In order to participate, caucus voters will have to be in line by 7 p. The results of the Iowa caucus are expected to be released throughout the evening. Sometimes, the winner of the caucus is not known until the next day. Caucuses are like neighborhood party gatherings.
They are held in schools, community buildings and churches around the state, and begin with messages from state and local party officials. Instead of voting for a candidate using a secret ballot, caucuses involve physically moving to a designated part of a room along with others who support the same contender. Because it all happens in the open, Iowans are able to try to persuade others to switch their support.
Iowa has 1, precinct caucuses plus nearly "satellite" caucuses for Iowans scattered around the country, along with some taking place internationally. After the second phase is done, support for each candidate is tallied again. The number of delegates each candidate receives is ultimately based on the number of supporters each candidate has once the nonviable contenders are eliminated.
The Iowa caucus is important because it is the first time that voters around the country see how the candidates fare in a real contest, rather than just in polling averages. But the state's voters do tend to pick the same candidate who eventually wins the Democratic nomination. In fact, the last Democrat to win the Iowa caucus but lose the nomination was an Iowan: Sen. Tom Harkin, who won the caucus in after his rivals did not seriously contest it. While Democratic political leaders filed into the convention hall, protestors brutally clashed with police right outside its doors, with television broadcasting the political divide to the nation.
Hubert Humphrey would go on to win the Democratic nomination over George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy despite not winning a single primary, highlighting for many the disparity between public opinion and the political process. Eager to repair the damage from the primary campaign, Democratic party leaders formed the McGovern-Fraser Commission. State party leaders had to give 30 days notice before hosting primaries or caucuses, encouraging full participation.
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaking to voters during a campaign rally in Waverly, Iowa on November 3, The Iowa Democratic caucuses will take place on February 3, , making it the first nominating contest for the Democratic Party in choosing their presidential candidate to face Donald Trump in the election. Carter was able to capitalize on the media attention he garnered to propel himself forward, ultimately winning the Democratic presidential nomination and then the presidency.
Ever since then, Iowa has remained a crucial proving ground for nearly every presidential candidate. And candidates are, in large part, judged by whether their caucus performance meets the expectations of the media and political elites.
Yet Romney was portrayed as a big loser, since he had been campaigning hard in Iowa and had once seemed the favorite to win. Essentially, Iowa moved its caucuses to the front of the line at the perfect moment.
It happened in , just while the Democratic Party was overhauling its nomination process to give actual voters, not just party bosses, more of a say. Republicans adopted very similar reforms soon afterward. But for , the first nomination contest under the reformed system, Iowa Democrats slated their usual caucuses for the unusually early date of January People offer various explanations for why they did so: a deliberate effort to help a favorite son who was considering running for president, an arcane party rules change that required that 30 days pass between various state and local events, or even that a lack of available hotel rooms in Des Moines that summer necessitated an earlier state convention date which then necessitated an earlier caucus date.
At first, few people outside Iowa noticed or cared, and the caucus results got little attention nationally. But in retrospect, after George McGovern shockingly won the Democratic nomination, insiders second-guessing about why they failed to predict his rise concluded that they should have paid more attention when he finished a surprisingly strong second in Iowa. Savvy Iowans of both parties worked hard to promote this idea that Iowa was an early bellwether.
Future candidates in both parties spent more time and money there, and the national press started regularly covering the results as a major event. Not at all! And presidential candidates of both parties have long felt compelled to voice fealty to powerful interest groups in the state.
Finally, it seems just plain unfair to a lot of people in other states that Iowa gets such power. Caucus defenders respond by saying that Iowa does skew the results — positively. In any case, every attempt to supplant Iowa has failed, because neither national party can agree on who else should be first in line, or on an alternative way to do things. So the parties began harshly penalizing other states that tried to move their nomination contests too early.
Accordingly, nobody even bothered to try to leapfrog Iowa this time around. Everyone is anxious to see how the actual Iowa results measure up to their expectations, to help them better understand who can actually win. First, how will Biden do? Some speculate that other candidates have more enthusiastic supporters and better turnout organizations, both of which matter a great deal in the caucus format. A mediocre finish for Biden is probably survivable, but a surprisingly poor finish would likely sow doubts about his campaign.
And if he manages to win the caucuses, that will be taken as a good sign for his chances to win the nomination. Second, who will be the main alternative to Biden? Right now, the polls suggest it will be Sen.
Bernie Sanders, who has led several recent polls in Iowa and is on the rise nationally. Caucus-goers could either confirm that perception and pave the way for a Biden-Sanders showdown — or shake it up by elevating Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, or someone else with a surprisingly strong performance. Indeed, no one sat down and designed our bizarre presidential nomination system — even Iowans admit that no one would ever sit down and design this exact system from scratch.
But candidates keep investing their time and money, the media keeps giving saturation coverage to the results, and political elites keep on believing that Iowa matters. So Iowa just keeps on mattering. A version of this article was originally published in
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