Iowa has gotten about a foot of snow during the current storm. According to Research™ an inch of snow reduces voter turnout by 0.5%. Roughly speaking, then, we should expect that Monday's caucuses will see turnout about 5% lower than usual.
That's not much, really, and there's no telling what it means in an all-Republican caucus anyway. But I figured you'd want to know.
I suspect Kevin has his tongue firmly in his cheek here but I'll bite. Why assume a linear projection. Living in Irvine Keven might not understand that in terms of what it does to moving around a foot of snow is far more than 12 times a problem than an inch of snow. A foot of snow keeps people from getting out of their driveways--an inch of snow does not.
By KD's reasoning, it would take more than 16 feet of snow to bring turnout to zero.
Are you claiming that 16 feet of snow wouldn't shut things down!!!
😉
I have it on good authority from the best of sources that the storm is being caused by the Deep State activating HAARP to disrupt the Iowa caucus and distract from Trump’s stupendous victory. It must be true, I mean, why else would a once in a decade storm hit now and coming out of nowhere? Those Deep State people sure are devious, aren’t they?
HAARP! I haven't heard that one in a long time. Really fascinating stuff...
The real story of HAARP is it's how the Irish mafia that turned itself into the Deep State.
You won't hear that from the lamestream media.
I think the temperature is more important than the snow. it is supposed to be cold enough on caucuses night to seriously affect turnout.
Yeah getting caught out in that kind of cold is life threatening. One of the problems with caucuses is that weather can really affect the type of people who are willing to make it out. I used to defend caucuses as being closer to real face to face democracy but I've long since dropped that delusion.
I agree. Temperatures are going to plummet, what moisture left on the surface is going to freeze, winds are supposed to be sustained and dangerous, and no amount of salt will compensate. The age of caucus attendees, no matter their experience and wisdom, will hamper their attendance at the polls. The media will melt down...
We're experiencing that cold front in Montana right now. Whenever it gets that cold here people stay inside unless you really, really need to leave your house. It takes a lot of planning and effort to leave, also. You have to get dressed in multiple layers, you have to warm the car up for 20 minutes or so, if it snowed you have to brush, or god help you, scrape your car. Do you really want to go out and stand around in a school gym for an hour or so in those conditions? Fuck no.
I live in Canada north of Montana and it's -27F right now. Too cold to go anywhere if you not have to.
-18 right now, headed to -32 here.
Expecting wind chills of up to 40 below tonight and it'll be even colder Monday.
I expect almost no one to turn up at the caucuses except the most committed nuts, and I honestly expect no one at the Democratic caucus.
It's certainly been a lot colder but this cold has a really harsh punch to it because there's so much of it at once and it's all turned incredibly hard, heavy and chunky. Walking outside is like walking face first into an ice cube.
What I meant was,
It's certainly been a lot colder but this cold has a really harsh punch to it because there's been so much snow all at once and it's all turned incredibly hard, heavy and chunky.
And the air is just like a block of ice.
It's the Iowa caucus. Isn't the turnout a few thousand at most, anyway
Maybe the caucuses will all die out in the cold Monday night and we can finally go back to a semblance of democracy.
I think there should be a Federal law against caucuses, which privilege factionalism, the more organized (e.g. the most money), and people with time to kill who like hanging around in high school gymnasiums in the dark winter night . Also, there should be a law against voice votes.
Freeze em out permanently!
The weather reports I'm seeing aren't that bad for Monday in Iowa. Twelve inches of snow is a problem when it's falling, but the plows should have cleared it up by Saturday afternoon.
And it doesn't look that cold in Iowa on Monday. Most of the state should have lows at -10 to -15, but those are early am temps, not evening temps, which should be a few degrees higher. I could see some elderly people staying home, but that's unlikely to reduce turnout for people under the age of 70 by that much. These are Iowa Republicans - they won't be waiting outside at bus stops! They'll be driving their posh pickups. (I've waited for a lot of buses at those temps, and even that wasn't all that bad.)
Spoken like someone who has limited experience with snow and none at all on the plains like a Real American (tm).
At high noon on Primary Day they will be dealing with a wind chill of -22°F. At the time the polls close that will be -27°F. Whatever snow the plows didn't clear today will be ice on the roads all day tomorrow. They may be Republicans, but they're not all stupid. They know you can't stop the car when you're driving on ice. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the worst attended caucus ever, and the Iowans decide to rethink the whole idea for future elections.