Floyd County GOP turns out for Iowa caucus night, overwhelmingly backs Trump

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

Floyd County Republicans headed out into the cold to cast their votes in the 2024 Iowa Caucus on Monday, Jan. 15.

Packing the gymnasium of Washington Elementary, the politically active crowd gathered around as campaign supporters offered one last plea of support for their preferred candidate vying for the GOP presidential nomination, even if many acknowledged that the night’s results were already a foregone conclusion.

“Obviously Donald Trump is going to come in first,” said Bill Ranc during his advocacy speech for Vivek Ramaswamy. “But it’s very important who comes in second.”

While former President Trump maintains the lion’s share of popular support across the state, those advocating for his party competitors still spoke up in favor of their candidates.

Whether it be Ramaswamy’s pledge to combat eminent domain for CO2 pipelines, Ron DeSantis’ results as governor of Florida, Nikki Haley’s electability as a moderate candidate, or Ryan Binkley’s approach as a political outsider, each speaker did their best to encourage a sway support toward their candidate while trying to make sure everybody in the crowded room could hear them.

After all the speakers finished advocating for their candidates, the group split up around the school to write down their votes. Once the voting was complete and the scattered precinct managers found, the remaining caucus-goers gathered to tally the totals and announce the winners.

Trump was the clear favorite among the caucus-goers with 346 votes, securing two-thirds of the vote total.

Coming in second place in Floyd County was DeSantis with 89 votes (17%), followed by Haley at 55 votes (11%), Ramaswamy with 24 votes (4%), and Binkley with seven votes (1%).

“We were hampered by audio-visual not working as anticipated, but it was a good turnout and the caucus ran efficiently,” said state Rep. Charley Thomson, who moderated the evening’s event.

Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Jeff Kaufmann had said last week that while he expected the weather could keep some Republicans from breaking the party’s record of 186,000 GOP caucus participants in 2016, he believed there would still be “robust” turnout at precinct caucuses Monday evening.

It was minus 6 degrees with a wind chill temperature of as low as minus 25 degrees in Charles City at 7 p.m. Monday when the event officially started.

Some caucus-goers at Washington Elementary said the crowd was one of the largest they had seen for the local Republican presidential caucuses.

Only Iowa voters registered with the Republican Party were eligible to cast votes in the GOP caucus, but people could register with the party or register to vote and declare a party at the caucus sites Monday evening.

Iowa Democrats only took care of party business Monday at the Democratic precinct caucuses, instead this year opting for a mail-in presidential preference ballot with the results to be revealed later.

People registered as Democratic voters can request a presidential preference card to be mailed to them. The cards are being mailed out now, and the last day to request one is Monday, Feb. 19. The Democratic preference cards must be returned by March 5 to be counted, and the results will be announced on Super Tuesday, March 5, when 14 states will hold presidential primaries.

The new Iowa Democratic system was devised after the Democratic National Committee – at the urging of President Joe Biden – changed the party nominating calendar to begin with states with greater diversity, beginning with the South Carolina primary on Feb. 3.

While the Republican Party reported results Monday night, it does not declare an official winner. The caucus results are used to allocate Iowa’s 40 delegates to support candidates at the July 2024 Republican National Convention to be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

– The Associated Press contributed to this report.