The Numbers
A Run at the Latest Data from ABC's Poobah of Polling, Gary Langer
Gary Langer is director of polling at ABC News, where he's covered the beat of public opinion for nearly 20 years - conducting and analyzing ABC News polls, evaluating data from other sources and setting the news division's standards for poll reporting. Langer is a two-time Emmy award winner, both for ABC's reporting of public opinion polls in Iraq.
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IA and NH: A Quizzical Homage to Firstness
January 02, 2008 9:00 AM
The turning of the New Year is a dandy time for us to pay quizzical homage to the upcoming Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries. Herein, a data-based effort to make some small sense of this quadrennial brouhaha.
Fair warning: It might not work.
It once seemed clear why New Hampshire mattered: Starting with Dwight Eisenhower, no one who lost the state’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary went on to get elected president. Granite Staters spent four decades invoking this factoid, proof positive of their power, prescience and uncanny ability to back the right horse.
Then it crumbled, as coincidences do – yet another alleged bellwether done in by the law of averages. The Democrats went first: Bill Clinton lost New Hampshire but won the presidency in 1992. And then George W. Bush did it in 2000. (Plenty, indeed, don't even get nominated: New Hampshire winners have gone on to the eventual nomination in seven of 10 contested Republican races since 1952, and in just six of 12 on the Democratic side. The total success rate, 13 out of 22, is a tepid 59 percent.)
At least there’s Iowa – only its track record is worse. Just once since Iowa fever took hold in 1972 has the winner of a contested caucus been elected president – Bush in 2000, when he went mano-a-mano with… Steve Forbes. The stronger contender, John McCain, sat it out, pretty much presaging the McCain/Giuliani/Thompson approach this time around.
The gotcha squad might double the score to say that Jimmy Carter took an Iowa victory to election in 1976. So make it two. But Carter didn’t really win… he came in second, to “uncommitted,” an option that represents one of the many oddities of Iowa caucusing. (Intramurally, counting Carter in ’76 and Ed Muskie in ’72 - he also actually lost to “uncommitted” - Iowa winners have gone on to take their party’s nomination five of eight times on the Democratic side, and just two of five times in contested Republican races – a 54 percent hit rate.)
The real fuss, it seems, derives simply from being first – the first caucus, the first primary – and not much else, kind of like the teen-ager who camps out for a week outside the Cajundome in Lafayette, La., to be first in line for Hannah Montana tickets.
There is a payoff: She gets a good seat; Iowa and New Hampshire get first crack at the winnowing process, not so much selecting the next president as culling untenables from the field. The compressed calendar, though, may now mitigate some of that effect.
It’s conjecture whether Iowa and New Hampshire winnow better or any differently than any other states would. There’d be some solace in their obstinate firstness, perhaps, if they looked a lot like the rest of the country, ensuring a mix of issues and voter groups that translate well to the national stage. But consider:
-Ninety-four percent of New Hampshire residents and 92 percent of Iowans are white, compared with 67 percent of the nation’s population.
-Just 55 percent of Iowans and 62 percent in New Hampshire live in or around a major population center, compared with 83 percent of all Americans. Four in 10 Iowans and New Hampshirites alike live in outright rural areas, double the national rate.
-Among the country’s 251 cities with more than 100,000 people, Iowa’s biggest rank 107th (Des Moines) and 190th (Cedar Rapids). New Hampshire’s biggest, Manchester, ranks 216th. Out of 251.
-Three percent of Iowans and 5 percent of New Hampshire residents were born in a foreign country, compared with 12 percent of all Americans. Of the 1.1 million immigrants admitted legally to the country in 2005, 4,536 settled in Iowa, fewer than one-half of one percent; 3,298 in New Hampshire, fewer than one-third of one percent.
-Iowa’s median household income, $41,350, is just under the national average, $44,468. New Hampshire’s, by contrast, is far above it – $55,589.
In the Iowa caucuses, moreover, hardly anyone actually participates. Total turnout in the 2004 Democratic caucuses was 122,193; peak reported Republican turnout was just over 108,000, back in 1988. This in a state that’s home to around 2.2 million eligible voters.
New Hampshire does much better in turnout: it peaked at 42 percent of the voting-age population in 2000, far more than is customary in other states. And pre-election polling suggests a lot higher turnout this time, with hot races in both parties. Still, Iowa and New Hampshire combined will have hundreds of thousands of voters in a primary process that ultimately will involve tens of millions.
