My Time in Iowa on Caucus Day

The Iowa Caucuses were chaotic before we even thought we’d get results.

A few months ago, I got the opportunity to make it out to Iowa for the first official vote for the 2020 presidential election. And just this past week, I made it out to Iowa with about 45–50 other students, all hoping to try and understand this political process better. Before getting there, I re-read the rules and guidelines for the caucuses, knowing that I would inevitably get even more confused when I arrived. You can find the more detailed rules synthesized here, but the general gist is people align themselves by the candidate they want and need to reach 15% to get any delegates.

I hadn’t ever been to Iowa until we made it on Sunday afternoon, and it honestly did not feel physical like there was a massive event the next day. The streets of Des Moines were empty that night, but you could just feel the energy building as you saw or walked by anyone. Talking to Lyft and Uber drivers all weekend, I was just fascinated hearing what they had to say about caucusing, and singlehandedly the main thing I heard was this: often people don’t going caucus because it takes too much time. For as much power this first statement by the American people Iowa is, the fact that only around 200,000 people usually turn out to caucus is disturbing, to say the least. It doesn’t just speak to the fact that voting is…