The Maps of Iowa Counties and what they say about Romney and Santorum

Last night I stayed up, almost to the end of the Caucus results in Iowa, it was 99% declared and at that point we knew it was going to be no more than 100 in it either way, but I just ran out of stamina and fell asleep. In the end Mitt Romney won by 8 votes over Rick Santorum both on 25% of the Caucus.

I was sitting there with 10 taps open in Chrome including two maps. One from WYNC spliting the various counties by demographic and Google's in which you could drill down to see the strength of each candidate across the counties. In fact at times Newt Gingrich had the lead in two of the northern counties simultaneously (Winneshiek and Mitchell), Michele Bachmann held an early lead in Howard County and Rick Peryy held leads in four counties at various times of the evening. I was following a number of live feeds from the Guardian and BBC here in the UK to several stateside including a Cover It Live forum, plus of course all my friends on Twitter, following either Iowa or the hashtag #iacaucus was just impossible there were more people Tweeting that Republicans who Caucused* in Iowa.

One of the tabs I did have open was the webcast from KCRG the ABC affiliate in Cedar Rapids, Ia, nothing like getting the information straight from Iowans who knew where the significant counties were, had reporters at numerous of the caucus centres including the 63 precinct venue at the University of Northern Iowa's, Dome.

There was one point early on before too many votes had been declared (about 7:45pm local time) that they said that there were people in England and Denmark watching them and saying hi on Twitter. So I did. The end result was within minutes Northern Ireland got a name check, and not for the first time but twice more as they handed over to different news anchors I got bundled up with the other two nations again.

If you just looked at the map by who won each county you'd have thought Santorum had walked it. Of the 99 he won in 62 of them, Ron Paul in 18,  Romney in 17 and Rick Perry in 2.

But these heat maps showing the proportion of the top two's support helps to explain the story.

Santorum

Romney

What this shows is that in the big metroplitan areas like around Polk County (Des Moines and surrounding), Iowa City and Cedar Rapids Romney scored a lot better than Santorum. In the western metropolitan area around Sioux City even though Santorum did well so too did Romney. In other words Romney did well in the urban areas taking most of the most populace counties. Santorum who personally was in each county twice scored well in the smaller counties where the personal approach obviously worked for him.

I think I shall try and do it all again next Tuesday for New Hampshire though I wonder if it will be as exciting with the former Governor of neighbouring Massachusetts being Romney. However, as the Iowa born Bachmann now a Congresswoman in neighbouring Minnesota can't come better than 6th here you wonder how long she will stay in the race. Already Rick Perry who actually came ahead of her is considering his future in race with Santorum appearing to take up the mantel of the Christian right.

Update as I was writing this Bachmann announced she was suspending her Presidential campaign.

* Yeah through the night I heard or saw this used as a verb extensively.

Iowa what do the beans tell us

Well the first result from Iowa has been declared that of Hamburg Inn #2 Coffee Bean Caucus as I wrote about yesterday.

The results show a clear winner in Barack Obama (indeed polling 2,472 more than the Republicans combined), which in hardly surprising in this Democrat State. But what of the Republicans. Well Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Ricky Santorum have all stopped by while on the campaign trail. Yet only Bachmann seems to have benefited from her stop leading the poll. Santorum who is showing a last minute surge in the opinion polls to be in a tie with Romney and Paul is only the 6th best Republican in these parts.

So there you have it in the bean counters have been at their job and the result is in.

Hamburg Inn No. 2 COFFEE BEAN CAUCUS 2012 RESULTS
1: Barack Obama: 6,442
2: Michele Bachmann: 1,147
3: Mitt Romney: 850
4: Ron Paul: 724
5: Newt Gingrich: 548
6: Rick Perry: 295
7: Rick Santorum: 223
8: Jon Huntsman: 183

Iowa Caucus but what news from the Hamburg Inn's Coffee Beans

The Iowa Caucus tomorrow kicks off the race to select Presidential Candidates the polls are saying that Ricky Santorum is gaining on Mitt Romney and Ron Paul in what is statistically as three way tie (while the other Republicans are polling low). However, what many are asking is what is happening over at Hamburg Inn #2 in Iowa City. It has been held since the 80s and replicated in The West Wing. Here is a look at a report from the 2008 Election Campaign Caucus when both fields were wide open.



But what of 2012?

Well Hamburg Inn #2 has seen action from a Gay Robot before Christmas when Michele Bachmann turned up to try and up her jar of coffee beans. Although as you watch the following you'll see that a police officer seems to threaten the Gay Robot's First Amendment rights. He says, "If you go back in you will be facing some additional issues."



It didn't get any better for Bachmann as this next clip shows in the same venue.



As for the Coffee Beans the runes that seem to have been pretty accurate for Reagan, Clinton and Obama amongst others there is little news over the last few days there may be more later today, if so I will let you know. But 5 days ago they were saying it was close between Romney and Paul before the latest surge from Santorum.

Here is a song about the White House wannabes.



Of course the Iowa Caucus is not a great indicator of who is going to win. But it will be a good indicator to a few of the candidates that they are not going to win.