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Ron Paul supporters may be able to rest easy on Friday and heading into New Hampshire now that some of the vote tallies have been broken down to determine what went wrong (or to some, what went right) for the 2008 US Presidential candidate in Iowa. While his loyal support base may have been hoping for a stronger finish, CNN's Larry King and Wolf Blitzer both commented on how "strong a showing" Ron Paul made under the circumstances. Statewide, Paul finished at 10%, just 3 points behind both Fred Thompson and John McCain. A look at the 23 Eastern most counties in Iowa paints a different picture, however. In that region, which includes the college town of Iowa City and the counties north, south and east of Iowa City, placed Ron Paul at an impressive 14% - or in third place. Head west to the central and rural portions of the state and Paul's numbers take a nose dive. Story County, home to the Republican straw poll host of Ames, Iowa, actually registered one of the biggest percentage of votes for Paul in the central region - 12%. Aside from a few sporadic counties, Ron Paul's numbers registered in the single digits. His numbers really didn't get much better when we hit the Western portion of that state either. Of the 23 counties in the Eastern section of Iowa, only 5 placed Ron Paul in single digits. Of those 5, however, Paul registered with approximately 9% of the vote in four of those counties. His average was essentially brought down by voters in the large number (but less populated) rural counties of Iowa. Because Paul's campaign has evolved most aggressively over the Net, one has to question how much of the central (rural) portions of Iowa are inclined to use the Internet. A review of Verizon's coverage map certainly suggests that broadband accessibility is much more available in the Eastern portion of Iowa. Johnson County (home to Iowa City) registered some of the most impressive totals for Ron Paul at just over 15% while Dubuque County registered nearly 13% of the vote for Paul. Linn County, just north of Johnson and home to Cedar Rapids, registered just shy of 11% for Ron Paul. Pottawattamie County in the far west and home to Council Bluffs gave Paul a decent 12% (0ne of the exceptions in the Western portion of the state). Counties containing some of Iowa's biggest cities, strangely enough, were not strongholds for the Republican Congressman. In Polk County (home of Iowa's largest city, Des Moines), Paul received 9%. The home county of Davenport gave him just under 9%. Sioux City registered just under 8%. By contrast, Mike Huckabee's numbers were massive in the Central portion of the state and Polk County. In the East, with the exception of the Southeast counties, Huckabee tended to rank in the 20 percentile range (or under 30%) compared to the Central and Western portions of the state where he pulled numbers in the high 30's and well into the 40 percentile range. In rural Iowa, especially, it was not unusual to see Huckabee getting more than half the votes among Republicans. This cut severely into Ron Paul's votes. He picked up 2 delegates Thursday without a whole lot of effort. The third place finishers only picked up one more than him and the actual vote counts separating the three were not significant in the whole scheme of things. Ron Paul was also the big favorite among independent voters, of which there are many in the state of New Hampshire. All The New Hampshire Primaries Coverage from Gambling911.com Here --- Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher CCostigan@CostiganMedia.com Originally published January 4, 2008 10:41 am EST
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Ron Paul Gets 14
Percent in Eastern
Iowa