Iowa GOP Caucus Overrated, turnout is unrepresentative

Gordon L. Weil With 99 percent of the Iowa Republican caucus vote having been counted, the initial results show 109,404 voters participated. Donald Trump’s strong victory has boosted speculation both about the likelihood of his winning the GOP nomination and then the general election. To many observers, the Iowa results confirm his lead on the road to the White House. He surely got his vote out. While the results may show that his legal issues are not undermining his strength among loyal Republicans, reasons remain for taking care about drawing too many early conclusions. Leaving the punditry aside, there is one clear fact that raises doubts about reading much into the result. In the 2022 Iowa race for governor, the GOP winner received 709,198 votes. That number includes any Democratic or independent voters she may have picked up. The caucus participants for all candidates was only 15 percent of that statewide GOP vote in 2022. Overall, there were 1,211,146 Iowa voters in 2022. That means that the GOP presidential caucuses drew only nine percent of the number of active election participants. Trump won less than five percent of the number of general election voters. The importance of the first-in-the-nation step in the presidential selection process is mainly a media creation. It is useful in sending message to hopeless candidates and to potential donors. But as an indicator of who will be on the ballot in November and how they might perform, it is greatly overrated.