There’s a particular oddity about the makeup of voters in the New Hampshire Democratic and Republican primaries: A heck of a lot of them aren’t Democrats or Republicans. In the 2004 Democratic primary, for instance, a whopping 45 percent of voters were registered independents. So were 32 percent in the 2000 Republican primary. That’s a lot more independents than participate elsewhere – partly because of voting rules, and partly because, hey, that’s New Hampshire. Bottom line: It can help insurgents (e.g., McCain 2000, Buchanan 1996, Tsongas 1992). But it can’t give them legs.
Another quirk is that Democratic turnout in New Hampshire is sometimes predominantly female – 62 percent in 2000, 57 percent in 1996 – while Republican turnout tends to be broadly (57 percent) male. And New Hampshire Republican voters are much less likely than those elsewhere to be evangelical Christians (listen up, Mike Huckabee); indeed, in our last poll there, 52 percent of likely Republican voters in New Hampshire favored legal abortion. You heard right.
Iowa can have its own oddities as well; the Democratic race in 2000, for instance, saw especially high turnout among union voters – one in three, compared with 15 percent of the population nationally. The commitment a caucus requires (this is not drop-in voting) makes get-out-the-vote efforts essential. And as far as pre-election polls modeling Iowa’s minuscule turnout… let us say: Aaagh.
Both these states look different on issues as well as demographics. The economy, for example, ranks much lower both in Iowa and New Hampshire than it does nationally. Republicans in both states rank immigration much higher, and Democrats rank health care much higher, than do their counterparts in the country as a whole.
In the end, though, to get the rapt attention of every political junkie in America, Iowa and New Hampshire don’t have to look like the rest of the country. Nor do they have to pick winners. They only have to go first. And that they will, just a few days hence.
January 2, 2008 in Favorite Posts | Permalink | User Comments (17)
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I am so tired of hearing this. Why won't the major networks put on the real news. I could care less about IOWA they don't represent me. All of these stupid polls. must be a new one everyday.
Posted by: lambast | Jan 2, 2008 9:48:16 AM
Some candidates are skipping Iowa. If the eventual winner of the election has done so, then the Iowa caucus will recede into the quaint history of early Americana. To let a tiny slice of corn farmers have this much influence on national politics is a travesty.
Posted by: Maximo | Jan 2, 2008 9:53:23 AM
Iowa does not represent the population of the US in any way or manner. We dont care what they think in their primary nor will it affect all the other caucuses. In fat as each year passes, Iowa and NH represent less and less of the of average America.
So these two predominantly white, rural, states have nothing to do with who should really run for President. They just want to feel important. You want a first caucus that would mean something? Let California and Florida goes first.
Posted by: Vegas Resident | Jan 2, 2008 10:02:32 AM
Smaller states should have a more prominent role at this stage in the process, because they have a very small role in the general election. That is when Cali, Fla, NY, Texas, etc., exert their influence and power. Heaven forbid there is some balance. Don't hate on Iowa and N.H. because the media cover these early contests so much. It would happen no matter who went first. Americans love a good horse race and the starting gate opens tomorrow night in Iowa. Move on, it's not that big of a deal.
Posted by: PC43 | Jan 2, 2008 10:15:21 AM
WHO EVER WINS THIS THING YOU FOOISH FOLKS THAT ARE HILLARY BASHING REMEMBER IF IS NOT YOUR PRESIDENT SHE WILL BE THE VICE SO WISE UP AN STOP YOUR HATERY ON HILLARY OR VOTE GOP WE DEMS DONT ACT LIKE OUR REPUBLICAN NUTS NEXT DOOR.......... HILLARY 08.
Posted by: HILLARY RULES THE SOUTH , MEMPHIS TN | Jan 2, 2008 12:27:46 PM
It will be nice to hear Hillary's normal voice rather than the librarian voice she is using. Does she really think people believe her??
Posted by: Paulet | Jan 2, 2008 12:36:27 PM
IOWA does NOT repesent the Majority of American Voices.
Posted by: Tommy | Jan 2, 2008 1:05:02 PM
Hillary tried with the health care thing during Bill Clinton's presidency. It didn't work. Too much opposition. So what? At least she tried. If you fall off a horse, you get back on it. I like to think that she learned from the past and is willing to put that new info and her plan out there again. Why does America blame people when they have great ideas and fail? Better than people with no ideas.---Ronald Regan won based on promising to bring prayer back to public school. He didn't even try because it was simply a campaign promise to get the vote. He knew it couldn't be done and did not waste the effort.---I think that Hillary will do well in Iowa and New Hampshire, but it is a relief to know that the old tradition is just that - a tradition that doesn't decide anything for the rest of us.----Hillary will win whether she wins in Iowa and New Hampshire or not. She will go the distance.
