BURLINGTON, Iowa – Monmouth students saw history in the making in more than one way when they attended the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday, Feb. 3. They saw the start of the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination process, as well as what might have been the beginning of the demise of the 48-year-old Iowa caucuses because of the more than 24-hour delay in reporting results.
But what almost went unnoticed was the relatively light turnout. Democrats had expected a record number of voters to participate. Instead, they saw a turnout that nearly mirrored 2016.
When a group of Monmouth students and faculty led by political science faculty member Robin Johnson arrived as observers at Burlington Community High School the Caucus, they were greeted by Des Moines County Demoratic Party Chairman Tom Courtney, who said: “In 2016 we had 250 caucus-goers, and if the projections are correct there could be 300-350 people here tonight.”
But from the beginning something didn’t seem right, particularly among the staffers for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who began frantically calling people around 6:30pm, when it became clear that turnout would not only be lower than the projected numbers but less than half of what it was in 2016.
When the caucus began at 7pm, only 118 people were in attendance at Des Moines County Precinct 5, prompting Courtney to call it “disappointing and discouraging.”
Confusion and chaos describe the moments following the start of the caucus,. Votes were miscounted, voters left their first-choice candidate before they were supposed to, groups that thought they were guaranteed viability in the first round left early or made calls back to campaign headquarters to decide where they should go. One woman, who was a Warren supporter, left the voting area and moved back into the observer section to decide where she wanted to vote.
At stake in Precinct 5 were five delegates, who will be sent to the county convention in March. National delegates are sent to the Democratic National Convention – which will be held July 13-16 in Milwaukee – based on voting at the district and state conventions.
When the dust had settled, two went to former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who had 49 votes, two went to former Vice President Joe Biden (41 votes) and one went to Sen. Bernie Sanders (29 votes). Overall, Buttigieg led Des Moines County with 35.7 percent of the reported votes, followed by Sanders (24.3), Biden (20) and Warren (12.9).
Burlington High School senior Elena Abousassaly said that she’s been supporting Buttigieg since the beginning. “I think he’s the most moderate candidate,” she said. “He’s open about a lot, and he’s chill.” She added, “I haven’t been able to make it to any of his rallies, but no matter who wins the nomination I’ll still vote.”
That was a common theme repeated by caucus-goers. Former Republican Faith Woodsmall of Burlington said that she supports Buttigieg because of his health care policy. “I like my private healthcare, and he’s the only candidate that would allow me to keep it,” she said. “I come from a family of Republicans, we own our own corporation, and under (President Donald) Trump our taxes have been super low because of how small business-friendly he is, but I just want to see a change and I’ll vote for Pete if he wins the nomination. If not, I’ll still vote Democrat.”
Although winners of Des Moines County Precinct 5 were known less than 90 minutes after the start of the caucuses, no one that night knew who won statewide. The reason: the Iowa Democratic Party announced last week that precincts would no longer phone in results but instead report them via an app, a process which failed miserably. So the question arose, why did the Iowa Democratic Party change the way the caucuses were done?
In an interview Tuesday night NPR, Courtney said that he’d been trying to call party headquarters in Des Moines for hours but hadn’t been able to get through. So he decided to go home and report his numbers in the morning. The Iowa Democratic Party only had 12 people in state offices ready to answer calls from more than 1,600 precincts across the state.
Tamra Keith of NPR asked Courtney whether he could go home without reporting results, he said, “I’m the party chair, I can go home when I want to go home. I’m just gonna call it tomorrow.”
CJ Bonifer - Photography Manager