Likely Caucus-goers by voting-districts in Iowa

January 1st, 2008by rajendra

Iowa caucuses are just three days away and even with near constant media coverage; huge amount of personal time and campaign money spent by candidates from either party, its not yet clear who may win the Iowa Caucuses. Nearly all the recent polls put the top three democratic candidates in a virtual tie while Romney and Huckabee polling numbers are within statistical margin of error.

The first-in-the-nation Caucus state with a total population of over 2.9 million of whom nearly 83% are white, has 600 thousand registered democrats, 550 thousand registered republicans and over 700 thousand independents, a combined voting age population of over 1.8 million. And yet, less than 5 to 7% of these voters particiate in these caucuses. Such low turn-out is understandble. Unlike primaries, the Caucuse demand substantial amount of time, patience and committment from those who may participate. Add to that, the time when Caucuses take place (7 pm local time), inclement weather conditions with frozen snow on the ground and bitterly cold temperatures, only a tiny minority, between 100 thousand to 135 thousand, may show up for the process of selecting winners. So who are these brave souls who could be the likely Caucus-goers? We at FortiusOne decided to map the spatial dimension of the likely Caucus-goers based on Census population/demographics, NOAA weather forecast and the past attendance records. The estimated distribution of likely Caucus-goers can be viewed on an interactive map .
Pan and zoom-in to explore the distribution at various geographic resolutions. A zoomin view showing distribution around Des Moines and surrounding areas as well as eastern half of Iowa is shown below.