Idaho Democratic caucuses, 2008

The 2008 Idaho Democratic caucuses were held on February 5, 2008, with 18 national delegates at stake.cite news |url=http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/ID-D.phtml |title=Idaho Democratic Delegation 2008 |accessdate=2008-02-01 |publisher=The Green Papers] ; for the first time, caucuses were held in all 44 counties, all of them open caucuses organized at the county rather than the precinct level.

The caucus was overwhelmingly won by Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who won 15 of Idaho's 18 delegates [www.idahoforobama] , 44 of the 45 county-level caucuses, and the support of 79 percent of caucus attendees statewide, his largest margin of victory in any state during the 2008 presidential primary season; New York Sen. Hillary Clinton finished a distant second. [ [http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/candidates/#1918 Election Center 2008: Results for Barack Obama] ] [ [http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#ID Election Center 2008: Primary Results for Idaho] ] A handful of caucus attendees pledged to support John Edwards on the first ballot even though he had dropped out of the race the previous week; this residual support was sufficient to give the former North Carolina senator a third place finish.

Each of Idaho's 44 counties held its own caucus except Ada County, which held two, one for the part of the county in the First Congressional District, and the other for the part of the county in the Second Congressional District. Collectively both Ada County caucuses convened at Qwest Arena in downtown Boise were notable for the unprecedented mass public participation which made them the largest caucus gathering of Super Tuesday 2008: 3,075 votes were cast by the constituents of Congressional District 1 and 5,215 votes were cast by those of Congressional District 2, for a total of 8,290 votes cast at a single venue. Thousands of freshly-printed ballots were rushed to those caucusing outside the arena in frigid weather. [http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420ap_id_idaho_caucus_overflow.html] [ [http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarakewen/2246117973/ Super Tuesday: Boise, Idaho sur Flickr : partage de photos ! ] ] [ [http://stupiddingo.blogspot.com/ Stupid Dingo ] ] Much higher than anticipated attendance was also reported at other caucus locations throughout the state. [ [http://www.idahostatesman.com/editorial/story/288006.html Our View: Caucus turnout suggests change in Idaho politics | Editorial | Idaho Statesman ] ] [ [http://www.idaho-democrats.org/ht/display/ReleaseDetails/i/1129358 Final Caucus Results ] ] [http://www.idahostatesman.com/eyepiece/story/286707.html] [ [http://www.idahoforobama.org/pages/ada_caucus.html idaho For Obama - ADA County Caucus ] ] Statewide some 28,000 people caucused, an order of magnitude increase over the approximately 5,000 who had caucused throughout Idaho in 2004. [ [http://community.icontact.com/p/adadems/newsletters/events/rss.xml Old Messages ] ] .

Process

Since Idaho residents do not make a political party preference when they register to vote, the 2008 Idaho Democratic caucus was open to all individuals who are or will be qualified to vote in the general election in Idaho on November 4, 2008, including those who were not registered or who were not yet legally old enough to vote (but shall be legally old enough to vote at the national election). Caucus attendees were required to sign a pledge that they plan on voting Democratic in the county where they are caucusing in. After signing in, participants either marked their first presidential preference or declared themselves uncommitted.

As in past years, the caucuses employed a 15 percent support threshold at the county level. If a candidate failed to meet that threshold on the first vote, the candidate was eliminated from consideration at the county level. A second vote was then taken with all participants free to declare or re-declare their support for any remaining candidate or for "uncommitted." [ [http://www.idaho-democrats.org/ht/d/sp/i/1125030/pid/1125030 Idaho Democratic Party ] ] [ [http://www.idaho-democrats.org/ht/d/sp/i/1126908/pid/1126908 Idaho Democratic Party ] ] In 2008 Obama was the only candidate to meet the threshold requirement on the first vote in several counties, most notably in Ada County. Clinton won the caucus vote only in Lewis County.

After the second vote, county caucuses were broken up into groups by candidate support. These groups then selected county delegates and alternates to the state Democratic Party convention who are pledged but unbound by the results. The 2008 Idaho Democratic convention was then held June 12-14 in Garden City. [http://www.idaho-democrats.org/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/1125550] [ [http://www.idaho-democrats.org/ht/display/EventDetails/i/1126935/pid/304492 Calendar ] ]

Polls

Results

County caucuses

Caucus date: February 5, 2008

National pledged delegates determined: 12 (of 18)

State convention

Convention date: June 12–14, 2008

National pledged delegates determined: 6 (of 18){| border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; font-size: 95%; text-align:right;"
-bgcolor="#EEEEEE" align="center"! colspan="4" | Idaho Democratic presidential state convention, 2008
-bgcolor="#EEEEEE" align="center"! style="width: 17em"|Candidate! style="width: 5em"|At-Large and PLEO delegates! style="width: 7em"|Percentage! style="width: 5em"|National delegates
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Totals
6
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18

See also

* Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2008
* Idaho Republican primary, 2008

References