6 things to see at tonight's Iowa party assemblies

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The partisan assemblies in the US start. UU. 4:07

Des Moines, Iowa (CNN) - Iowa voters are ready to resolve what has been a tight race of four for months, as Iowa becomes the first state to vote in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries.

The former vice president of the United States, Joe Biden; the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg; Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren have been very grouped in the polls.

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar has also tried a late climb. And businessman Andrew Yang surpassed all Democrats, celebrating 78 events in Iowa in the last month before assemblies.

In seven of the last nine competitive Democratic primary, the candidate who ranked first on the Iowa committees became the presidential candidate of the party.

• What you should know about partisan assemblies of Iowa
• Look: What is the impact of the Latino vote in party assemblies?

Here are six things you should see at partisan assemblies in Iowa:

How many people will come?

One question that could determine the outcome of Monday night is how many Iowa Democrats vote: will it exceed the 2008 record of almost 240,000 assembly members, as the Iowa Democrats had expected for months? Or will it be somewhere between that record and the most muted participation of 2016 of approximately 171,000 voters?

The Sanders campaign, which has emphasized the search for new voters, particularly Latinos, believes that the greater the participation, the better it will be for them.

Biden, meanwhile, could benefit from less participation, with his support coming from major and traditional Democrats who never miss assemblies.

But it's not just about total participation. The campaigns will closely monitor entry polls to see the age of the electorate. In 2016, for example, 28% of voters were 65 or older. It is a group with which Biden performs better, would benefit if it increases.

The region also matters. Warren has concentrated his campaign in the suburbs, the kind of areas where voters, especially women, drove the Democrats to victory in the 2018 partial elections. If that increase continues in 2020, it would be a blessing for their hopes.

Buttigieg, meanwhile, has focused on achieving disgruntled Republicans in rural areas. If those Republicans and independents represent a larger part of the electorate than usual, it would be good news for Buttigieg, Biden and Klobuchar.

• Why are Iowa party assemblies important?
• Watch in this video: Previous hours of party assemblies in Iowa

What vote counts?

This year, Iowa Democrats are publishing more information on the results of assemblies than usual, and it could cause some confusion and give more than one campaign reason to declare victory.

The most important number, which news organizations like CNN will focus on to determine the winner, are the state delegates won. Each precinct sends delegates to the county conventions, who then send delegates to the state convention. The "equivalent of state delegates", the number that will be focused on Monday night, is the estimated number of delegates that the candidates have won at the state convention based on their results at each venue.

But another number that some campaigns are likely to emphasize is the total raw votes.

The state Democratic Party will release the total number of people in each constituency that lined up with each candidate at the beginning of the assemblies.

Then, after the realignment, the process in which those who do not reach 15% are eliminated, and their supporters choose a different candidate to support or go home, the state party will also release those total raw votes.

The same person may not win all these categories. Some candidates could get good results in urban areas, but they do not reach 15% in rural areas and cannot pick up any delegate, or vice versa.

Campaigns are likely to choose and choose the data that they can best emphasize.

The battle to win the moderate lane

The three main moderated candidates in the race - Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar - are betting on winning Monday night.

But they are also running to finish one in front of the other.

The idea is this: with most agents anticipating a Sanders victory on Monday night, the three candidates want to be able to leave the state claiming the title of chief challenger to the Vermont senator.

This is because the race after Iowa will probably be seen as a competition between one or two progressives and another group of moderates, so finishing at the top of an ideological cohort could give the main candidates the necessary momentum in New Hampshire. .

"Let's be honest. I need to have a good ending here in Iowa, ”Buttigieg said Sunday.

Biden has also been playing to be an expert and publicly minimizes the need to be the first in Iowa.

"There is a big difference between the second and the fourth," Biden told CNN in Mount Pleasant. “I think it will be very tight, no matter how it works. It has been grouped. I think it will stay grouped. ”

He added: “I think it's a different year in which I think it's the measure, not everyone will do it now and I don't say it in a bad way, but I think what they are going to have is that the measure is who can represent every aspect of Democratic Party. "

• Look: What will the Democratic debate be like in the state of Iowa?

