Fort Dodge

The honor of introducing Pete Buttigieg this afternoon goes to a former Iowa state senator, Daryl Beall. He says, “And when you go to caucus on February 4,” and is instantly met with a low, firm chorus from the audience. “Third…third!” Beall laughs and corrects himself.

There are legitimate questions regarding the primacy of Iowa in the presidential-nomination process, ones surrounding the state’s lack of racial diversity, its size, and the geriatric tilt of its voters. But the seriousness and the earnestness of the Iowa citizenry is not in doubt. Iowans have been bombarded with candidates and TV ads and mail and phone calls for two years, and yet thousands of people across the state are still showing up at town halls and rallies, trying to make up their minds. On a cold, snowy Saturday afternoon in Fort Dodge, roughly 150 residents of this tiny north-central Iowa town have gathered in the Frontier Opera House, one end of a reproduction of a 19th-century Midwestern village. This audience doesn’t simply know the correct date of the caucuses. Its members know the candidates’ platforms in fine detail. They are very much ready for this marathon to finally be over—and yet the stakes, choosing the best Democratic nominee to defeat President Donald Trump, have induced as much paralysis as passion. “I’m just not 100%,” says Lorie Spanjerus, a retired educator, in a sentiment I’ll hear again and again. “Beating Trump is so important.”

Buttigieg does well in Fort Dodge. He delivers a version of his stump speech, pitching himself as a healer and a uniter who can bring the country together, starting on the morning after Trump’s defeat, without once actually using Trump’s name, instead referring to the president as “him.” He nimbly fields questions on health care and climate policy, and a tricky personal one about whether Buttigieg’s pioneering candidacy has been forceful enough in advocating for “the queer community.” His answers are as crisp as his bright white dress shirt. And yet there’s something melancholy to Buttigieg’s demeanor. He’s been stagnating in the polls; the most recent Iowa newspaper endorsements have gone to his rivals. Buttigieg is certainly not conceding: As he crisscrosses the state, with as many as four events a day, his campaign is sending out a flurry of fundraising emails warning ominously that Bernie Sanders could win.

“This is our chance to respond to the cynicism,” Buttigieg says in his Fort Dodge closing. “I’m here to make the case for hope in our politics.” It’s always risky to read too much into body language; maybe he’s just tired from the grind. But with slightly more than a week to go, Buttigieg may also be feeling his Iowa hopes slipping away.

Ames

Three hours later and some 60 miles southeast, in an auditorium down the street from the campus of Iowa State, every seat and aisle is occupied; the room is sweltering; and the tone is by turns angry and insistent and exultant. The anger is mostly provided by Michael Moore, who rails about the United States being “founded on genocide and built on the backs of slaves.” Moore is followed by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose delivery is cooler but who just as deftly stokes the anticipation of the crowd, not simply for the night’s main attraction but for the “transformation” that they can see and feel may actually be within reach this time around.

With the main auditorium filled beyond its official capacity of 881, an adjacent basketball court has been turned into an overflow room for roughly 300 people. Bernie Sanders strides in, stooped and smiling, and climbs atop a small platform. The sizable number of younger voters gazing up at Sanders and the raucous response make for a stark contrast with the polite, white-haired crowd that greeted Buttigieg. But there are plenty of older folks here too, retired postal workers and mah-jongg-playing grandmothers. What really distinguishes Sanders’s events, though, is the mood of imminent deliverance. The surprise of his outsider 2016 run has been replaced by a belief that four years later, Sanders is on the cusp of a revolutionary victory. “Brothers and sisters, this is the most consequential election in the modern history of this country. We’re talking about the need to take on Trump’s autocratic leanings and protect American democracy. We’re talking about ending the oligarchic drift in this country,” Sanders says, in a preview of what he’ll tell the main auditorium crowd a few minutes later. “What happens here in Iowa is of enormous significance. If we win here, I believe we have a very good chance to win in New Hampshire. I think we’re gonna win in Nevada. I think we’re gonna win in California, and capture the Democratic nomination. If we are successful here in Iowa, we will begin the process of not only defeating Donald Trump, but of transforming this country.”