By Mateo Gomez
The 2020 primaries have finally begun. Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada have voted thus far and, as of Feb. 23, Bernie Sanders has the most delegates.
Popular candidate Bernie Sanders garnered 21. In order to win the democratic nomination, a candidate needs 1,990 delegates.
Iowa was the first state to vote on Feb. 3. Their system of voting is known as a caucus. Caucuses are meetings attended by party leaders to decide who will get the delegates. Delegates are the votes that candidates need as the primaries conclude on June 7 with Puerto Rico.
Although attention is not usually focused on Iowa, the state becomes important as elections approach.
The first caucus tends to indicate how candidates are going to do in future elections. It is also the first primary vote, which begins to stir citizens’ excitement.
In Iowa, Buttigieg won by 0.1 percent. He had 26.2 percent of the votes (13 delegates) and Sanders had 26.1 percent (12 delegates). In terms of actual votes, Buttigieg had 564 and Sanders had 652. Elizabeth Warren was in third with 18 percent (8 delegates) and Joe Biden had 15.8 percent (6 delegates).
Due to technical difficulties with the applications used to report the results, this information was not known right after the election.
“Iowa was a disaster! It made the Democrats look dysfunctional,” said Michael Putney, political analyst for WPLG Local 10.
New Hampshire voted on Feb. 11.
Unlike the caucus, citizens go out and vote like they would on election day. In New Hampshire, Democrats must vote for Democrats, and Republicans must vote for Republicans. If someone is an independent; however, he or she can vote for either party.
Sanders won with 25.7 percent of the votes. Buttigieg was second with 24.4 percent. Amy Klobuchar was third with 19.8 percent. Elizabeth Warren was fourth with 9.2 percent. Both Sanders and Buttigieg received 9 delegates.
Joe Biden, who was thought to be the front runner for the past couple of months, finished in fifth.
Antonio Rodriguez, a senior majoring in political science, said that “he has to be successful in Nevada and South Carolina. If not, donors are going to others like Bloomberg.”
Nevada voted on Feb. 22, and Joe Biden was not successful. Bernie Sanders came out as the winner.
March 3 is Super Tuesday when people will get a better idea of where the votes stand. Fourteen states will all vote on one day.
Florida registration closed on Feb. 18. If you did register, primary elections will be held on March 17.