1) Republican turnout appears to have been about 188,000, more than 50 percent more than the 122,000 in 2012 and 119,000 in 2008. This is good news for the Republican brand. In 2008 Democrats got similar good news, as about 240,000 Iowans participated in their caucuses (Iowa Democrats measure results not by actual turnout, but by “state convention delegate equivalents”). This was evidence of the enthusiasm that enabled Barack Obama to win in November in Iowa and nationwide by the largest majority for either party since 1988. The Republican turnout this year in Iowa, taken together with the record-breaking viewership of the Republican debates, each of which with perhaps one exception seems to have drawn more viewers than any Republican debate ever before, suggests that Republicans have an enthusiasm edge this year.
2) It was widely speculated that Donald Trump would bring new people into the caucuses, and he apparently did. The entrance poll showed he carried first-time caucusgoers. But it was also widely speculated that bringing new people in would reduce the percentage of evangelical Protestants among caucusgoers. In 2012 that percentage was 57 percent, the highest in any Republican primary or caucus outside the South that year. But this speculation was wrong. Evangelical Protestants clocked in at 64 percent of turnout in the entrance poll. This tends to substantiate the claims of Ted Cruz and his campaign that he could increase turnout among conservatives, particularly religious conservatives.
3) A measure of the increased turnout: Ted Cruz (51,649 votes as I write), Donald Trump (45,416) and Marco Rubio (43,132) each got more votes than the previous Republican record of 40,841, set by Mike Huckabee in 2008. In 2012 the final count showed 29,839 for Rick Santorum and 29,805 for Mitt Romney.
4) Marco Rubio carried just five of Iowa’s 99 counties, but they were five of the state’s larger counties, with about 30 percent of the state’s population: Scott (Davenport), Johnson (Iowa City), Story (Ames), Polk (Des Moines) and Dallas (western Des Moines suburbs). He won by handsome margins in affluent Dallas and university-dominated Johnson and Story, narrowly in Polk and Scott. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump tended to carry rural and sparsely populated counties. This seems to set up a contest that looks something like the 2012 contest between Mitt Romney, who in seriously contested primaries carried million-plus metro areas, where Republican voters tend to be high-education affluent suburbanites, and Rick Santorum carried counties outside million-plus metro areas, where Republican voters tend to be somewhat less educated and somewhat less affluent small town and rural residents.
But it may not be that simple. Trump carried several urban counties, including those containing Dubuque, Council Bluffs and Sioux City, and Cruz carried some as well, including those containing Cedar Rapids and Waterloo. And Rubio ran a close second (55 votes behind) up in Sioux City in northwest Iowa, the heavily Dutch-American enclave which is one of the most Republican counties in the United States (83 percent for Mitt Romney in November 2012).
