Blog 2.2- Iowa Caucus

1. The dinner — historically the largest gathering of voters in Iowa — marked the beginning of a final push to the caucuses at a moment when support for a number of candidates has seen major shifts. For those who have benefitted from those changes, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the evening provided an opportunity to solidify that momentum; and for candidates like former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, who have seen some erosion of support, the dinner was a chance to reenergize their base and make their cases to voters still undecided.
2. A Suffolk University/USA Today poll from late October found that 29 percent of voters are still undecided on who to choose. And a September Des Moines Register poll found that only about 20 percent of voters know for certain who they will caucus for.
3. Biden entered the race as the presumed frontrunner, and still leads in national polling; the Times/Sienna poll put him in fourth, however, behind Warren, Sanders, and Buttigieg (in that order). Buttigieg has seen a large increase in support in recent Iowa polling, including in the Suffolk/USA Today survey, which put him in third.
4. At Friday’s event, Buttigieg worked to visualize that increasing support by filling 12 sections of the Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa, which held more than 13,000 attendees this year, according to NBC News. Buttigieg gave an address that worked to cement his position as a centrist in contrast to Warren (in a recent interview, he said the primary would ultimately come down to him and the senator) and that endeavored to link himself to President Barack Obama, who gave an acclaimed address at the event in 2007.
5. Warren, who the Times poll found to be the current frontrunner, sought to remind voters about her ideas, and argued progressive policies were the way to energize voters both during the primary and the general election. And although Warren had released her plan to fund Medicare-for-all Friday following criticism for having previously failed to do so, she focused more on political ideology.
6. Sanders gave his usual stump speech on the Green New Deal and Medicare-for-all and was the only top-tier candidate to not attack other opponents, according to the New York Times’ Sydney Ember and Reid J. Epstein. Unlike most of the other candidates, Sanders did not buy any seating for his supporters but instead hosted a watch party for them. He donated the $20,000 in ticket fees to the Iowa Democratic Party. 
7. February 3rd.