Iowa Caucus

Places like Iowa Falls feel a long way away from the national discussion on the Democratic primary. An Iowa town of 5,000 people, it’s a long drive away from any county that even used to vote regularly for Democrats, and the kind of place where Fox News is the default channel running on the TV…

As presidential candidates fan out across Iowa to woo caucus-goers, their campaigns are staffing up to build the organizing infrastructure to bring home a win on caucus night. Here’s a quick roundup of some of the most recent top staff hires for the Iowa campaigns. You can see Starting Line’s full tracking list of all…

Guest post from Tiffany Welch of the Save The Children Action Network organization. My husband and I moved to Iowa from the West Coast in April, 2007. Moving to Iowa was a wonderful decision for many reasons, and I have especially loved participating in Iowa presidential politics. I had my first taste of Iowa caucus…

A guest post from Rose Clouston, the Director of Online Training at the National Democratic Training Committee. With a new Democrat announcing their presidential campaign every week, the primary election is shaping up to be a long, drawn-out process. To have any realistic hope of emerging as the nominee, you have to scale from a small team…

Senator Kamala Harris is running for president, but an event of hers in Des Moines yesterday was focused on other candidates – women running or thinking of running for local offices. She spoke with a group of about 125 women at an Emerge Iowa house party, where she acknowledged the many barriers women run into…

The Iowa Starting Line Podcast host Pat Rynard sits down with Beto O’Rourke during his recent Iowa trip to talk about his generational pitch, how he’s adjusted to the media onslaught, and what kind of “normal” he wants to bring to D.C. Plus, I talk about the ever-expanding Democratic presidential field and why everyone feels they…

Above photo via Joe Crimmings. Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke is well-known for his energetic, non-stop campaigning style, and that was certainly on display during his ambitious Polk County schedule on Saturday. He held six house parties, spread out across the Des Moines metro, an interesting strategy that brought out more than just the usual Democratic…

Rallies and Q&A sessions with 2020 hopefuls, depending on the candidate, typically tend to skew like the Iowa electorate does: older. But with former Congressman Beto O’Rourke choosing Iowa State University as his first stop on his second swing through the state, there were more backpacks than canes in the crowd. O’Rourke addressed the at-capacity…

I conducted a fun little experiment yesterday. After noticing many people expressing frustration on political Twitter that Elizabeth Warren wasn’t getting enough media coverage for her policy ideas, I wondered, are those same people sharing her policy proposals themselves? So, I searched on Twitter for “Elizabeth Warren policy” and scrolled through the results for those…

While Tom Steyer announced back in January that he would not make a presidential run in 2020, a poll going around Iowa raises new questions on whether he might be reconsidering that option. A Starting Line reader received a polling call yesterday afternoon in which various messages on a possible Steyer candidacy were tested. Steyer…