Jennifer Jacobs

jejacobs@dmreg.com

After spending months cultivating party activists, presidential campaigns in Iowa are going all-out in the final four weeks to woo an additional target: caucus avoiders.

Registered Republicans and Democrats who don't caucus are a massive group. Persuading a small fraction to turn out rather than stay home could rip the presidential race out of the current front-runners' hands and put someone else on the path to the White House.

If they were to create a wave on Feb. 1, political strategists say, it would most likely crest for the ultra-liberal Bernie Sanders or the mad-dog conservative Donald Trump, the two breakout phenomena of the 2016 race and vessels for anger about a political and economic system they rail against as broken.

Without such a wave, the odds-on favorites to win in Iowa are front-runners Hillary Clinton, an establishment Democrat and former U.S. secretary of state whose husband served as president for eight years, and Ted Cruz, a firebrand, anti-establishment Republican and first-term U.S. senator.

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On the Republican side, caucus avoiders are also key to another scenario: Middle-of-the-road voters turned off by the possibility of Cruz or Trump as the Iowa winner could be spurred to give a Republican candidate they view as more reasonable — such as Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush or Chris Christie, all of whom have a history of compromising with Democrats — a shot at the presidency.

Predicting turnout is notoriously difficult, veteran observers say. And this cycle, converting caucus avoiders could be especially tricky.

In dozens of interviews with the Register in recent weeks, Iowans who usually vote in general elections voiced ambivalence about participating in the caucuses. They're turned off by political gridlock, this campaign's nasty rhetoric or the complexity of the caucus process itself.

"I don't believe there's a good front-runner," said Ryan Haltom, an Iowa State University student from Urbandale. He's an independent voter who leans Republican, is conservative on many issues, but favors gay rights. "Out of them, I believe there's too much bigotry. It's kind of a mess right now. I really don't want to participate too much in that."

Renowned Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer isn't seeing anything — at least not yet — that would hint at blow-out turnout like the last time there was a wide open, no-incumbent race for the White House. In 2008, Democrat Barack Obama wowed left-leaning Iowans and helped goose a record turnout of 240,000, including about 137,000 people who took a crack at caucusing for the first time.

The final Iowa Poll before the caucuses that year showed that 60 percent of likely Democratic participants had never caucused before, and among those newcomers, Obama was winning. The first-time turnout percentage and the winner proved to be accurate reflections of the outcome, based on entrance polling.

"We are not seeing percentages of first-timers close to that now," Selzer said.

In the early December Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll, those who have never caucused before made up 25 percent of the Democratic electorate and 24 percent of the Republican pool.

But eventual turnout can shift dramatically in the final weeks. In an Iowa Poll taken five weeks before the 2008 caucuses, the figure for likely first-time Democratic caucusgoers stood at 36 percent.

Sleepy for Democrats, big crowd for GOP?

Iowa has 1.93 million active registered voters, and political insiders estimate perhaps 280,000 of them will turn out statewide for both parties' presidential caucuses — far less than the 350,000 who braved a bitterly cold night in 2008.

For Democrats, 2016 could be a sleepy caucus night in comparison.

"Turnout will likely be somewhere between 2000 and 2004 levels rather than the huge turnout of 2008," said Norm Sterzenbach, a former executive director of the Iowa Democratic Party.

That would mean 67,000 to 140,000 Democrats.

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Other strategists, including Derek Eadon, a former Obama organizer, say 140,000 to 160,000 is more likely. Clinton's and Sanders' teams will be better at driving turnout than the four campaigns in 2004 were, he predicted.

With the hyper-boil of conservative activists, Republicans could beat their record of 121,500 set in 2012, operatives say.

Former state party official Matt Strawn said he's not sure which is harder: predicting caucus turnout or picking the right Powerball numbers.

"A Donald Trump-sized shadow looms over all turnout predictions," Strawn said. "If his campaign is successful in turning out a significant number of new caucus attendees, a third straight cycle of record Republican turnout is a safe bet. If not, we'll be closer to historical averages of the last two cycles, but still likely to exceed 2012 turnout."

Some think GOP turnout will be as high as 140,000, including Republican strategist Rick Wiley, who was campaign manager for presidential contender Scott Walker before he departed the race in September, and Tim Saler, who was Bobby Jindal's deputy manager until he exited in November.

Traditionally, four out of five registered voters from each party don't bother to take part in the Iowa caucuses, noted Dennis Goldford, a Drake University politics professor and co-author of a book on the history of the caucuses. Even more stay home who aren't registered with either party. They're called "no-party" voters in Iowa, and they make up the state's biggest voting bloc.

Stepping up pursuit of caucus avoiders

To reel in caucus avoiders, the most robust Iowa campaigns are using personal touches to reach out to very specific voters who fit the profile for supporting their candidate, and making sure they know how and where to caucus, strategists said.

Campaign staffers are also working to tamp down intimidation about a peculiar party function that's less convenient than casting a ballot in a regular election. The message, the strategists said: "Caucusing is easy!"

In reality, caucusing might take longer for Republicans this year because there are so many candidates. Eleven candidates are competing here, so Iowans will have to listen to as many as 11 speeches from representatives making a pitch for their candidate before Iowans can write their choice on a little slip of paper.

The Democrat-style of caucusing, where people publicly stand up for their candidate of choice rather than casting a paper ballot, might go more quickly than in past years, since just three candidates are competing. It will take less time to reshuffle supporters if a candidate doesn't have the necessary 15 percent support to be ruled viable.

