Caucus aftermath

Although the Nevada presidential caucuses have receded from the consciousness of most political observers, as recent news reports suggest, beyond the actual selection of Nevada's delegates to the Democratic and Republican Party national conventions, there is still a fair amount of unfinished caucus business, particularly on the Democratic side. 

Most notably, as parting shots to Nevada, both the Obama and Clinton campaigns filed complaints with the state Democratic Party detailing perceived inconsistencies and violations of caucus rules, as well as claims of intimidation and dirty politics by the other campaign.  In addition, caucus participants flooded the state Democratic Party with emails and phone calls detailing grievances of their own. 

In response, Democratic state party chair Jill Derby submitted a commentary to the Las Vegas Sun on February 3rd that sought to put a positive spin in the face of the controversy, complaints, and chaos of January 19th.  The party also plans to issue a full report at some point in the near future.  To determine if their allegations were legitimate or simply sour grapes, I tried to follow-up with the Obama and Clinton campaigns.  By the time I did so, however, the campaigns had already packed up and left town, with only one to return at some point this summer (presuming that the party can actually determine its nominee by then).

Many of the problems that occurred on the 19th were not surprising for a first time event that dramatically exceeded turnout expectations (why the party did not believe its own hype is another question for another day).  On the other hand, what is puzzling is that the party did not have in place a mechanism to collect systematic feedback about the caucuses. 

This, however, did not have to be the case.  Last September, Dave Clapsaddle, a graduate student in the Public Affairs program at UNLV who is also active in Democratic politics, approached me about conducting a caucus field study (Dave was motivated to do so after taking a summer course taught by the field study guru, Donald Green of Yale University).  The goal of our proposed study was to systematically assess the quality of the training of the caucus organizers, the impact that the early caucuses had for party building, and the impressions of the process by caucus participants. 

We put together a proposal that consisted of a pre-assessment of caucus organizers to be administered after their training and prior to the caucuses, a post-assessment given to the organizers after the caucuses to determine the effectiveness of their training, and a follow-up during the fall general election campaign to assess if their participation in the caucuses led them to increase their political activity.  We also hoped to randomly sample participants after the caucuses to gauge their impressions of the process and again during the fall to determine if their involvement with the caucuses altered their patterns of political participation. 

After an exchange of emails and phone calls, Dave finally met with representatives of the state party organization last fall.  Although initially the party appeared interested in the project, they eventually declined to cooperate with us on the grounds that the information we were seeking was proprietary and was not to be shared with outsiders even though our goal was to aid the party in evaluating the successes and failures of the caucuses.

Needless to say, the information from this project would have been quite helpful in sorting out what happened on the 19th.  At the same time, the social scientist in me did not want this opportunity to completely slip-by.  So I put together a brief survey designed to assess why people chose to participate, what they thought of the caucus process, and the likelihood that their caucus involvement would lead to greater political activity in the future.  I emailed it to about 90 people or so and got back 44 completed surveys. 

While certainly not a representative, random sample, the completed surveys are the only non-anecdotal data collected from the caucuses that I know of.  So what evidence did the survey yield? 

With respect to demographic and political characteristics, the sample does not look a lot like Nevada (although it is probably fairly representative of caucus participants).  75 percent of the respondents were Democrats, 68 percent had either college degrees or post-graduate training, and there were slightly more men than women in the sample.  Respondents were more-or-less evenly distributed throughout Clark County (with the southeast being slightly over represented and the northeast underrepresented) with little to no overlap among caucus sites.  The average number of years that respondents had identified with their party was just under twelve and a half with the most being 44.  Not surprisingly, over 77 percent responded that they were very interested in politics and with only a few exceptions, most respondents reported high turnout at their caucus sites (only 15 percent reported turnout of less than 50 participants).

The primary reason that respondents reported participating in the caucuses (45.5 percent) was that they are party regulars.  13 percent participated because of contact by a campaign and another 30 percent did so for a variety of other reasons ("make my voice heard," "a historical opportunity," or "to stop Hillary Clinton").  

Respondents' impressions of the caucus organization were a mixed bag.  While 57 percent either agreed or strongly agreed that the caucus organizers were informed, able to explain the process, and answer questions, nearly an equal amount either disagreed or strongly disagreed that among participants there was little or no misunderstanding about the process.  More significantly, nearly 80 percent of respondents reported problems at their caucus sites (with the most frequent issues being a shortage of printed ballots and disagreements over the counting) and 30 percent reported multiple problems.  With respect to impressions of the fairness of the process, just over half of the sample felt that the caucus organizers were neutral and did not favor one candidate over the other (the largest reported indicator of unfairness was caucus organizers wearing candidate garb).  At the same time, nearly four in five respondents felt that overall the caucus process was fair or for the most part fair.

The survey also included a series of questions that attempted to determine the level of discussion and give and take among participants that may have led to any change in preferences.  Just over half of the sample reported that supporters from various campaigns had sought to persuade them to change their preferences, resulting in three conversions.  On the other hand, just one in four respondents indicated that they sought to persuade other participants to support the respondent's preferred candidate (however, over half of these attempts at persuasion were reported as being successful).  In general, there did appear to be a fair amount of discussion at the caucus sites with over half of the sample observing attempts at persuasion (with 60 percent of attempts at persuasion being aimed at participants who were already supporting other candidates and the rest targeting undecided voters and those whose candidates did not make the 15 percent viability threshold).

The good news is that while a lot of the anecdotal evidence floating around suggests that because of their caucus experiences, a lot of people claimed to be so turned-off that they would be less likely to participate in politics down the road, for the sample the caucuses appear to have had a neutral or even positive effect.  Specifically, while nearly 60 percent of the sample reported that their participation in the caucuses would have no influence on their future political participation, over 30 percent reported that they would be somewhat more likely or much more likely to increase their political involvement.  Only 11 percent reported that they would be somewhat less likely or much less likely to participate in politics based upon their caucus experiences.

Extrapolating a bit from these data, it appears that most of the problems on the 19th were a function of high turnout and to lesser degrees, uneven training of the caucus organizers and a lack of understanding among participants about the process itself.  Despite the volume of reported problems, most saw the process as being fair and a positive for energizing the party bases.  The reported levels of discussion and interaction among participants also should be viewed as a positive, particularly in a locale that is not known for its political and community engagement. 

At the same time, on the Democratic side, the caucuses may be a one and done situation.  Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus is floating a proposal to replace the caucuses with direct primaries.  Assuming that the state legislature can find the money to fund presidential primaries in Nevada, this would likely endanger the state's newly obtained early status.  In her February 3rd commentary, Jill Derby noted that one of the overarching reasons that the Democratic National Committee chose Nevada as the first western nominating event was because of the caucus.  Thus, if the Nevada caucuses go, so might Nevada's status as the first in the west.