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

Undecided caucusgoers got a fair amount of media attention in recent days. According to preliminary entrance poll results, 13 percent made up their minds today, while 20 percent decided who to support in the last few days. In contrast, 19 percent made up their minds in January, and 46 percent decided before that.

IOWA CITY, Iowa — This year, Iowa voters have been spoiled for choice — and many have taken their time settling on their first choice. In the last 48 hours before the caucuses, several people told me they were still open to persuasion by the various candidates’ camps in the initial round of decision-making.

But there’s another kind of caucusgoer — the diehards loyal to a single candidate, who they may have been supporting with time, money and enthusiasm for months. Those are the people who have spent the past few days knocking on doors to convince others in their area to spend a not-insignificant chunk of their evening shuffling around a high school gym or public library, and who will be working hard tonight to draw their wafflier friends and neighbors to their side.

Here in Iowa City, students will play a big role in tonight’s local caucuses, many of which (including the one I’ll be attending) will actually be held on the University of Iowa campus. So last night, I dropped by the campus center to talk to a group of students as they prepared for one of their final rounds of door-knocking for Warren.

The event was bold counterprogramming for the Super Bowl, but there was a big perk for the students who showed up. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a freshman congresswoman from Massachusetts and the only member of the “Squad” to endorse Warren, stopped by to rally the troops. “I know you’ve probably had a lot of uncomfortable conversations,” Pressley told the 30 or so young people crowded into a small meeting room. “Well those conversations — dig deep and keep having them, because there are lives literally hanging in the balance, depending on you.” The students were plainly starstruck. Pressley mentioned that today is her 46th birthday (no prizes for guessing what she said she wanted her present to be) — and a few minutes later, a birthday cake with a lit candle magically appeared from the back of the room.

As the students clustered around Pressley for selfies and began gathering forms and stickers for a last evening of door-knocking, I chatted with a floppy-haired junior named Lee who started volunteering for Warren last August. Like many other Warren supporters I talked to, he was persuaded by one of Warren’s many policy plans. “My mom recently had to quit her job because she had about 300 hours of unpaid wages — she’s still trying to get it paid back,” Lee said. “I was asking the candidates about that, and Warren had a very detailed answer that involved greater enforcement in the Labor Department and wouldn’t require congressional action. That really impressed me and that was sort of, like, the moment I knew I was locked in.”

Lee told me that volunteering for Warren hadn’t always been easy for him, but just a few hours earlier, he’d had one of his best experiences so far. “Literally my very last off-campus canvass today was someone I had canvassed twice before,” he said. “Both times they were undecided. Today they said they were decided for Warren. So that was a pretty good feeling.”

You know how people will get really into a band but then sour on it when it becomes super popular? That desire to be different shows up in elections too.

According to a December Civiqs survey of Iowa Democrats, the more you prefer to go against the grain, the less likely you are to support Biden’s candidacy. Civiqs asked, “When something becomes popular with other people, do you tend to become less interested in it?” Of those who said they want to be different, just 13 percent support Biden; compare this to 32 percent who support Sanders, 31 percent who support Buttigieg and 24 percent who support Warren.

The 2020 Democratic primary has featured extensive debate about policy issues like Medicare for All and immigration, but individuals’ preferences aren’t all that predictable based on policy attitudes and beliefs, especially as political and social identities become blurred. Taste and personality play a big role.