul because his supporters are so dedicated. The perfect storm for Ron Paul would be a blizzard. His supporters would still go out and vote ... Huckabee's? Rudy Giuliani's? Mitt Romney's? I don't think so.

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