Politics
- Iowa voters will officially kick off the 2020 Democratic primary races with tonight's caucuses.
- Iowa is a relatively small state that allocates just 1% of the delegates candidates earn on their way to the nomination.
- Still, it holds disproportionate significance in the process as it's the first state to cast its ballots for the presidential nomination.
- The eventual Democratic nominee won the Iowa caucuses in six out of the past eight competitive Democratic presidential primaries.
- Sen. Bernie Sanders holds a narrow lead in the primary polling, but anything is possible.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Iowa, the first state to hold an election in the Democratic primary, casts its ballots tonight. At 7 p.m. central time - or 8 p.m. Eastern - Iowans will gather at a local space in their election precinct and hold a caucus.
This is a complex, collaborative process, and you can read more about it below, as it's unlike any election most Americans have taken a part in.
Insider will be getting the live results instantly as soon as they stream in, so be sure to check back over the course of the evening.
Iowa Democratic caucuses live updated results
Results could start coming in as early as 1 p.m. from the three international satellite caucuses taking place in Tbilisi, Georgia, Paris, France, and Glasglow, Scotland.
There will be two sets of published data about the results of the caucus. One will be the first ballot, which we'll start receiving vote counts the moment they come in.
The second is the final ballot with state equivalent delegates. This is what actually matters in the end: As we explain below, caucus-goers will get a chance to maximize their impact by only caucusing for viable candidates, meaning these results will determine the actual winner:
The delegate stakes for tonight
Iowa holds a low share of delegates compared to states that vote later in the Democratic primary process. Iowa has just 41 pledged delegates, which is only 1% of the total number that will be allocated throughout four months of Democratic primaries.
Because Iowa precinct holds not one but two rounds of preference expression, or alignments, caucusgoers' second choices are more important than ever before.
If a caucusgoer's first-choice candidate doesn't break 15% of the vote on the first alignment, they can either switch their preference to a candidate who is viable in their precinct, be an uncommitted caucusgoer, or try to combine forces with other caucusgoers to make their first-choice candidate viable.
A caucusgoer whose first-choice is viable after the first alignment cannot, however, change their preference, meaning candidates can only gain and not lose votes in the second alignment.
Twenty-seven out of Iowa's 41 pledged delegates are allocated proportionally at the congressional district level:
- In the first congressional district, 7 delegates
- In the second congressional district, 7 delegates
- In the third congressional district, 8 delegates
- In the fourth congressional district, 5 delegates
A candidate must break 15% of the vote in a given district to win any delegates from that district at all.
There are also five pledged delegates statewide for party leaders and elected officials, and nine at-large delegates. Those are allocated based on the statewide popular vote, meaning its possible for candidates to win district-level delegates but not statewide delegates.
State congressional delegations, DNC leadership and governors get a free ticket to the convention as automatic delegates, and Iowa has eight such people. Once powerful "superdelegates," this group has had those powers largely stripped and they no longer factor into the delegate math.
Polling expectations
Since 1972, Iowa caucusgoers have taken their role in determining which candidates are viable very seriously. An old saying posits that there are only three ways out of Iowa: coming in first, second, or third place.
While Sanders holds the narrowest of leads over the rest of the field in Iowa, most recent polls of the state show the leading four candidates - Joe Biden, Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg - bunched closely together with no clearly favored winner.
On the day of the caucuses, Real Clear Politics' aggregated tracker of Iowa polls showed Sanders with 24.6% support on average compared to 20.2% for Biden, 15.4% for Buttigieg, 15% for Warren, 9% for Sen. Amy Klobuchar, 3.8% for Andrew Yang, and 3.2 for Tom Steyer.
Because those four candidates have consistently polled in double digits at or near the delegate threshold, there may not be an obvious winner or leader on caucus night.
Ongoing live coverage of the Iowa caucuses:
Here's a top to bottom look at how the caucuses work: Everything you need to know about the Iowa caucuses, and why they may be less important than ever in 2020
This year has seen some unique strategic differences about the caucus: Presidential candidates have historically gone all-in on the Iowa caucus - but here's why that's starting to change
Get up to speed on what these delegates actually mean: Here's how Democrats will elect their presidential nominee over the next several months