Part 1
We interview Scott Braddock, Editor of the Quorum Report about Texas topics, and the Iowa Caucuses.
The chaos in Iowa has, as of the recording of this broadcast, not been completely resolved, though the front runners have all declared themselves winners. The turnout numbers were similar to 2016, though the expectation was that there would be a larger turnout. We discussed the expectations that the media had for quick results of the caucuses and primaries. In Texas, the Secretary of State has indicated that it would be difficult to get quickly.
Bloomberg is focusing more efforts in Texas, and has enough money to make it count.
Part 2
We interview Shawn Sebastian, a political organizer in Iowa with the Community Improvement Action Fund about the Iowa caucuses. His opinion is that these caucuses have been well run, and a lot of data is available that was not available in previous caucuses. The breakdown occurred in the communication with the Iowa Democratic party, when the results of the individual caucuses were being sent in. There are several reasons, one being that the app that was supposed to accomplish this had not been tested before deployment. However, the caucus process itself went smoothly. There was discussion about whether this should be the end of the caucus process, and this be replaced by primaries with ranked choice voting. Iowa want to keep the ‘first in the nation’ status, just as New Hampshire wants to keep its status of having the first primary. But, neither of these states are representative of the US population (too small, not diverse) and may not be the best choice to be ‘first.’
