Melissa Gomez -
California may have a reputation as the nation’s most liberal state. But the moderate wing of the Democratic Party took the lead in Palm Springs on Monday as more than 100 Iowans converged in the desert resort town for one of the largest satellite caucuses outside of Iowa.
For the first time, the Iowa Democratic Party held satellite caucuses across the United States and abroad on Monday in a bid to make voting more accessible for Iowans living temporarily in other places. After an hour and 15 minutes of polite negotiating between the different Democratic camps in Palm Springs, Amy Klobuchar won with 49 votes, with Joe Biden trailing behind with 29 and Pete Buttigieg with 21.
None of the remaining Democratic candidates received enough votes to be deemed viable.
Iowa caucus rules require voters to form groups organised by candidate. To be declared viable and move to the “second alignment,” a candidate must secure at least 15 per cent of the vote. In the first round of voting in Palm Springs, Klobuchar led with 41 votes, prompting supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren to unsuccessfully try to unite the left flank of the Democratic Party around one candidate in a bid for viability.
Mark Bennett, 69, a retired federal district judge from Des Moines who has visited Palm Springs each winter for the past five years, proudly donned an “Amy” sticker as he helped propel her to victory in the caucus.
“Senator Klobuchar kind of matches my centrist philosophy,” Bennett said. “I think she’s super smart, super gritty.” Like Bennett, many of the 108 Iowan caucus goers who converged in the atrium of Palm Springs Public Library were snowbirds drawn to the city’s mild climate. Some made the commute from as far south as Encinitas and as far west as Los Angeles, prompting organizers to scramble to find a new time and room to accommodate about four times as many registered caucus goers than originally expected.
Many of the younger voters, who supported Sanders and Warren, left the caucus disappointed.
“I knew what I was getting into going to Palm Springs,” said Jane Keranen, a 21-year-old Bernie Sanders supporter and University of Southern California student who had made a two-hour journey to Palm Springs from Los Angeles. “I figured the demographic would lean more towards a centrist, liberal perspective.” In the end, Keranen watched helplessly as the Sanders and Warren camps came to a stalemate without any resolution before members broke off and left to support other candidates, including Klobuchar.
Even though she felt her vote ultimately went nowhere — she did not realign to support another candidate — Keranen said she was glad she made the trip to Palm Springs.
“I’ll be ready to vote for whoever the blue ticket is in the fall,” she said. “Hopefully it’s someone more progressive than who Palm Springs chose.” Michelle Nash, a precinct captain for Klobuchar, said the result came as a surprise. After the first round, Klobuchar received support from the Tom Steyer and Warren camps.
“More people kept on sitting down at the Amy table and it just got bigger and bigger and bigger,” she said as a Biden supporter congratulated her. “We were just shocked.” “I think she was a lot of people’s second choice,” she added. In addition to more than 1,600 voting precincts across the Iowa, Iowans caucused at 87 satellite caucus locations.
While the bulk of the satellite caucuses were held in Iowa, others were held in states including Arizona and Wisconsin, and overseas, in locations such as Scotland, France and the Republic of Georgia. — dpa
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