How much are the Iowa Caucuses worth? (Part 1)
As the first formal step toward choosing presidential finalists, the Iowa Caucuses attract far more money than the state’s small size would suggest.
According to several trustworthy estimates, candidates will spend at least $22,000,000, and as much as $30,000,000 wooing Iowa caucusgoers. How much is that per voter? Bear with me – the answer requires some math.
In 2004, turnout for the Iowa Caucus was 133,353, which equaled 6.1% of eligible voters.
In 2000 it was 145,000, or 6.8% of eligible voters.
Let’s use the 2000 figure, since there was no incumbent candidate.
In the last 8 years, the population of Iowa has increased, so a caucus turnout of 7% next January would equal about 208,740.
At, say, $25,000,000 in campaign spending by all the candidates contesting Iowa, that gives us a figure of…
$119.76 per caucusgoer!
Now let’s try that in Base-8.
119 decimal is 167 octal, 120 decimal is 170 octal, so probably something like 169. Though you could actually make the number appear less in hexadecimal: approximately 78.
What I find interesting about the Iowa caucus is the recent push to get students at the Univ. of Iowa, Iowa State and other colleges to register to vote in Iowa, even though many of them are from other states.
Back when Steve Forbes ran for President, I think he spent about that much by himself in Iowa.