What happens in the counties of Obama and Trump?

Iowa has more counties that voted for Barack Obama in 2012 but backed Donald Trump in 2016, and almost every campaign in Iowa has considered the voters of the courts in these states as a sign of his ability to assume the Presidency in 2020.

What happens in these counties, including who wins and what the participation is, will talk a lot about each candidate's ability to win in contested counties and if the theory of the Democrats that some disgruntled Republicans are ready to break Trump true

No candidate has made this statement more strongly than Buttigieg, who spent the last weeks in Iowa gathering supporters in many of these areas.

"Regardless of how you voted before, which party, if you belong [to a party], you belong here," Buttigieg said this week in Cerro Gordo County, a place that went to Obama in 2008 and 2012, but voted for Trump in 2016.

Klobuchar is the only candidate who has visited all so-called undecided counties, and her campaign has made her capable of winning over rural voters and central conservatives in her speech.

"I see a coalition that is much larger than some people see," Klobuchar said Saturday. "I see angry Democrats and I see people in rural and suburban areas, and I want to bring them with us and we really need to bring us with us in these general elections."

What happens in these undecided counties, especially the counties of Cerro Gordo, Dubuque and Clinton, will be revealing, not only for who wins the Iowa party assemblies, but also how to position themselves in November.

• Who won and who lost the Democratic debate in Iowa

Sanders' commitment to participation

Bernie Sanders launched his campaign in Iowa with a clear proposal: that greater participation among working-class voters, youth and Latinos would almost guarantee victory.

If your bet occurs on Monday night, the campaign is confident that it will go to New Hampshire, where Sanders won easily in 2016, with the history and momentum on its side.

The Sanders team in Iowa has been organizing in Latino communities and other parts of the state with populations that traditionally do not tend to make large presentations on assembly night for almost a year. They have organized football matches and aggressively advertised on the radio in Spanish. Organizers and volunteers have camped at Casey stores across the state to meet with the voters of the working class where they shop and talk.

Latinos only represent about 7% of the population of the state, but the community becomes younger, so, as seen in the polls, probably towards Sanders, and could provide the momentum it needs in what is expected to be Be extraordinarily tight final count.

As many Sanders assistants rush to notice or are ready to grant, there are more than a few delegates on the line here. A strong demonstration in Iowa will serve as a validation of their theory of how to carry out a successful campaign at a time when Democrats, and the left in general, are looking for ways to forge a new progressive coalition.

Other camps, typically moderates, argue that the richest suburban voters have the keys for Democrats to claim the presidency, just as they helped achieve a majority in the House last year.

Sanders is not ruling out those groups or those parts of the state, but if he is going to win on Monday, it will be by force of a large, wide and diverse electorate that will come forward and do it for him.

What happens if progressives get what they have been waiting for?

Progressive leaders with an affinity for both Sanders and Warren would not want to compete at the top of the polls on Monday night, a result that, by definition, would mean that Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar had poor performance, and would point out the strength of the left in the future.

Although they tend to gain support from different groups of voters, Sanders and Warren remain the most beloved figures of the progressive movement and, at least, among the most inclined to their politics. Seeing them dominate the assemblies would be an adrenaline shot that could lead to New Hampshire, a state where theirs are.

But in the end, of course, there can only be one. And if the Warren and Sanders campaigns leave Iowa with the impression that their next step on the road to a possible nomination is to consolidate the progressives, the movement could be cause for concern.

Warren and Sanders are friends, and both have reminded journalists about the contention of their now famous 2018 meeting, but they are also carrying out massive campaign operations with different messages. Warren has played in recent weeks his ability to unite Democratic factions. Sanders, although he repeatedly promises to support the eventual nominee, does not make that argument different. His goal, in clear terms, is to defeat the establishment and then count on his support when confronting Trump.

Then the progressive nightmare scenario is closely related to that of dreams. It looks like a divisive campaign that confronts the left-wing bearers with each other and, in the process, opens the way for a moderate resurgence.

Iowa Elementary