The 2024 Republican Iowa caucuses took place on Jan. 15 throughout all 99 of Iowa’s counties. The Iowa caucuses are the first presidential nominating matches of 2024 in which former president Donald Trump came out on top.
“This morning, I opened the news app and then saw Trump’s name next to 51% of the votes in Iowa,” freshman Arria Shimizu said. “I was just surprised because there are a lot trials that have been going on surrounding Trump,”
A caucus is a state, party-run political meeting where voters can vote on a candidate to be the party presidential nominee. This is different from a primary, a state-run election. Even though states differ on whether they decide to use caucuses or primaries, both systems are used to determine the presidential nominees.
“I do think that Trump will end up being a nominee because he’s crushing it in the polls and the national polls more or less within the margin of error ,” said history faculty Jay Konik. “Iowa is not really overly representative of the country, in that it’s not very urban and less culturally diverse, so the Democrats are trying to move earlier to states that have some variation in the population,”
Though most of the talk has been on the Iowa Republican caucuses, the Democrats also held their own caucasus too. Unlike the Republican voters who cast their vote in person, Democrat voters were to submit their votes by mail. The Democratic caucus results will be available on Super Tuesday, March 5.
Republican candidates like Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, and Nikki Haley have expressed their opposition to Biden’s policies. As a result, Iowa republican voters are focused on issues like immigration and the economy, according to the Iowa GOP.
“I feel like when I’m able to vote I would want to consider all the options and issues,” said junior Nandika Bhatnagar. “Right now I think the economy and inflation is a very big issue because it affects a lot of families in a negative way,”
The Iowa caucuses are very closely watched because they are the first presidential nominating match and will help dictate the final presidential nominee, according to the Pew Reasearch Center. They are a strong indicator on how the candidates will do later on.
“I’ve never been very invested in politics, but this has caught my attention,” said Shimizu. “I’m curious on how the next elections are going to play out.”
