Caucusgoers in Iowa
Democratic caucusgoers at a precinct caucus location in Iowa

The first nom­i­nat­ing event in the 2020 Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial con­test is offi­cial­ly under­way. Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers and activists in the Hawk­eye State are meet­ing in school gym­na­si­ums and cafe­te­rias to express their sup­port for a bevy of pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates, from Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden to Eliz­a­beth War­ren and Pete Buttigieg to Amy Klobuchar and Andrew Yang.

The Iowa Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty has still not yet released any offi­cial results (to the annoy­ance of the mass media), but social media is full of unof­fi­cial reports from jour­nal­ists and par­tic­i­pants report­ing on their expe­ri­ence at their cau­cus site.

Here are some of the unof­fi­cial reports we’ve seen:

https://twitter.com/kyleeasterly/status/1224533965211439104

https://twitter.com/luke_stadtler/status/1224518680492507136

And here’s a snip­pet from the Des Moines Reg­is­ter’s live update chronol­o­gy:

When an Iowa cau­cus del­e­gate count gets too close to call — get a coin. That’s what hap­pened at a rur­al precinct in Iowa Falls on Mon­day evening dur­ing a tight cau­cus count between Sen­a­tors Amy Klobuchar and Eliz­a­beth Warren.

Six­ty-two peo­ple were in atten­dance, accord­ing to Sara Bara­nows­ki, edi­tor of the Iowa Falls Times-Cit­i­zen. The via­bil­i­ty thresh­old to obtain del­e­gates in that loca­tion was 10.

Klobuchar of Min­neso­ta took an ear­ly lead with 19 sup­port­ers as her rivals strug­gled to keep pace. But War­ren of Mass­a­chu­setts was able col­lect 19 sup­port­ers of her own.

Klobuchar won the coin toss to win four del­e­gates, while War­ren got three, along with for­mer South Bend, Indi­ana, May­or Pete Buttigieg — despite him hav­ing five few­er sup­port­ers. For­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden earned the remain­ing two.

Anoth­er coin toss was nec­es­sary for a del­e­gate in Ocheyedan. Klobuchar was again a win­ner. Although Pete Buttigieg edged out Klobuchar in a third coin toss.

- Phillip Bailey

Once the Iowa Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty gets its act togeth­er and starts releas­ing num­bers, we will update this post with our assess­ment of the results.

About the author

Andrew Villeneuve is the founder and executive director of the Northwest Progressive Institute, as well as the founder of NPI's sibling, the Northwest Progressive Foundation. He has worked to advance progressive causes for over two decades as a strategist, speaker, author, and organizer. Andrew is also a cybersecurity expert, a veteran facilitator, a delegate to the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, and a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps.

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