What Did — And Didn’t — Go Down In The Iowa Caucuses
The precinct chair just announced that there are nearly 800 people in the room – already more than in 2016, and the doors haven’t closed yet.
IOWA CITY, Iowa — One of the weirdest and most unpredictable aspects of the caucuses is the tussle for undecided or second-choice voters. This is a place where well-organized and persuasive volunteers — particularly precinct captains, who serve as the representative for their favored candidates in the room — can make a difference by literally convincing their friends and neighbors to join their side.
I talked to Alex Linden, a Warren precinct captain in the Iowa City suburb of Coralville, about his strategy for the evening. “We’re talking to every person who walks in, even if they’re donning a Pete Buttigieg t-shirt,” he said. And he added that he’s going into the caucus with a targeted pitch for supporters of candidates who might not make it to 15 percent. “We want to emphasize the through lines between those two candidates.” For example, if Yang doesn’t clear the viability threshold, this is the kind of elevator pitch his supporters might hear: “Warren is one of the only candidates that has given interest to universal basic income and the freedom dividend. She’s read Yang’s book and is open to his ideas.”
Of course, Linden and other Warren supporters will be jockeying with other campaigns for the attention and support of undecided and second-choice caucusgoers. But if the race is close and some candidates are hovering just under the viability threshold, those small interactions could make a big difference.
If you could wave a magic wand that would make any candidate president, who would you pick? More people (about 25 percent) said Warren than any other candidate in a new YouGov poll with Data for Progress. Biden comes in second, with 21 percent, and Sanders third with about 19 percent. But people’s “magic wand” preferences don’t match who they say they will actually be voting for in the primaries: 30 percent say they will be voting for Biden, 9 more points than his magic wand support. So, why aren’t people treating their ballot like a magic wand? More than likely, people are thinking strategically about their vote, and sometimes people believe their first choice isn’t the most strategic choice. In this case, that strategy probably involves thinking about who they think can win in November.
