Bernie Sanders raised more online from Iowans than rest of Dem field
DES MOINES, Iowa — As the clock ticks closer to Monday night’s Iowa caucuses, new federal election filings from the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue provide the latest glimpse as to each candidates’ financial strength in the Hawkeye State.
That new data shows that Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., raised more money online from Iowans, $703,000, than his Democratic presidential rivals in all of 2019.
Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, raised the second most with $519,000, followed by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s $418,000, former Vice President Joe Biden’s $251,000, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s $185,000 and businessman Andrew Yang’s $142,000.
Trump urges Iowa Republicans to ‘go out and Caucus today’
Conspiracy theories swirl over canceled Iowa poll, pushed by Sanders and Yang supporters
Supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Andrew Yang pushed false conspiracy theories on Twitter over the weekend tied to the canceled Des Moines Register poll, effectively commandeering a trending hashtag to convey the idea that their candidates are more successful than the public has been led to believe.
The Des Moines Register poll, a closely watched indicator of the Iowa race, was canceled after at least one interviewer apparently omitted Pete Buttigieg’s name from the randomized list of candidates the surveyor read. The political website Axios reported that the reason for the error was that an interviewer increased the font size of the questionnaire on a computer screen, leaving the bottom choice invisible.
But supporters of Sanders and Yang decided, without evidence, that the reason for the poll’s cancellation had to be that their candidates had high poll numbers, which the newspaper or the polling company wanted to suppress for some reason. (The Des Moines Register poll is actually one of the most respected polls in the country, known for its integrity and accuracy.)
For Iowa Chiefs’ fans, caucusing comes after long night of Super Bowl celebration
CLIVE, Iowa — First, your adopted home team wins the Super Bowl. Then, the very next day, your state officially kicks off voting in the 2020 election.
For Kansas City Chiefs-loving Iowa Democrats, Monday morning will bring the highest of highs. But for many of them, it will also come with a nasty hangover; the product of having had a few too many watching their favorite team win a championship the night before.
But, at The Other Place, a dedicated Chiefs bar in Clive, about 15 miles west of Des Moines, Democratic-voting Kansas City Chiefs fans from Iowa, of varying levels of inebriation, vowed Sunday night that they’d caucus the next day, no matter the outcome of the game — and no matter how hungover they might be.
Election Confessions, Iowa edition: What Iowans have to say about the presidential candidates
Since 1971, Iowa’s voters have had the first say in who might be president, giving Iowans what some call an outsize influence on the presidential election.
Some in the state, with its 2.4 million voting-age adults, have confessed what they claim to be their inner thoughts on the cadre of presidential candidates at NBC News’ Election Confessions.
“I cannot vote for any of these!” one wrote. “I wish he would have got into the race earlier,” another wrote about now-departed candidate Steve Bullock, the governor of Montana.
More than 7,000 people from across the U.S. have shared around 60,000 confessions about the candidates, the country and its condition.
Here are some of the more notable confessions from the first-in-the-nation voting state.
Iowa caucuses : 5 things to watch as voters make their choices
DES MOINES, Iowa — We’ve finally arrived at the end of the beginning of a primary process that has been under way for over a year as Iowa Democrats take the first real vote on Monday night in choosing a candidate to face off against President Donald Trump.
The Democratic slate started as the biggest presidential field in history and the contest has been among its most volatile, making the caucuses and trajectory of the race that will come out of them especially important — and difficult to predict.
Eleven candidates are still in the running, though only seven have actively competed in Iowa.
A poor showing could abruptly end the hopes of not only some long-shots, but one or more of the leading candidates as well, most of whom are counting on an victory in Iowa or a strong showing to help power (and fund) the rest of their campaigns.
Here’s what you need to watch Monday night when the caucus doors close at 8 p.m. ET.
What we learned from the Q4 candidate filings
DES MOINES, Iowa — Friday’s new batch of campaign finance reports gave us one more look under the campaigns’ hoods before Monday’s Iowa caucuses.
Some candidates already pushed out their top-line numbers from the fourth fundraising quarter, but the full reports give a comprehensive look at the financial health of these campaigns.
Yang turns to large number of out-of-state supporters in Iowa bid
DAVENPORT, Iowa — Andrew Yang has a lot of ground to make up in his ground game.
In a state with a quirky voting system where organizing is essential, presidential campaigns spend months recruiting and training local precinct captains across the state, who can make-or-break a candidate’s chance of success on Monday in the highly personal caucus system.
But as many as half of Yang’s precinct captains are not Iowans — an unusually high percentage, according to a Democrat familiar with the campaign’s strategy.
That could make it difficult for Yang, who is running his first campaign for office, to hit the high bar he has set for himself in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses. Polls show him at roughly sixth place.
