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STANFORD — For 15 minutes on Monday night, Daniel Rebelsky was the most popular Iowan in California.
As one of the few undecided voters attending an official Iowa Democratic caucus at Stanford University, the 18-year-old freshman from Grinnell, Iowa, found himself surrounded by supporters of a half-dozen different presidential candidates.
Wearing running shorts, a red t-shirt with a drawing of a cat, and a bemused smile, Rebelsky soaked up the attention as his fellow caucus-goers pitched him on why their contenders were the best choice to beat President Trump.
“There’s something to be said about how nice it is to hear what real people have to say,” he mused, “and not just the reporters and polls.”
After an hour and a half of speeches, debate and intense but very polite politicking, the 30 Iowans who attended the Stanford caucus — a microcosm of the momentous first presidential contest being decided 1,500 miles away — ended up sending most of their delegates to Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
While the caucuses were plagued by delays in releasing returns from around the state and problems with an app used to tabulate results, the Stanford caucus went off without a hitch. Ahmi Dhuna, one of the Stanford organizers, said she was able to successfully report her caucus results using the party’s app and confirm their numbers over the phone line — even as dozens of other caucus chairs in the state reportedly found themselves unable to do so.
The “satellite caucus” was part of a new program letting Iowa Democrats living outside the state participate for the first time in the 50-year history of the storied Hawkeye State tradition.
Critics of the caucuses have long complained that the process disenfranchises Iowans who can’t make it to their local high school gymnasium or community center and spend a few hours talking politics on an early winter evening. There’s never been any kind of absentee voting or proxies allowed.
For the 2020 event, the state Democratic party had originally planned to hold “virtual caucuses” that would have allowed Iowans to participate online, in a bid to make it more accessible. But that idea was nixed by national Democratic leaders over worries about the vote getting hacked.
Instead, the party decided to set up a roster of 27 satellite caucuses for Iowans out of the state, as well as others in Iowa for people working or unable to get to their local precinct site. Others took place in Palm Springs, Washington, D.C., and 12 other states, and as far away as Paris; Glasgow, Stockholm; and Tbilisi, Georgia.
The 30 Iowans who gathered in a Stanford common room were a mix of students, visitors from the Hawkeye State, and self-described “snowbirds” like Wendy Hayes, who splits her time between Iowa City and Menlo Park.
“I’ve met all of the candidates in person,” Hayes said matter-of-factly before the caucus started, noting she had narrowed her preference “down to three.”
Most of the Sanders supporters were young students — but they also included Chris Goodwin of Mount Vernon, who described herself as “close to Bernie’s age.” Goodwin was staying in San Francisco to help her son take care of his two-month-old daughter, and said she was thrilled to have the opportunity to participate without flying all the way home.
“I would be putting my Yaktracks on my boots to walk through the snow to the sports center if I was in Iowa right now,” she said, referring to a type of snowshoes. “Here, you’re driving through the verdant green.”
The caucus kicked off with speeches from non-Iowan representatives of the campaigns — including Colin Kahl, a Stanford professor and Joe Biden’s former national security advisor, who described the ex-vice president as the best candidate to take out Trump.
Then, in a process reminiscent of middle-schoolers choosing sports teams, the caucus-goers gradually divided themselves into groups in each corner of the room, based on the candidate they backed.
The initial results saw Sanders and Warren with the largest groups of supporters — 14 and 10, respectively — while the moderates splintered between Biden, entrepreneur Andrew Yang, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Notably, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg had no supporters, although early returns from Iowa as a whole put him near the top of the pack.
Only candidates who secured at least 15 percent of attendees could win any delegates — putting all of the moderates at risk and forcing their fans to make hard decisions.
Supporters of Sanders, Warren, Klobuchar and Yang clustered around Rebelsky, pitching him on their candidates and talking strategy and policy. He had tentatively gone with Biden in the first round, but was rethinking that choice.
By the time the 15 minute time limit for debate was over, he’d made his decision: switching from Biden to Sanders. Although the two septuagenarian candidates are political opposites, they’re both leading head-to-head polls pitting them against President Trump, he explained later.
Meanwhile, the other backers of Biden and Yang had decided to coalesce around Klobuchar as a compromise candidate, bringing her just above the 15 percent threshold. Because of the delegate division process, Sanders and Warren both gained two “delegate equivalents” from the Stanford caucus, while Klobuchar got one.
“It’s all about the strategy,” said Jesse Streicher, a 25-year-old Ph.D. student from Cedar Falls, who started off as the only Klobuchar supporter but helped convince the other caucus-goers to migrate to his side of the room.
The experience at Stanford shows that Klobuchar “has the potential for real momentum,” argued Streicher, who wore a t-shirt declaring “Iowans: the few, the proud, the extremely attractive.”
Addy Smith, a 19-year-old UC Berkeley student and first-time caucus-goer from Iowa City, said the event was a demonstration of the power of grassroots politics.
“In the moment, it comes down to simple, people-to-people conversations,” observed Smith, who supported Warren. “It shows you how important having that connection is.”
