Cruz, Clinton take Jasper County in Iowa Caucuses

Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton were the big winners in Jasper County in Monday night’s Iowa Caucuses, which was mostly consistent with what went on statewide.

It was also a year when many county residents went to a caucus for the first time, as was the case around the state.

Cruz carried Jasper County with about 35 percent of the Republican vote. He was followed by Donald Trump, who had 25 percent and Marco Rubio who had 18 percent. Ben Carson had 9 percent and Rand Paul 4 percent.

On the Democratic side, Clinton and Sanders were close in Jasper County, just as they were on the state level. Clinton took slightly more than 51 percent of the vote in the county, about six percentage points more than Sanders, with O’Malley getting less than 5 percent.

O’Malley announced after the caucuses that he is dropping out of the race, as did Republican Mike Huckabee.

County Democratic Chair Taylor Van De Krol, who endorsed O’Malley and worked hard campaigning for the former Maryland governor, said he was frustrated with his candidate not being “viable” per the Democrats’ caucus procedures but wasn’t shocked O’Malley dropped out.

Van De Krol said things went well with the caucus county-wide, to his knowledge, with only a couple of minor glitches with a new Microsoft app designed to streamline the reporting of results to the Iowa Democratic Party.

Jasper County Republicans Chair Patrick Payton said he felt things went exceptionally well, especially at Community Heights Alliance Church, where he both caucused and helped oversee four other precincts.

There were two people who wanted to register to vote on site after volunteers had run out of registration forms.

“Overall, I’d say we did we pretty good on having enough supplies,” Payton said. “We had two precincts that had a much bigger turnout than expected, so, naturally, those took longer to count.”

Many first-time caucus-goers made it out to their local party sites Monday. One of those first-timers was 83-year-old Jim Douglas, who has lived in Newton since 1957 but have never caucused before.

“There were a few things different, like having undecided voters in the room,” Douglas said.

Bri Meyer was the precinct captain for the O’Malley campaign in Newton Precinct 4-2, which caucused in the Newton High School Center for Performance. In her precinct, O’Malley made it through the first two rounds of voting before he became non-viable.

Some of the voters then decided not to join either the Clinton or Sanders camps. A handful of the non-viable O’Malley group went with Sanders, which ended up tied with the Clinton total, 35-35. Clinton and Sanders will each take five delegates from Precinct 4-2 to next month’s county convention.

Even though her candidate didn’t succeed, Meyer said she would gladly be a precinct captain again.

“I met so many people just from walking around my neighborhood, and talking to people,” Meyer said. “And I learned how important every vote can be. We had 76 people here, and O’Malley was four votes short of being viable. I know I talked to at least four more people who said they’d caucus for him.”

Next door to the Center for Performance, in Newton High School’s Room 11, O’Malley only had one supporter among more than 100 Newton Precinct 3-1 caucus-goers. Eventually, the lively group’s vote gave eight delegates to Clinton and six to Sanders.

Other precincts around the county were similarly even on the Democratic side. The Kellogg precinct, which includes some of the eastern county communities, gave seven delegates each to Clinton and Sanders and one to O’Malley.

At a Democratic precinct at Colfax-Mingo High School, part of the debate between Sanders and Clinton supporters was about electability. Before the caucus began, Clinton voter Linda Darrock walked around the room with a pan and spatula, trying to coax Sanders supports over to the Hillary camp with her homemade brownies.

Sanders ultimately came out on top — three delegates to one. But the cordial debate began with Darrock arguing the self-described socialist might have trouble against Republicans in the general election.

“The question I’d like to ask the Bernie supporters is who can win in November?” she said across the school library. “A Democrat’s going to have to be elected. They have to be electable — I’m very worried that he’s not. You talk about how he’s not taking big money but he’s going to have to have big money to win the White House. So somewhere along the line he’s going to be beholden to somebody.”

But Sanders supporters pushed back that electability and experience were the same augments made against President Obama — who won the Iowa Caucus in 2007 — when he squared off against Clinton.

“Eight years ago, these are exactly the same questions that were asked about Obama. He couldn’t possibly be electable, he was going to ruin the budget and yet he was elected,” said Margaret Blom, a Sanders supporter. “I think people are looking for something that really is different … In my opinion, and as a rabid feminist it’s hard for me to say this, but Bernie represents that. He represents absolute change from the status quo.”

Griffin Engel, the 17-year-old son of Laura and Kevin Engel, started the day by having one of the candidates, O’Malley, visit with supporters at his family’s Newton home. By the end of the day, the NHS senior had caucused for the first time, and said he has learned some valuable lessons from the caucus process.

“As an upstanding adult, you should be politically informed,” Engel said. “People can push pretty hard, and one vote really matters.”

Brooks Brinstad is another young Newton voter who has not yet finished high school, but he already has one Iowa Caucus behind him.

“I caucused for Sanders, because I agree with a lot of the things he says, and he cares about middle-class people,” Brinstad said. “I didn’t really know what to expect with the caucus, and there a few surprising things. I’m glad I did it.”

— Mike Mendenhall and Alex Olp contributed to this article.

Contact Jason W. Brooks at 641-792-3121 ext. 6532 or jbrooks@newtondailynews.com