Who should I caucus for?

[HI54UNI]

Caucus was packed and the venue wasn't big enough.

Vote percentages
Cruz 38.7%
Trump 23.1%
Rubio 13.3%
Carson 11%
Huckabee 6.9%
Christie 2.9%
Paul 2.3%
Fiorina 1.2
Kasich 0.06%
Bush, Gilmore, Santorum all got zero.

If Huckabee and Carson weren't in the race I would guess that 95-100% of their votes would've went to Cruz.

[Jjoey52]

Huckabee gone now. Bet that was a fun experience.

[JayJ79]

I really don't see what the big deal is.

There are 4,763 delegates to the Democratic National Convention, Iowa determines a whopping 44 of them (00.92%).
On the other side of the aisle, there are 2,472 delegates to the Republican National Convention, and Iowa determines 30 of them (01.21%)

And it isn't even "winner take all". On the Democratic side, Clinton and Sanders both essentially got 50% of the delegates (technically, the precinct delegates. who will now go on to the county-level caucuses who will choose the delegates for the state-level caucus, who will then convene to select 44 delegates to the DNC). Assuming the percentages follow through (which I'm not even sure if that is guaranteed), then both candidates will end up with between 21-23 national delegates.

Seems like much ado about nothing.
Though I suppose the actual delegates aren't really what the candidates are fighting over at this point, but instead they are trying to use the Iowa results to drum up more money/support for the rest of the campaign (and possibly weed out 1 or 2 of the also-rans)

[Ibanez]

Wait....Democrats couldn't decide on their own if they should caucus for Clinton or Sanders so they flip a coin? That's got to make you think. I'm glad this was not a decisive win for Clinton. This win doesn't mean anything, in the long run.

[JayJ79]

Wait....Democrats couldn't decide on their own if they should caucus for Clinton or Sanders so they flip a coin? That's got to make you think. I'm glad this was not a decisive win for Clinton. This win doesn't mean anything, in the long run.

Why would they flip a coin? each of those two candidates get half of the state's delegates for the national convention. Just like the republican delegates are split amongst 6 candidates (8/7/7/3/1/1).

[Ibanez]

Wait....Democrats couldn't decide on their own if they should caucus for Clinton or Sanders so they flip a coin? That's got to make you think. I'm glad this was not a decisive win for Clinton. This win doesn't mean anything, in the long run.

Why would they flip a coin? each of those two candidates get half of the state's delegates for the national convention. Just like the republican delegates are split amongst 6 candidates (8/7/7/3/1/1).

It's what they did.

[dbackjon]

Wait....Democrats couldn't decide on their own if they should caucus for Clinton or Sanders so they flip a coin? That's got to make you think. I'm glad this was not a decisive win for Clinton. This win doesn't mean anything, in the long run.

Why would they flip a coin? each of those two candidates get half of the state's delegates for the national convention. Just like the republican delegates are split amongst 6 candidates (8/7/7/3/1/1).

It's Iowa. You tell us.

[ASUG8]

Team Pantsuit has to be in complete recovery mode.

[JayJ79]

Why would they flip a coin? each of those two candidates get half of the state's delegates for the national convention. Just like the republican delegates are split amongst 6 candidates (8/7/7/3/1/1).

It's Iowa. You tell us.

I misunderstood what was being referred to.

I'm guessing the coin flips took place in precincts where there were ties in the number of people caucusing for each candidate, in order to decide who gets the last delegate for that precinct. I don't really understand the process specifics, and question how some of the numbers were rounded to determine delegates. But that could be because the precinct I was assigned to had a much higher turnout than they were prepared for, so things got a bit chaotic at times.

Much line just about everything else involving politics and/or the government, things are unnecessarily complicated and drawn out.