Politics & Government

(Updated) Poll: Who Will Win Iowa Republican Caucus?

Howard County Republican Committee Chair: 'In Iowa ... You never know.'

The Iowa Republican caucuses, the first statewide poll for the presidential nomination, began Tuesday at 8 p.m.

During the caucuses, Iowans will cast secret ballots in 809 locations across the state for the person they think should be the Republican nominee for president.

"It’s been real interesting to watch, and in Iowa, well, you never know," said Howard County Republican Central Committee Chair Loretta Shields. "If you remember four years ago, Huckabee got in there and he got a lot of support."

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Mike Huckabee won the Iowa Republican caucus that year; John McCain wound up with the Republican nomination. 

For this year’s contest, the latest Des Moines Register Iowa Poll, published Dec. 31, put Mitt Romney as first choice for 24 percent of participants, closely behind Ron Paul at 22 percent, and Rick Santorum at 15 percent. 

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The Howard County Republican Party does not endorse any candidate until after the nomination has been announced. In her capacity as chair Shields takes no stance. 

“As for me personally,” she said, “I’m hoping that Romney shows very well because he’s the candidate that I’m personally supporting.”

But Shields makes no predictions about what the outcome will be.

“This year is so strange,” she said, “And I don’t know what to believe. Everything changes. Every day.”

Iowa has been a spotlight for its caucuses since the early 1970s, when the polls helped some Democrats, such as George McGovern in 1972 and Jimmy Carter in 1976, in their campaigns for the nation’s highest office, according to former Des Moines Register political columnist David Yepsen.  

Yepsen is now the director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University.

University of Iowa journalism professor Stephen Bloom wrote in an essay in The Atlantic, that Iowa was a place with few minorities, no sizeable cities and that it was “not representative of much.” 

The article triggered critical response from the university’s president and  at the University of Iowa’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

In a recent Washington Post essay, Yepsen said it was a myth that Iowa voters don’t represent the nation, writing: “in November 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008, the Iowa popular vote closely tracked national preferences.”

Who do you think will win the Iowa caucus? Do you think Iowa has too much influence in presidential elections? Vote in our poll and comment below.


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