DES MOINES, Iowa — The voting is finished, and the corn kernels are packed away for the year. The 2019 Cast Your Kernel presidential poll results showed something that has never happened before in the 15 years of the poll at the Iowa State Fair: almost exactly as many fairgoers voted for a Democratic candidate for president as a Republican.
- Total votes for Republican candidates: 33,280
- Total votes for Democratic candidates: 33,165
That 50-50 percentage split is the closest ever.
Republicans:
- Donald Trump: 32,375 (97%)
- Bill Weld: 905 (3%)
Democrats:
- Joe Biden: 8,143 (25%)
- Pete Buttigieg: 5,892 (18%)
- Elizabeth Warren: 5,064 (15%)
- Kamala Harris: 3,700 (11%)
- Bernie Sanders: 2,675 (8%)
- Cory Booker: 1,219 (4%)
- Tulsi Gabbard: 1,153 (3%)
- Tom Steyer: 1,078 (3%)
- Amy Klobuchar: 905 (3%)
- Andrew Yang: 745 (2%)
- Beto O’Rourke: 550 (2%)
- Steve Bullock: 300 (1%)
- John Delaney: 277 (1%)
- Kirsten Gillibrand: 270 (1%)
- Julián Castro: 264 (1%)
- Marianne Williamson: 240 (1%)
- Michael Bennet: 129 (0%)
- Jay Inslee: 120 (0%)
- John Hickenlooper: 115 (0%)
- Tim Ryan: 70 (0%)
- Joe Sestak: 69 (0%)
- Wayne Messam: 66 (0%)
- Bill de Blasio: 61 (0%)
- Seth Moulton: 60 (0%)
The overall turnout was the third highest for Cast Your Kernel. In 2012, 72,216 people voted when Republican Mitt Romney defeated President Barack Obama, a Democrat, 55-45%. In 2016, 69,598 people voted when Trump topped Democrat Hillary Clinton 56-44%.
Obama is the only Democrat to win the Cast Your Kernel poll. In 2008, he defeated Republican John McCain 51-49% with 48,865 kernels cast.
