875 posted on Tuesday, January 03, 2012 9:44:38 PM by jjotto: “Polk County has nearly double the number of voters as the next largest counties. Only six counties in Iowa have big vote totals (they can pretty much swamp the rest of the state), and only two of those have nearly complete results:
Black Hawk: Paul 24% Romney 23 Santorum 21
Johnson
Linn: Romney 27% Santorum 26 Paul 24
Polk
Scott
Woodbury”
The phrase “Yes, but...” applies here.
Total voters and total Republican caucusgoers are not necessarily parallel. The large urban counties may be considerably more Democratic than the smaller rural counties, which means they had an outsized influence in the Democratic caucuses four years ago that nominated Barack Obama but aren’t as important in the number of Republican caucusgoers they produce. Likewise, some of the rural areas with lower populations may be filled with highly motivated conservatives who aggressively campaign for their candidate and work to get neighbors and friends to the caucuses.
IN THEORY, you might be right, but I can’t think of a place where that would apply in Iowa. Look at the vote totals by county.