Fact Checker: Who received the most votes ever in Iowa Caucus history?

Introduction

'Eight years ago I won the Iowa Caucus with the largest number of votes in the history of the Iowa caucuses.”

Source of claim

Former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, while speaking in Vinton in August.

Analysis

Huckabee won the GOP's 2008 Iowa Caucus with 40,954 votes or 34.4 percent support, beating out former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 30,021 votes or 25.2 percent, according to several media reports including CNN and the Des Moines Register.

The Fact Checker typically, as a first step, asks campaigns to provide attribution for their claim. Huckabee's team did not respond.

Going back to the beginning of the GOP's Iowa Caucus history, which began as a straw poll in 1976, only one other year neared Huckabee's vote total, according to a state data publication maintained by the State Library of Iowa.

In 1988, then-Kansas Sen. Bob Dole earned 40,661 votes, or 37.4 percent. That's still 293 votes below Huckabee's mark.

More recently, Republicans had an uncontested caucus in 2004 as President George W. Bush ran for re-election.

Bush handily won the 2000 GOP caucus with 35,948 votes, or 41 percent, over businessman Steve Forbes, according to a George Washington University study.

In 2012, a virtual tie topped the GOP field. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum with 29,839 votes, or 24.6 percent, edged out Romney, who had 29,805, or 24.5 percent, by 34 votes.

But what about Democratic candidates?

In 2008, the same year Huckabee won, Democrats set a turnout record with 227,000 participants in the Iowa Caucus. President Barack Obama won, earning 37.6 percent of state delegates.

Simple math would suggest 37.6 percent of the turnout is 85,352 of the participants.

But it's not so simple.

The Democratic and Republican parties run their caucuses differently.

'The Republican preference vote is a clean vote; we get actual numbers,” said Dennis Goldford, Drake University political science professor. 'The Democratic preference votes don't give us a clean vote. Democrats don't give us raw totals.”

Republicans cast ballots and determine winners through a traditional vote. Democrats create preference groups with support based on how many people attend a caucus site.

Comparing support across the parties could be misleading, Goldford said.

Among Democrats, if preference groups are not deemed viable, supporters can realign under another candidate. This could understate the support for one candidate and overstate it for another, Goldford said.

'So it is sort of apples to oranges to compare Democrats and Republicans in this regard,” he said.

For that reason, and because Huckabee's claim referred specifically to votes, this Fact Checker will stick to the Republican field.

Conclusion

A look at the numbers shows Huckabee clearly received the most votes in Iowa Caucus history, at least on the Republican side.

It is a little misleading in that Huckabee didn't receive the most support ever. That title goes to George W. Bush in 2000.

Still, Huckabee's claim is about number of votes, which is accurate. We give him an A.