MICHELE NORRIS, host:
Now, earlier today when David Greene spoke with our colleague Renee Montagne at MORNING EDITION, he mentioned something that caught our attention.
DAVID GREENE: A lot of the campaigns, including Clinton's, are talking about going after voters who have never caucused before. And that's actually a really big group. I'm going to give you a number that surprised me, Renee. The last few caucuses, only 6 or 7 percent of the voting age population in Iowa actually caucused.
NORRIS: Only 6 or 7 percent. That's a small number of people who have a big impact on the presidential election. We wondered just who are those likely caucus-goers. And to find out, we turn to David Redlawsk. He's a political science professor at the University of Iowa. He's also director of the Hawkeye Poll of Likely Caucus-goers, and he joins us now.
Hello, David.
Professor DAVID REDLAWSK (Political Science, University of Iowa; Director, Hawkeye Poll of Likely Caucus-goers): Hello.
NORRIS: So this very small group of people - small but also very influential in terms of demographics - how would you describe them? What do they look like?
Prof. REDLAWSK: Well, they are typically better educated, somewhat higher income, more likely to be a little bit older, and in the case of Republicans, more likely to be male than voters as a whole.
NORRIS: Other things that would distinguish them, likely to be retirees or still in the workforce? Do they have kids by and large, live in cities or rural areas?
Prof. REDLAWSK: Caucus-goers are going to skew older so there are going to be less likely to have young families. They are somewhat more rural than urban, even for Iowa. But to a great extent, all of these differences are relatively small compared to Iowa voters as a whole.
NORRIS: So in looking at their profile, are you able to discern any kind of likely interests or concerns?
Prof. REDLAWSK: We're finding, basically, that the big issues differ a little bit on the two parties. I mean, for Democrats, Iraq has been the number one issue. The economy is also a very significant issue for Democrats. But we're not finding that within caucus-goers, they look very different from other Democrats.
For the Republicans, we are seeing some differences. So we're seeing, for example, the immigration issue playing a role here. That is likely caucus-goers on the Republican side are significantly more likely to say immigration is very important than are Republicans overall.
NORRIS: If you were to compare the profile of the likely caucus-goer in Iowa or, say, the likely voter in another early primary state, say, New Hampshire or South Carolina, how do they match up?
Prof. REDLAWSK: Caucus-goers in Iowa are certainly going to be whiter. They're going to be older. They're probably going to be more likely to be married than voters in states like New Hampshire and certainly in South Carolina where a substantial proportion of the Democratic primary vote will come from African-Americans. So in that sense, Iowa's quite different than those states.
NORRIS: Is there - there's something about the caucus system that keeps people away.
Prof. REDLAWSK: It's harder. When you want to go caucus, you've got to get out and plan to spend a couple of hours when you go vote. To a great extent these days in many places, you can mail in your ballot or at the worse, you go take a couple of minutes to cast a vote.
NORRIS: So there's no absentee caucusing?
Prof. REDLAWSK: No, there's no absentee caucusing. The other piece about caucusing that I think is an important thing - we don't talk politics a lot to our friends and neighbors. You know, when we vote it's a little secret thing. We go into a booth and we cast our vote and we do it alone.
With the caucus, you've got to be willing to come out and talk about politics with, you know, folks in your neighborhood, and that's uncomfortable for some people.
NORRIS: David Redlawsk, good to talk to you. Thanks so much.
Prof. REDLAWSK: Thanks very much.
NORRIS: David Redlawsk is a political science professor at the University of Iowa and the director of the Hawkeye Poll of Likely Caucus-goers. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.