Feeling the Bern on Iowa’s caucus night

Students walked across campus with buttons and t-shirts proudly displaying their chosen candidates. Quiet stares of disapproval were exchanged across classrooms while high fives were given out to like minded supporters. Social media was alive with constant status updates of caucus location finders, “how to’s” on election day registration and “why you should vote for _____” on all leading candidates.

By 1:00pm I had received two phone calls and three texts from campaign volunteers, ensuring I knew my caucus location. At 3:00pm I was greeted by Bernie Sanders’ smiling face as it swung from my door handle, displaying my caucus location and time. Five family members called me from various Iowa counties, asking me how early they needed to arrive at their caucus locations and allowing me to try and convince them to join my candidate’s side one last time. At 6:00pm it was go time.

There were over 500 registered voters. I had to caucus in the hallway

I showed up to the Iowa City Public Library at 6:35pm (five minute later than suggested) and was greeted by a line of 200 waiting caucus goers. As me and my roommates moved towards the warmth of the library’s front doors, nearly 250 more people jumped in line behind us. Only when we were safely enveloped in the library’s automatic doors, were we able to begin our onsite registration.

Frazzled volunteers handed out sheets of paper to everyone who needed to update their address or their party affiliation in order to participate (you have to be a registered democrat to participate in the democrat’s caucus).

Pens soon vanished and a queue formed behind those who were smart enough to bring their own. Once the forms were complete, another line was slowly funneled toward the library’s main room; but by 6:50pm that room had reached max capacity and those of us who had not made the cut were forced to caucus in the hallways.

I was a hallway person. I was given a notecard with 520, displayed at the top. I then had to wait until the original people in the room were counted, before us hallway people could pass our cards forward for counting; it took an hour for anyone to even call for the hallway people’s cards.

Only after the hallway cards were taken was it announced that the Bernie supporters had an overwhelming majority, but not enough of a majority to win all the delegates of our polling place outright; so we argued.

Moira Jorgensen, Junior, English & Sociology Major. Emily Glanz, Senior, Electrical Engineering Major. Alyssa Schinkel, Junior, Accounting Major

The Clinton supporters and Bernie supporters descended on the poor O’Malley team (who had just learned their candidate had suspended his campaign) in order to gain more voters. Harsh words were exchanged from both sides, which is a little ridiculous considering we will all be voting for the same candidate come the presidential election; but eventually the dust settled and the lines were drawn again. The Hillary supporters were able to squeak out a single delegate, while the Bernie campaign took six.

After our site’s results were finalized, I ran home, with a number of friends to see how the race was shaping up across the state. I had received a snap of my dad shouting, “Feel the Bern” at his precinct. I knew my mom was standing across the gym from him at the Hillary camp. My phone was blowing up with results from across Johnson county, but I was glued to the race of Hillary and Bernie across the state; they were dead even.

Young Bernie supporters nervously watch the results

A polite round of applause broke out from the living room when Trump was defeated and his, “No one remembers who came in second” tweet was resurfaced from 2014.

We watched in awe as several caucus locations were decided via coin flip (that is actually written into the caucus rules) in order to break a head to head tie. As the night wore on we came to the heavy realization that there would be no winner for the democrat party. Iowa would end in a virtual tie. The headline that kept persisting was “too close to call.”

Grady Stein, a Linguistics and German major, said: “A statistical tie is a Sanders victory. He wasn’t supposed to get this far, he just earned the vote of everyone who liked him but didn’t think he had a chance. Heads up high guys.”

Bernie finally took the stage for his end of caucus speech. He thanked Iowa for all their hard work in campaigning and caucusing. He thanked them for believing in his message and for starting a political revolution. The crowd chanted with him as he gave his famous, “enough is enough,” line and my living room grew quiet. So hopefully the nation learns from Iowa, where Bernie won the overwhelming support of younger voters, and the youth continue to mobilize to make this the biggest caucus the nation has ever seen.