#Politics A reminder why last night's #Iowa caucus is irrelevant ...
Total number of registered voters in Iowa: 2,203,718
Total number of registered active Republican voters: 594,533
Total number of votes cast in the caucus: 110,298
Total number of votes for #Trump: 56,260 (51% of votes cast)
Only 18.6% of Republicans turned out last night. Barely more than half of them voted for Trump.
Much ado about nothing.
(Data source: Iowa Secretary of State)
@WordsmithFL a statistically invalid sample size to be sure, but actual votes tracked pretty closely with more large-scale polling, so i wouldn't assume that iowa is wrong just because most of the voters stayed home.
@WordsmithFL to me the only reason it doesn't deserve wall-to-wall coverage is that it was entirely expected. if he HAD lost, or if it had even been close, that would have been a story because it would mean all the polling is wrong and the people most motivated to vote are anti-trump, which threatens his candidacy.
@dietotaku The point is that the Iowa caucus is all but irrelevant to national politics. It's to award delegates. #Trump got 20. A candidate needs 1,215 this year to win the GOP nomination.
It doesn't deserve wall-to-wall coverage. It's a blip, a speed bump, in national politics.
If anything, the fact that Trump barely got half to me is the story.