The Iowa caucuses have a storied history. But last night, things did not go as planned. The app to tabulate and transmit results didn’t function properly and the back up phone number, where results could be called in, was virtually unreachable. 

A caucus is not an election, so not a primary. And there’s lots of discussion about whether they should continue. But, in 2020, Iowa was still first. 

The big question: Does Iowa predict the eventual nominee? If you don’t win Iowa, is it worth staying in the race? And, if you weren’t the winner in Iowa, the New Hampshire primary is next Tuesday. Meanwhile, if you’re a candidate AND in the U.S. Senate, and you spent the evening in Iowa, you have to race back to your day job for impeachment floor speeches today (if you want to say something). You also have to be there for tonight’s State of the Union address to be delivered to a joint session of Congress. 

So what are the lessons from the attempted re-vamped process in Iowa? What do the results mean (whenever they come) and how do they predict the future? We take a look.

Guests

• Political consultant Bill Burton