The outcomes of the Iowa caucuses, among the most arcane and yet vociferously defended of America’s civic traditions, have made and unmade Presidential campaigns. Since the seventies, this small, white, rural state has cast the first votes in the nominating processes of both major parties. Which is why, since last winter, the politicians seeking the 2020 Democratic nomination—members of the largest Presidential field in history—have been crisscrossing the state, pressing flesh and taking selfies. They have attended the State Fair, the Steak Fry, the L-J, and the Wing Ding, they have given speeches in Iowans’ living rooms, back yards, coffee shops, high-school gyms, and town squares. Now, with the caucuses just two months away, many Iowa Democrats are still asking big questions of the candidates—and are undecided about who they will support. Many others are simply asking what exactly a caucus is.
On Wednesday night, some two hundred and fifty Iowans gathered in the Hall, a railroad-car repair shop turned beer hall in West Des Moines, for a “beer caucus” put on by the Des Moines Register, the state’s largest newspaper. The event, a mock caucus held between six Iowa craft breweries, would be an alcohol-aided dry run to help demystify things. “There’s nothing partisan about tonight,” Carol Hunter, the Register’s executive editor, told the crowd as the event began. “Unless you want to argue over helles versus pilsner.”
Each of the six breweries in the beer caucus had set up at tables along one side of the brick-walled room, and representatives were pouring little plastic cups of their beers and handing them out. Attendees stood around at high tables, sipping and eating popcorn and pretzels out of big bowls. Amber Heller and Devan Vogt, two friends in their twenties, were standing at one of the tables. Neither had ever caucused before. “I’ve been too nervous to go to a caucus—I don’t really know how they work,” Heller said. “And this involves beer also, so that’s a plus.”
At official campaign events in Iowa, many attendees are either serious supporters of a particular candidate or serious vetters of the field. But, like everywhere else, most people in Iowa don’t vote, and many people don’t really follow the campaign. Poor turnout at caucuses—even in important years, they don’t top twenty per cent—is among the chief arguments against them. (This, in addition to Iowa’s overwhelmingly white population, is part of why Julián Castro, the former Cabinet secretary still trying to find a spark for his Presidential bid, has lately been campaigning by explicitly questioning the wisdom of Iowa voting first, and voting the way it does.) Many people at the beer caucus had never caucused before. “They never taught us in school how to caucus,” Vogt said. “You hear about it on the news, but nobody introduces you to it.” When I asked her and Heller why they planned to do so this year, Heller said, “Trump. Donald Trump.” Neither of them, however, was quite sure whom they would caucus for. “I like Pete a lot,” Heller said, meaning Pete Buttigieg, the South Bend, Indiana, mayor. “But then I was telling her”—she gestured at Vogt—“I took this quiz that said that I was closer to Elizabeth Warren. So I’m kind of going between those two.”
A few tables away, Jen Heithoff was standing with her partner, DeAnn Adams. Heithoff grew up in Iowa but had moved in and out of the state as an adult. She’d caucused twice in her life, once in a Republican caucus (she couldn’t remember in which year), and once in a Democratic one (in 2004, the year John Kerry won). Adams recently moved to Iowa from Wyoming. I asked her what she looked for in a beer, and in a Presidential candidate. “Beer, I look for an I.P.A.,” Adams said. “Candidate? I mean—Jen?” Heithoff jumped in. “I’m a Democrat, but feel like we made a mistake by choosing Hillary in 2016,” she said. “I think the country was looking for something a little more extreme, and that Bernie would have been a better match for Trump.”
The breweries were offering the caucusgoers options from across the spectrum. Peace Tree, an outfit out of Knoxville, Iowa, was pouring Blonde Fatale, a lightly hopped Belgian-style ale. Big Grove, from Iowa City, was offering Easy Eddy, a hazy India Pale Ale with notes of tropical fruit. Lake Time, from Clear Lake, was offering the prosaically named Peanut Butter Porter, while SingleSpeed, from Waterloo, was offering Ring Around the Gose, a Leipzig gose with a “contemporary bent.” The two home-town brewers were Exile and Confluence. Exile was offering Ruthie Smooth, a lager named after a legendary nineteen-fifties era Des Moines bar owner, Ruthie Bisignano, who was famous for pouring beer into glasses balanced on her breasts. Confluence was pouring a beer it calls Des Moines I.P.A. “It’s not an East Coast I.P.A., it’s not a West Coast I.P.A., it’s a midwest I.P.A.,” Josh Maxson, Confluence’s head of production, said. “I think Des Moines I.P.A. really has some strong beliefs, it works hard for the masses, and I think the average working man can get behind Des Moines I.P.A.”
