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Iowa is the starting line for presidential politics. It is the first state in the country to vote. This gives Iowa voters the opportunity to immediately show their support for their favorite candidates.
Why is it importantThis is important because these initial results may give an indication of how a candidate will behave with the rest of the US electorate.
As Mark Preston, editor-in-chief of CNN Politics, said during the 2016 main race, that Iowa "can either kill a campaign or launch a campaign".
The election results in Iowa give candidates a chance to assess whether their platform has an echo among voters, and whether they should pursue their campaign strategies or change them.
Another reason Iowa gets the attention of political candidates is that they hold caucuses rather than primaries, making voting a community and interactive event.
So, what is a caucus?
In Iowa caucuses, unlike the country's primaries, you can not just operate a lever in a curtain booth at any time of the day, at your convenience.
Instead, Iowans must attend public meetings in school gyms, arts centers, churches, libraries, restaurants and even fire stations in more than one location. thousand pregnant to vote for a candidate.
The Democratic caucus system is a little more complex than the GOP process. Once meetings are open, participants must declare a preference for a candidate.
Then, groups of voters who support the same candidate define positions around the room. People who still can not decide join a group called "not engaged".
It is there that it gets complicated: To be considered "viable", a group must cross a certain threshold – usually about 15% of the caucus participation rate in each constituency.
Once the first round votes are counted, anyone stuck in a group that is not "viable" has the chance to align with a candidate who has passed the threshold.
Also, it's going to be quite different this year …
In order to make the 2020 caucus process more accessible, the Democrats announced in February the creation of a "virtual caucus", which will allow any Democrat from Iowa to meet in caucus virtually at moments accurate for six days before the February 3rd caucuses only in person on the traditional Monday night.
This change comes after Democrats across the country have called for changes in caucuses to make them more accessible to people who can not be released at a particular time, such as single parents, shift workers and people with disabilities.
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