Martin O'Malley speaks during a campaign stop last Friday. | AP Photo Lone attendee from O'Malley event makes up his mind

The only person who attended a late December campaign event for Martin O'Malley hampered by Iowa's harsh winter weather has decided to caucus for him.

But Hillary Clinton is his second choice and likely the candidate he will eventually end up supporting in the caucus, he admitted.


In a telephone interview, Kennan Seda, 57, told POLITICO that he had decided to support O'Malley because he was "very pleased with just his general demeanor," noting that the former Maryland governor called him the next day and that he had essentially made up his mind at that time.

"It was a very kind of heartfelt conversation, and once you kind of get him off the political shtick, he was much more down to Earth," Seda said of his in-person meeting with O'Malley in Tama, Iowa, on Dec. 28.

Given that Iowa caucus rules mandate that a candidate must receive 15 percent of support at a location in order to meet the viability threshold, Seda speculated that might be one of, or the only person caucusing for O'Malley. It's a point, he remarked, that makes the Democratic caucus a bit less "democratic" process than its Republican counterpart in Iowa. Thus, he said he expected to eventually support Clinton.

Seda, who was identified as Kenneth in the initial report, explained the discrepancy as a reporter's misunderstanding about his full name, noting that he and O'Malley had also discussed the Irish roots of his first name during their meeting. The two also discussed rhetoric from Donald Trump and "some of his issues," Seda said, namely his proposal to temporarily ban all Muslims from entering the United States.

"We need a future," Seda said he told O'Malley, "and I said, 'You are the future of the Democratic Party.'"