The Democratic caucuses in Iowa are like holding two thousand simultaneous town-hall meetings with the fate of the country at stake. Actually, it is that. Each of the state’s seventeen hundred or so precincts holds its own caucus, and each precinct has delegates up for grabs for the nominee, making the process more like an Electoral College contest than a popular vote—candidates can’t just run up the score in one place, they have to compete everywhere. On February 3rd, Iowa Democrats will show up at their designated precinct locations by 7 P.M., and then physically sort themselves out into packs supporting each candidate. An initial count—called the first alignment—will be taken, and then, in most precincts, any candidate who fails to reach at least a fifteen-per-cent threshold of support will be deemed “nonviable.” Supporters of nonviable candidates will then be able to join the supporters of viable candidates—this is where candidates’ organizing strength and volunteer networks come in. Campaigns try to have volunteer representatives in as many of the precinct rooms as possible, to make the case between the first and second alignments. According to a Vox report from November, the Bernie Sanders campaign has “already trained more than 1,000 caucus volunteers, which involves a four-part course around delegate math, persuading voters on the ground, and organizing.”
At the Hall, after the caucusgoers had time to sample the beers, each brewery got to send a representative up to the front of the room to make a pitch for its beer. Certain tropes were familiar. “These times call for a beer that represents Iowa,” the Lake Time representative said, striking a note of regional solidarity. Peace Tree’s representative had a legislative record to point to, explaining that Blonde Fatale, its offering, was brewed in celebration of the Iowa law change in 2010 that allowed breweries to start making beer with higher alcohol content. “We’re a strong supporter of the legislative process,” the rep said. Exile’s rep went for narrative, telling the story of Ruthie Bisignano. “The woman that the beer was named after was a bartender here in Des Moines, in the fifties and sixties, one of the first female bar owners in the state,” he said. “Was famous for a number of reasons but chiefly because of her, uh, very innovative technique for serving beer. She did it and she became a legend because of it, was persecuted by the authorities because of it, and eventually won her tax suit. So vote for Ruthie.”
The beer caucus was actually two caucuses: the Register walked attendees through both a Republican-style caucus and a Democratic-style one. There’s a lot less action in Iowa’s Republican caucuses, mostly because caucusgoers write their votes down on a secret ballot. As the ballots were passed out, Kim Schmett, a former chair of the Polk County Republican Party, who was on hand to guide people through the process, said, “We’re a little lax on ballot security after drinking.”
Finally, it was time for the Democratic caucus. “We are Democrats,” Sean Bagniewski, the chair of the Polk County Democrats, told the crowd. “So it does have to be a little more complicated.” Attendees were instructed to move toward the table of the beer they supported. This is what’s called the first alignment. To survive the first alignment at the beer caucus, the fifteen-per-cent threshold meant thirty-nine people. Caucusgoers wrote their first alignment choice on a preference card, and the organizers also did a head count. “One thing new with the caucus this year: after the first alignment, if you’re in a preference group that’s viable, you cannot move,” Bagniewski said. That means that, in February, if Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg all meet the fifteen-per-cent viability threshold on caucus night, the final outcome of the night and apportioning of delegates will be determined by people who all went in supporting other candidates, like Cory Booker, Andrew Yang, Amy Klobuchar, and Julián Castro.
The results of the first alignment were in. Only two beers made the cut: Big Grove’s Easy Eddy and Peace Tree’s Blonde Fatale. Cheers went up in the room. “The other groups, you must realign,” Judy Downs, the executive director of the Polk County Democrats, said. “You can either join one of these viable groups, or work amongst yourselves to create another viable group.” People in the room began milling about. “Come join Peace Tree!” Amber Heller yelled at some friends. Exile had been her first choice, she said, and she didn’t even like Blonde Fatale. I found DeAnn Adams in the Big Grove crowd. “I.P.A.,” she said. Tried and true, I said. “That’s right.” A guy in a gray sweatshirt stood with two friends surveying the scene. “This is democracy, man,” he said.
The second alignment period was over, and the results were in. Downs read them out. “The final alignment, the second alignment, there was actually three groups that got delegates,” she said. In third place: Big Grove. In second place: Uncommitted. In first place: Peace Tree. A cheer went up in the room. Wait a minute—uncommitted was in second place? I found Downs by the bar and asked what happened. “Technically, if they had a little bit more organizational power, they could have won the entire caucus,” she said, of the uncommitted group. “So it tells you what campaigns should be thinking about, because campaigns shouldn't just be thinking about how to get the first, the largest amount of people in that first alignment, but they should be thinking about where their candidates lie in terms of people’s second place.”
It didn’t seem a very heartening omen: Iowans had been brought together to practice how to choose, and had chosen not to choose. I found Heller and Vogt again as the crowd was dispersing. Both of them did not like the Democratic Party’s way of caucusing. “It was very crazy,” Heller said. “I think it made me not want to go. I’m going to, because it’s my duty. But I don’t want to.”
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