Huckabee’s Wrong About Palin and Biden’s Votes

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) received one of the loudest cheers from GOP delegates Wednesday night when he joked about the few votes Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) got in his run for president.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin “got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States,” Huckabee said.

But that’s wrong.

Palin received 909 votes in her second and final run for mayor in 1999. Biden received the support of 2,328 delegates in the Iowa caucuses. Biden dropped out of the race after his fifth place finish there.

UPDATE: The number of caucus delegates that Biden received don’t reflect the actual turnout in Iowa, according to the Assocated Press.

But according to another metric, Biden still received more backing than Palin. About 239,000 people turned out to vote in Iowa’s Democratic caucuses. Biden received the backing of nearly 1 percent of delegates. If delegates were doled out roughly proportionally to the raw vote totals, Biden received the support of approximately 2,390 caucus-goers.

For the record, Palin got 617 votes in her first run for mayor in 1996. Combined with her re-election bid in 1999, Palin received 1,526 votes for mayor.