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Politics
THE DAILY IOWAN
DAILYIOWAN.COM WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2015
OBVIOUSLY, THE MORE CAMPAIGN STAFF YOU HAVE HERE AND MORE RESOURCES YOU HAVE, THE MORE VOTER CONTACT YOU WILL HAVE, AND THAT IS PIVOTAL IN WINNING THE CAUCUSES. — GAYLE ALBERDA, VISITING PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AT DRAKE UNIVERSITY
Y E V R U S S T A R C O DEM OLITICAL GROUND THE P
Democratic caucus-goers tend to live in Iowa’s urban centers, according to Iowa secretary of State records. Each city has strong Democratic Party registrations. “For Hillary Clinton, putting an office in Iowa City, where it is Sanders’ territory, it appears that she is trying to go after him,” Alberda said. “If you’re the Bernie campaign, you get nervous. It’s about the chess pieces.”
Can Sanders be significant?
By QUENTIN MISIAG quentin-misiag@uiowa.edu
H
illary Clinton’s cash-rich political army continues to dominate Iowa’s Democratic landscape by the sheer number of lucrative endorsements, full-time staff, and organizing offices. Iowa’s largest public-employee union,
operatives than her closest rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, according to a review of campaign records. But does a candidate with the most brick and mortar offices and staffers really matter to Iowa’s well-educated Democratic caucus-going electorate? And is there a “sweet spot” or threshold of success? The Daily Iowan surveyed a handful of longtime and newcomer Iowa political strategists to find out, 76 days before the Iowa caucuses.
Trading political enthusiasm for staffers
BERNIE SANDERS
IN IOWA 20 offices (including Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Burlington, Waterloo, Dubuque, and Spencer.)
VISITED
32
COUNTIES OF THE STATE’S 99
71 full-time staff members Source: Bernie Sanders Iowa campaign AFSCME Iowa Council 61, publicly threw its support behind the former Secretary of State on Tuesday, aligning 40,000-plus firefighters, mental-health workers, professional school staff, and others with the establishment Democrat. Iowa’s “favorite son,” former Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and his wife, Ruth, loyally came to her side in August. With 78 dedicated organizers on the ground here, Clinton crushes former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who has 37 fulltime staffers. She has seven more full-time
“Obviously, the more campaign staff you have here and more resources you have, the more voter contact you will have, and that is pivotal in winning the caucuses,” said Gayle Alberda, a visiting professor of political science at Drake University. Each cycle, Democrats meet in one of the 1,682 precincts to elect caucus delegates. Because Clinton has legions of door-knockers, phone bankers, and clipboard-wielding supporters, she is best armed to secure precinct votes, experts said. Alberda formerly worked on the John McCain-Sarah Palin 2008 presidential campaign, among a number of other state and national political operations. Even with the rise of Facebook, Snapchat, and other digital platforms, she predicted physical bodies on the ground won’t become less important in future presidential cycles beyond 2016. An underdog such as O’Malley, who is running a lean Iowa operation with fewer than 40 full-time staffers and hundreds of voluntary organizers, could do “more with less,” she said. By enrolling staffers in large numbers, Clinton could lose the critical face-to-face interaction with voters. “You basically trade off enthusiasm for staffers, and there’s certainly something that Clinton is doing,” warned Tim Hagle, a University of Iowa associate professor of political science. He said Clinton could see a repeat of the problem she faced in the 2008 election: deploying out-of-touch loyalists who see Iowa Democrats as part of a numbers game instead of getting to individual Democratic organizers.
Location, location, location Eight years ago, then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., didn’t just roll out a data-driven voter initiative. To lock up the caucuses, he sought out rural Iowa. A few precincts here, a few there. In 2011, to the dismay of some Iowa Democrats, he and his staff worked to entice evangelical voters. The conservative base historically aligns with Republicans. That year, Obama lured some evangelicals away from Newt Gingrich’s Republican presidential bid.
Paul returns to Iowa
The Daily Iowan Ethics and Politics Initiative is funded by a private donor and will appear weekly this semester. The team’s mission is to understand, interpret, analyze and report on topics, trends and personalities that shape politics in Iowa and the United States, and to recognize the importance of a strong ethical foundation in its pursuits. Check out dailyiowanepi.com for exclusive content. Email dailyiowanepi@gmail.com with story ideas, press releases, or reader comments.