Posted by: judy | Jan 2, 2008 1:37:52 PM
Absolutely right judy! George W. Bush won on keeping expectations low and on values instead of real American concerns. It's now way past time for real change in this country. Don't let the Republicans/conservatives have another 4 yrs of gridlock. Kick them out for doing nothing for middle America!
Posted by: Bob | Jan 2, 2008 3:18:30 PM
When it took 6 months to cross the country by horseback, the election process we have today made sense and no one talked about election hoopla overload. Unfortunately, as technology advances, the political process has stagnated into a bloated tradition that costs a billion dollars or more, wastes time and money and energy and is utterly unnecessary. Let's stop with the 18 month long run-up to the election of a president and do it in a more civilized and efficient manner. Traditions are fine if they actually promote the thing they follow. But I, for one, am sick to tears of hearing about all of the candidates, who's in charge, who's in the lead, who said what, blah, blah, blah that I honestly don't give a damn about ANY of them anymore. And we have 11 more months to go before the election. This tradition of primaries needs to be consolidated into one day of voting and the campaigning should only start at MOST six weeks before the date of the vote (This includes special interest groups). In today's age, we don't need to suffer though 18 months of campaign overload BS just to elect a president half the nation or more is going to hate thirty days after they take office, anyhow.
Posted by: Fatesrider | Jan 2, 2008 4:08:39 PM
I am deathly sick of hearing about Iowa and now we're moving on to New Hampshire. It's sad to contemplate the amount of money that has been spent on the Iowa (where is Iowa anyway?) campaign. Then, incredibly, the rest of the nation will not get to support the losers in that state because they will drop out of the race. Come on people - isn't it time we revised this whole process? We need to go back to picking candidates at a convention (held early in election year)and let the candidates campaign nationwide up to that point.
Posted by: Shirley | Jan 2, 2008 4:40:38 PM
Polls=Mainstream Media Brainwashing.....PERIOD. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH, THEN VOTE!!!
Posted by: greedyscumEWILLsuffer | Jan 2, 2008 5:25:26 PM
If you don't know where Iowa is, how can you seriously call yourself an American, and an educated one at that!? Does your apathy about Iowa somehow make you more qualified to vote for President?
I'm from Iowa and I could draw a map of the United States with every state located correctly by the time I was in 1st grade. Why? Because I come from the state of Iowa where education matters, and where knowing who and where you are in relation to the rest of the country is of ultimate importance. The reason why politicians like to come to Iowa is because we are smart, educated, informed people. We value our independant thinking, and don't follow what a bunch of television pundits tell us, or a bunch of lunatics spouting hate speech in a blog. Where is Iowa, you say? It's way the heck ahead of you, that's all I have to say.
Posted by: lori | Jan 2, 2008 5:30:23 PM
How can anyone take the Iowa Caucuses
seriously? 17 year-olds who cannot vote in the general election can vote in the
Iowa Caucuses! What a joke!
New Hampshire isn't much better!
I believe Democrats can vote in the Republican primary and vice versa! Dumb!
Posted by: reaganfan | Jan 3, 2008 12:47:59 AM
Richardson is the most qualified to be President with his experience in leadership of a state and department as well as former diplomatic experience but the media has decided to focus on others who say they are ready but I don't believe them. I believe the top three democrats(according to the media's ranking)will cancel each other out with their negative ads and in the end the party will draft either Gore or RIchardson.
Posted by: Doris RIggs | Jan 3, 2008 11:47:29 AM
winning iowa is actually a bad omen.
Posted by: robb | Jan 3, 2008 3:52:32 PM
Anyone who believes the election media circus is loony.
The moment I saw the ballots being fed into the opscan "counters"- aka vote shredders, I knew the fix was in. Be an idiot if you want, but Hillary did NOT win New Hampshire. Go count the votes for real by hand if they have not been tampered with yet, if you want a real election.
The media coporations have the intent and the power to HIDE the candidates they do not want us to see. That would be the ones leading the fight against a permanent war- Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, Mike Gravel. The media has effectively CREATED the reality they want us to see, and the voting machine vendors have made it so.
DON'T FALL FOR THEIR LIES!
URGE YOUR CANDIDATES TO KEEP GOING!
GIVE THEM ALL YOUR SUPPORT.
SAY NO TO THE MEDIA DARLINGS THAT GET GARISH 24/7 COVERAGE.
THAT in itself should tell you how you are being corralled into accepting the ultimate result they are aiming for- a NEW corporate-backed President.
Posted by: PatG | Jan 9, 2008 9:13:32 PM
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