Election notebook Cedar County ‘petri dish’ of electoral politics

CEDAR RAPIDS — Cedar County is a little bit country and a little bit, well, metropolitan, Dawn Smith said.

'You add that together and we're, I guess you'd call it, a petri dish for the country,' the chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors said to explain why the southeastern Iowa county is a bellwether in presidential elections.

Since 1992, this county of just fewer than 20,000 not only has backed the winner of the presidential race, but the results have reflected the statewide outcome. Combined with going with the winner in U.S. Senate elections, Cedar County is on a 14-0 streak.

'We have a wide, diverse population,' Smith said.

Cedar County has a farm-based economy as well as manufacturing.

Predictions held true on Election Day 2016, with 12 out of the 13 Cedar County precincts reporting Trump won the county by 59.6 percent as of 10:40 p.m. At the same time, Trump held the lead overall in Iowa by 52.1 percent from 783 of Iowa's 1,779 precincts, according to the Iowa Secretary of State's Office. Cedar County voters and Iowa voters put incumbent Sen. Chuck Grassley at the top of the list with 68.6 percent of votes and 60.9 percent, respectively.

New voters turn out in Johnson County

IOWA CITY — Johnson County saw 2,653 people register to vote a polling places Tuesday. The majority, 1,847 people, of those newly registered voters were in Iowa City.

Josten Boyer, 18, a University of Iowa freshman from New London, cast a ballot for the first time in her life Tuesday. She had to register at the residence hall polling place first — although she said the system was running smooth when she stopped in.

Boyer said she voted for Hillary Clinton and was excited to play a role in potentially electing the first female president.

But, Boyer said, many of her friends chose to sit the election out.

'All of them are 18, and I think that they are either scared of the process or they aren't into politics,' she said. 'They really don't care yet.'

Kyle Curley, 18, a UI freshman from Manchester, had slapped an 'I voted' sticker over his heart. He boasted casting a ballot for Donald Trump.

'I agree with him more than Hillary,' he said simply.

Curley said a lot of his friends were planning to participate in their first election this year — partly because of the heavy media coverage this campaign season.

'The media has had a lot more to do with this election than past elections,' he said.

Democratic early voting numbers lower than 2012

DES MOINES — Democrats in Iowa lead Republicans in early voting on Election Day, although by a smaller margin than the previous presidential election.

Democrats cast 41,812 more early votes — a combination of absentee ballots and in-person early votes — than Republicans as of Election Day, according to updated figures from the Iowa Secretary of State's office.

But that advantage is lower than Democrats had in 2012, when Election Day figures showed Democrats had cast 68,359 more early votes than Republicans.

That means Republicans have chipped into Democrats' early-voting edge by more than 26,000 votes. In 2012, President Barack Obama defeated Republican Mitt Romney by roughly 92,000 votes.

When comparing Election Day 2016 to Election Day 2012, Iowa Democrats' early voting was down 8 percent, while Republicans' increased 2 percent.

— The Gazette