What Did — And Didn’t — Go Down In The Iowa Caucuses

Well, Amelia, based on the 2016 caucus attendance numbers, 759 people participated at the Iowa City 21 precinct last time around, so they may outpace that in 2020.

Amelia’s anecdote about the University of Iowa students who said they’d been contacted by Buttigieg’s volunteers led me to dive into the data: Johnson County, home to Iowa City, is the only county besides Polk (Des Moines) to have a field office opened by every candidate — even Michael Bennet, who has only two in the state. Even in counties where everyone is competing, some campaigns may be able to find an edge tonight.

One milestone we’ve already reached in the 2020 Democratic primary: more serious female contenders have run than in any other presidential cycle.

It remains to be seen how well Warren, Klobuchar and Gabbard will do with voters, or whether one of them can win the nomination, but their candidacies suggest that many of the barriers women typically face — such as encouragement disparities and women’s self-perception that they lack qualifications — are being eroded. And political science has shown that young women grow more politically active (and hopeful about democracy) when they witness women running for office. These “role model effects” can be observed even if a female candidate doesn’t win. It’s one reason that, on the campaign trail, Warren has young women pinky promise to remember that running for office is “what girls do.”

So, two men currently lead national polls, but even a highly visible loss by a woman can contribute to long-term gains in representation.