After spending the last few years as a Bernie Sanders supporter, I would have called you crazy if you had told me a week ago that Sanders would be my second choice for President. But that time has come.

Living in Des Moines, Iowa, hardly a day goes by when there isn’t a presidential candidate having a town hall or event relatively nearby. So, if you want to kick the tires of any presidential candidate, you usually have your pick of the litter. A few days ago, I decided to check out Andrew Yang as he was having a town hall event a few miles down the road at my former elementary school.

After settling into my seat in the auditorium, the crowd began to fill in and I noticed quite a few younger faces, unlike the usual older crowd that tended to dominate presidential candidate events. I had a seat on the side of the auditorium, so while the warm-up speakers were talking, I could see Yang backstage wearing a hat that said ‘MATH’ and was jovially joking around with his campaign. Not the stoic look of a typical candidate. The event was co-hosted by J.D. Scholten, a former baseball player, who ran against Iowa’s notorious Congressman Steve King last year and nearly won. Always a good sign when Scholten is at an event.

When it was time for Yang to come out and begin speaking, I looked around and saw a considerable amount of people for a candidate who is relatively unknown. The crowd was delighted as he began shaking hands as he made his way towards the stage. He looked as what the President would describe as ‘high energy’. Yang then pointed out his ‘MATH’ hat and told us that it stood for ‘Make America Think Harder’. His talk mostly featured on the ripple effects of job-eliminating automation and artificial intelligence, which are topics you’ll never hear come out of most presidential candidates’ mouths. His solution to those problems is universal basic income or the Freedom Dividend as he branded it, which is the plan to give everyone $1,000 per month. He then explained how to pay for it and how it would help. When he asked the crowd which state already had a universal basic income, the crowd replied ‘ALASKA’ in unison and he explained that it’s one of the most popular policies in the deep red state. After answering questions from the audience, his policies seemed to mostly align with Bernie Sanders, but I later found out after visiting Yang’s website, that he has an incredible amount of well thought out policies.