Let’s start with the obvious: Ryan Binkley doesn’t matter when digesting the Iowa caucus results. The Texas pastor and businessperson has been running a quixotic campaign for the GOP presidential nomination that has gone virtually unnoticed. Which is why it was a bit jarring to see results tonight showing hundreds of Iowans had actually voted for him (far more than former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson).

It all raised some fairly obvious questions. Such as, why? And who are these Binkley voters? And what is it that compelled them to cast their votes this way?

Justin Comer, a 33-year old musician and music theory teacher, was Binkley’s one voter in Coralville Precinct 4. He did so, he explained, “mostly because [Binkley] was the lowest polling candidate.”

Comer isn’t a Republican. He backed Bernie Sanders in the 2020 caucus and wrote the Vermont Senator in for president later that year. But Democrats have a largely immaterial election in Iowa this year. And he wanted to “take part in the process.” So he showed up … and voted Binkley.

“It wasn’t entirely sincere, so there was a bit of irony to it,” he conceded. “I am a politically active person and wanted to be present for an event that had some kind of interesting result.”

Comer wasn’t going entirely blind when he cast his ballot. He said he first became aware of Binkley when he attended the Iowa State fair in August and was surprised to see a pastor distributing “WTF” merch (Binkley’s version of the acronym is “Way to Freedom”). He read op-eds from the candidate on economic inequality and admired that Binkley wasn’t focusing on transgender issues. He also didn’t think any of the other non Donald Trump candidates “would be better for the country than Trump.”

So, go with Binkley? we asked.

“Why not?” he replied.

Read full article here: https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/01/15/iowa-caucus/we-found-a-binkley-voter-00135722