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Any increased Democratic turnout would likely come from less consistent voters, who probably are younger, and it's Sanders who does better with such voters, said Geoffrey Skelley, associate editor of "Sabato's Crystal Ball."

Virtually unknown in Iowa last winter, Sanders sat nine points below Clinton in the early-December Iowa Poll. A total of 34,702 people have come to his campaign events in Iowa, and the number will be closer to 50,000 before Feb. 1, his aides say. (For perspective, Clinton drew more than 69,000 voters in 2008, entrance polls showed.)

Sanders has tapped a well of frustration with his crusade against an economic and political system he says is rigged to benefit the rich and powerful. But he still deals with skepticism about his electability. Caucus avoiders could make that a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Sanders endorser Bev Hannon, a former state senator who was first elected 30 years ago, said the Vermont U.S. senator will win handsomely if Iowans who believe "things are too fixed" make up their minds to spend two hours caucusing.

"My golly, the young kids just love him," Hannon said. "I'm hoping they follow through on that."

On the Republican side, some mainstream voters, many of whom are sporadic caucusgoers, want an alternative to Cruz and Trump, who are "too polarizing," said Republican Dick Rue, a retired certified public accountant who lives in Ankeny.

"There's a huge silent majority that are sitting back going, 'We'll wait and see,'" Rue said. "We don't want someone who sees Democrats and Republicans as 'us' and 'them.'"

Several Republican caucus avoiders told the Register they cringed at Trump's comment about a female TV host having "blood coming out of her wherever," or his talk of creating a database to track Muslims, or Cruz's vow to "carpet bomb" Islamic State terrorists and make "sand can glow in the dark."

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A "TEB" voter — who identifies more with Gov. Terry E. Branstad, a mainstream conservative, than with a hard-right conservative such as U.S. Rep. Steve King, a "Ted" voter — will likely make up 30 percent of the caucus electorate, strategists said. Or it could be 40 percent if the campaigns targeting them persuade them to turn out.

Iowa Republicans who favor mainstream candidates are stuck in a self-fulfilling prophecy, Strawn said. Some have sat on the sidelines as energized religious conservatives propelled Mike Huckabee in 2008 and Rick Santorum in 2012 to victories in the caucuses.

That's prompted doubt about the ability of center-right candidates to win here. In recent cycles, it has become more fashionable for those campaigns to put more of their eggs in the New Hampshire early-state basket than Iowa's, Strawn said.

"So the aggressive courtship of centrists is taking place," he said, "just not in Iowa."

The power of 'no-party' voters

Independents, officially called "no-party" voters in Iowa, are the biggest single group of active registered voters in the state, but they have a low participation rate in the Iowa caucuses.

As of early December, there were 724,801 active no-party registered voters, compared to 611,433 Republicans and 584,307 Democrats.

No-party voters who re-register on caucus night as Democrats or Republicans can participate.

Most of the GOP caucusgoers in 2012 had already been registered Republican before the caucuses (75 percent), while 23 percent had been registered as independents and 2 percent as Democrats, said Drake University politics professor Dennis Goldford, citing entrance polling.

Ron Paul was the reason that a strong plurality (43 percent) of that small number of independents caucused with the Republicans, followed by Mitt Romney (19 percent).

In 2008, just 13 percent of the GOP caucusgoers had been independents. Paul also drew the most no-party voters in that race (29 percent), entrance polling found.

At the Democratic caucuses in 2008, 20 percent had previously been independents, the entrance polls showed. Of those, the strong plurality changed their colors to vote for Obama (41 percent), followed by John Edwards (23 percent) and Hillary Clinton (17 percent).



Why are some Iowans avoiding the caucuses?

“Unfamiliar with the mechanics of how a caucus works,” said Republican Kathy Schreck, a benefits administrator from Des Moines.

“All politicians are idiots,” said independent voter Candy Taylor, who works as a receptionist at a law firm in Des Moines. The last time she went to a caucus "it was a laughable experience" — voters piled behind one Democratic candidate and left other good contenders “out in the cold,” she said.

“I’m a little saturated on politics right now. I've been watching them for how many months now. ... It’s all good; it’s just there are a lot of candidates this year. You hear the same thing over and over. ... For Iowa, we have to have these guys parade through ad nauseam,” said Terry Rausch, a Republican from Altoona who works in information technology. He said he wants to enjoy the freedoms we have in this country, and will vote in the primaries and general elections.

“I just didn’t grow up around it. I don’t know how it works. I would be out of place,” said Ankeny Republican Deidre Smith, an insurance administrator who grew up in South Dakota.

“I want to, but I can’t. It’s difficult for me to get out,” said Suzie Garnett, a Des Moines resident who uses a motorized wheelchair and has trouble arranging for transportation at night. Garnett, a “no-party” voter who leans Republican, said she votes in general elections by absentee ballot, a system that the parties don’t allow in the caucuses. If she were to caucus, she’d be for Ted Cruz. Donald Trump just doesn’t have the temperament to be president, she said.

“I don’t know enough about what’s involved in the process,” said Republican Patrick Reilly, a transportation load planner from Ankeny who has never caucused. And this year for him, child care could be an issue. Reilly said his second child was due Jan. 2. Voting in a regular election is a speedy affair if there are no lines, and parents can take turns going to their local precinct while one stays home with the kids. But for the caucuses on Feb. 1, Iowans must be present starting at 7 p.m. Caucusing can take an hour or two.

“I just don’t feel it like I did the last time,” said Ramona Briseno, a Des Moines Democrat who works in the banking industry. The last time she caucused was in 2008, for Democrat John Edwards, she said.