Since the caucus process is a bit different, to say the least, from a regular primary, we wanted to take a minute to rundown how we anticipate the evening going and how we’ll be handling the results.
Unlike a primary or general election, a caucus is a privately organized and run event by the Iowa Democratic party. They will be providing the results to us on a rolling basis throughout the night from each of the 1,600 plus precincts in the state.
New this year is the reporting of raw vote totals. In fact there will be three sets of results being reported throughout the night…”First alignment”, “Final alignment”, and state delegate equivalents.
“First alignment” is the first round of voting where caucus goes may vote for any candidate. Candidates who fail to reach 15% support in the precinct vote are eliminated and their voters are then able to support another candidate in the second round.
“Final alignment” is the second round of voting after supporters of candidates who did not meet the initial support threshold move to their second choice candidate or can elect to remain uncommitted.
It’s the results from this “final alignment” round that are used to calculate county convention delegates and then “state delegate equivalents” and ultimately, national convention delegates.
We will be reporting all three sets of results throughout the course of the night. Our call of the “winner” of the Caucus will be based on “state delegate equivalents” as that is what determines the national delegate allocation.
We will also be providing an estimate of national delegates.
Please be aware that the first and final alignment numbers are scheduled to come in as each precinct makes them available from across the state. Some precincts will conduct their caucus faster than others, so some precincts may have both sets of results while others are still only reporting first alignment numbers, or no results at all.
Totals will be changing fast and candidates will be moving up and down quite a bit throughout the night. This may lead to confusion and consternation among those who are committed supporters of a candidate and aren’t familiar with this unusual process.
Caucuses start at 7pm central time. We’ll have coverage of the results on DecisionDeskHQ.com and will be live streaming on YouTube, Twitch, and Periscope. We hope you’ll join us.
As a reminder of what is at stake as far as delegates are concerned:
41 total delegates
9 unpledged (Super Delegates)
32 pledged (5 statewide and 27 congressional district based)
15% threshold at both the state and CD level to qualify for delegates, allocated proportionally.
We’ll have results as provided by the Iowa State Democratic Party here at analysisdddhq.wpenginepowered.com as they become available and streaming analysis starting at 8:30 eastern/7:30 central time across all of our platforms:
twitch.tv/decisiondeskhq
https://youtube.com/decisiondeskhqofficial
http://facebook.com/DecisionDeskHQ/