By KATHERINE KULL
STAFF WRITER

Registered Democrats and Republicans gathered to express their preference for the presidential candidate this past Monday, Feb. 1, at the Iowa Caucuses. This in turn determines how Iowa’s state’s delegates will vote at the state and then national conventions.

According to CNN, this year’s caucus in particular was so important because the race so far has been very unpredictable. CBS News described how there are 1,681 precincts, similar to voting districts, across the state of Iowa that held caucuses. These precincts operated in community centers, school gymnasiums, churches and other places that allow for large gatherings of people of which there were 1100 precincts for Democrats and 900 for Republicans. The Democratic Party of Iowa also held a “tele-caucus” for those who were overseas as well as several “satellite caucuses” at places like nursing homes or large businesses with employees working overnight.

CBS News referenced the Democratic Party of Iowa (IDP) to define the caucus as an “organizational gathering of neighbors…where Democrats meet to conduct party business and declare their Presidential preference.” They also reported that the Republican Party of Iowa defines it a little differently, saying “it’s a meeting of a group of persons in the same political party who select candidates or decide policy.”

The caucus works differently for each political party. For Republicans, caucus attendees show up to their designated precinct where they can hear messages of support from either one of the candidates, a representative from the campaign, or a supporter. People vote fairly anonymously, by casting a written ballot for their preferred candidate. Once all the ballots are in, they are counted and results are reported to determine how many delegates each candidate will be awarded for the state convention according to CBS News.

The Democratic Party is also competing for delegates, the number of which has been determined by the Democratic turnout during the most recent presidential and gubernatorial elections according to Rebecca Kaplan of CBS News. The candidate that “wins” the caucus has received the highest number of state delegate equivalents. To actually caucus, voters show up at their precinct site and divide into presidential preference groups for the candidate they are supporting.

The voters are physically taking sides of the room to support their candidate. Supporters are able to speak to one another about why they may be supporting one candidate versus another to try to convince one another to switch sides.

The group that is most pressured by supporters are the undecided groups since they have not yet taken a side of the room yet. For a candidate to even be able to be awarded delegates, he or she must receive support from at least 15% of people in attendance. If a candidate is no longer viable (does not receive enough support) his or her supporters have to opportunity to try to persuade other caucus goers to support their candidate. If that fails, the supporters may disband and support other candidates. Once the sides are finalized, the ballots are collected and counted. Based on the final results or the preference votes, each candidate will receive a proportional amount of the county convention delegates and state delegate equivalents.

In 2012, 121,503 Republicans showed up to caucus which is just shy of 20% of registered Republican voters while in 2008, the last contested presidential election, 239,874 Democrats caucused, nearly 40% of registered Democrats according to CBS News. This 2016 caucus was predicted to have a record number of caucus goers as well as a record number of first time caucus goers as reported by CBS News. These first time caucus goers, often times the young demographic, were predicted to be a large asset to Democrat candidate Bernie Sanders and Republican candidate Donald Trump.

Monday night, both Democrat and Republican caucus sites reported record numbers of first time caucus goers: about 43% of Republicans and 41% of Democrats. The entrance polls reported that the races to watch would be between Trump and Cruz for the Republicans, however Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio were early leaders, and Hillary Clinton and Sanders for the Democrats according to CNN. Clinton held a slight lead over Sanders in Iowa, and spoke to CNN and said she had always expected a close caucus. Sanders, on the other hand, was disappointed with the number of first time caucus goers. Most analysis expected a higher turnout of young voters for Sanders. In Ankeny, Iowa, however, one of the largest caucus sites, the voting was forced to begin 15 minutes late because of the sheer number of new voters that turned up, waited in line, and then registered to caucus according to CNN’s live report.

After the entrance polls were closed, it was revealed that Trump polled the highest of the Republican candidates with about 27%, Cruz close behind with 22%, Rubio next with 21%, and Ben Carson with 9% according to CNN.

Of the Democrats, Clinton held her lead with 50%, Sanders following with 44%, and O’Malley trailing with 3%; the rest were undecided according to CNN. The night continued as precinct after precinct tallied their votes.

In the end, it was Ted Cruz who pulled a victory on the Republican side with 28% of the vote, winning him 6 delegates for the upcoming state convention according to CNN. Trump followed, graciously taking second place with 24% of the votes and 5 delegates.

It was speculated on CNN’s report that Trump’s stunt by not going to the final debate before the caucus allowed Rubio, who took a close 23% of the votes, to pull support away from Trump. Candidate Mike Huckabee has suspended his campaign after the caucus. As the Republicans celebrated victory and planned their next moves for New Hampshire, the Democratic race was closer than ever.

Clinton’s lead was slipping away and after 90% of the votes were counted and reported across Iowa, Clinton and Sanders were in a virtual tie according to CNN. Neither was able to gain a striking lead against one another as the night progressed. Clinton, at the end of the night was able to claim a small victory with 49.8% of the vote, however, Sanders was only two tenths of a point behind with 49.6% of the vote.

O’Malley suspended his campaign after receiving only 0.6% of the overall vote in Iowa. Clinton told CNN that luck was on her side this time in Iowa and she’s right. In three precincts, the votes were so close that it came down to a coin flip to determine which Democratic candidate would win. Clinton won all three. While Clinton claimed the final victory, it was Sanders who was able to claim the moral victory by exceeding expectations. It was expected that Clinton would take Iowa quite handily, and with this close of a race, it is clear that Sanders is more of a threat to the Clinton campaign than previously realized.

The Iowa Caucus was the first state caucus for the 2016 campaign season. Many have strong opinions about how these will proceed for the remainder of the 49 states. “The political race has turned into a media blitz that has influenced how American politics are shaped due to the constant need for content,” said Max Lewis ’16.

The next state to hold a caucus is New Hampshire, next Tuesday February 9, then South Carolina on Saturday, February 20. These states will start to separate the candidates even further, giving a more accurate representation of what the nation wants as a whole.