Republican presidential hopeful Rand Paul will head back to Iowa. The Kentucky senator will be in first-in-the-nation caucus state on Friday and Saturday. He will appear at the Presidential Family Forum in Des Moines, which is hosted by the Family Leader, a Christian conservative advocacy group. He will then travel to eastern Iowa to meet with Davenport voters and also tailgate at the Iowa-Purdue game. According to the Nov. 6 CNN/ ORC poll, only 2 percent of Republican likely caucus-goers said Paul would be their first choice, down 3 percentage points from August. Business mogul Donald Trump led the poll with 25 percent, and former neurosurgeon
Sanders, a New England independent running as a Democrat for the presidential nomination, has had no trouble bringing out loud crowds in Iowa. College students at the UI, Iowa State University, University of Northern Iowa, and Grinnell College serve as his primary foot soldiers. On a daily basis, they are tasked with whipping together more young people to fill out “commit-to-caucus” postcards. He has, as has Clinton, numerous TV ad purchases in Iowa. Seventy-one full-time staffers are stationed in Iowa, regularly visiting the campaign’s 20 organizing offices. As of Tuesday, Sanders has visited just 32 of Iowa’s 99 counties in Iowa. Some insiders and analysts have warned that he may not be able to visit all 99 in the fewer than 80 days before the Iowa caucuses. Others, including Sen. Tony Bisignano, D-Des Moines, who had worked for months trying to persuade Vice President Joe Biden to pursue a third presidential run, see Sanders as unelectable. Iowa strategists who spoke with the DI following the Nov. 14 Democratic presidential debate said they have new worries that Sanders and his staff won’t be able to navigate foreign-policy agendas after he presented an unclear viewpoint on international relations. Some political observers, including Christopher Larimer, an associate professor of political science at the University of Northern Iowa, say Sanders’s rising political street cred in Iowa have made him less approachable.
HILLARY CLINTON
IN IOWA
20 offices
including Des Moines, Ames, Iowa City, Burlington, Clinton, Dubuque, and Waterloo
VISITED
31
COUNTIES OF THE STATE’S 99
78 organizers as of September, the most recent date. *Campaign declined to list total number of full-time staff Source: Hillary for Iowa
Hope for O’Malley? More Iowans are giving O’Malley a second look, discussions with Democrats after the recent debate show. The Marylander picked up 28 more Iowa endorsements Monday, including Polk County Democrat Chairman Tom Henderson, two local School Board officials, and a candidate for the Iowa House of Representatives. The latest round of endorsements came within hours of major staff changes at O’Malley’s campaign headquarters in Baltimore. O’Malley spokeswoman Haley Morris told the DI that the campaign’s headquarters is being scaled back to focus on ground-game efforts in Iowa and New Hampshire. Morris said all staffers currently working in Baltimore will be given the option to transition to positions in Iowa and New Hampshire. Thirty-seven full-time staffers make up O’Malley’s Iowa roster. He has visited 47 counties and has offices in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and Sioux City. Additional offices are being sought in Iowa City and other areas of the state, aides said. Fewer people to manage and explain the campaign’s central themes help keep O’Malley light on his feet when he’s traveling from county to county, Alberda and other strategists noted. “He can still go into an Iowa living room, and it’s not logistically impossible to do,” Larimer said about O’Malley.
Ben Carson snared 23 percent. With 548 Republican likely caucus-goers surveyed, there is a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Presidential Family Forum
Time: 6:30 p.m. Where: Community Choice Credit Union Convention Center, 833 Fifth Ave., Des Moines
Meeting with Davenport voters
Time: 8:30 a.m. Where: Victory Enterprises, 5200 30th St. S.W., Davenport
Stand with Rand Tailgate
Time: 10:30 a.m. Where: Kinnick Stadium parking spots 317 and 318 in Lot 43 — by Rebecca Morin
MARTIN O’MALLEY
IN IOWA 3 offices Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Sioux City (with plans to open more, including in Iowa City)
VISITED
47
COUNTIES OF THE STATE’S 99
37 full-time staff members Source: O’Malley for Iowa and Daily Iowan archives
The University of Iowa Iowa Electronic Market is a small-scale futures market using real money that can lead to a payoff depending on economic and political events — including the 2016 presidential election. The stocks are on $1. Here are the bids for the 2016 Presidential Vote Share Market, which is similar to a poll determining which party a voter will choose. The number of votes Democrats and Republicans could receive is unchanged. According to the latest bid, both Democrats and Republicans will receive almost an equal number of votes, with a small lean to the Democratic side. DEMOCRAT
BID ASK LAST 0.507 0.512 0.514
REPUBLICAN
0.488 0.493 0.493
Here are the bids for the 2016 Winner-Take-All Market, in which the prices in the graph are the probability of that party being chosen. According to the latest bid, the probability Democrats will win has gone slightly down to 61 percent. The probability for Republicans has gone slightly down, with the percentage now being at 39 points. BID ASK LAST DEMOCRAT 0.604 0.612 0.610 REPUBLICAN
0.396 0.399 0.397