Iowa Caucus

Welcome to our first Scenes From The Iowa Caucus Trail piece! The Starting Line team has long wanted to do some sort of regular Sunday morning series to give our readers something consistent to read with their coffee and morning news shows. We’ve settled on doing a round-up of all the fun, weird and insightful…

John Delaney called the Green New Deal “impossible,” Medicare For All “dangerous,” and went after some of his fellow Democrats for being too soft on immigration during a campaign stop in Panora Saturday afternoon. The Democrat made it clear he wants to be the middle-of-the-road candidate who can defeat President Donald Trump next year. Delaney…

Fresh off her presidential debate performance, one that catapulted her to the top of Google candidate searches for the evening, Marianne Williamson returned to Iowa today for a series of events with local Democrats. At an event in Grimes, the author acknowledged that some of her comments on stage about the lack of importance of…

If you haven’t stopped thinking about Marianne Williamson’s debate promise to harness love to cast out Donald Trump, just know this: that moment was 100% pure, unadulterated Marianne, and yes, she is always in that mode. Iowans have gotten the full Marianne Williamson experience up close for almost a year. She started with early, testing-the-waters…

The second group of ten Democratic presidential candidates took the stage in Miami tonight, all while thousands of Iowans got together at debate watch parties to check out their choices. Iowa Starting Line once again sent our team to multiple watch parties, including in Burlington, Winterset, Clive and several Des Moines locations. You can see…

Iowans gathered once again at debate watch parties across the state to watch the second night of the first Democratic debates. Many took notes as they intently watched the candidates square off with one another. Iowa Starting Line sent our team out again to multiple watch parties, including in Burlington, Winterset, Clive and several Des…

Hillary Clinton won just six total counties in all of Iowa in the 2016 presidential election. Trump took the other 93, often by large margins, including with 60% or 70% or more in many rural counties. In an effort to tamp down those lopsided margins in rural Iowa, One Country Project, an organization launched by…

Steve Bullock earned a big endorsement this week when former chairwoman of the Story County Democrats and DNC member Jan Bauer announced she’d be supporting the governor. “When I look at a candidate and I’m evaluating candidates, their ability to put together an organization and get organized is probably what I look for most,” Bauer…

Tonight was the biggest night of the year yet for the Democratic field, and hundreds of Iowa caucus-goers filled bars, coffee shops, homes and county party offices to watch the first debate. Team Starting Line deployed reporters to seven different debate watch parties throughout Iowa, speaking with voters in urban, suburban, rural, college town and…

First-in-the-nation Democratic caucus-goers gathered en masse Wednesday night to hear what one round of presidential candidates had to say during the first of two 2020 Democratic debates. Iowa Starting Line reporters joined the crowds of Democrats gathered in Ames, Winterset, Clive, Altoona, Fairfield, Johnston and Des Moines to see whether any of the ten candidates…