If you’re anything like me, the only time you hear or care about the state of Iowa is when it’s time for the Presidential election and the caucuses come around, Iowa’s one claim to fame. Also, if you’re like me, you really have no idea what a caucus is, or its importance; you only know who won, if that. Well, since I’m of legal voting age for this election, I need to know what’s happening with the candidates and unfortunately that means slogging through all the technical terms and rules that you can't understand unless you have a political science degree.
That being said, it is important to be a knowledgeable voter because your vote does matter…except in some cases because of this thing called the Electoral College. Click on this link to watch an informational Ted Talk about that. If you want to know more about what a caucus is and how it works, here’s a short video on that too. Basically, you can think of it as an extra-complicated Presidential primary election where each party selects the candidate they want to represent them in the real Presidential election. Just because a candidate wins the Iowa caucuses does not guarantee him or her the Republican or Democratic nomination; however, because of all the media attention surrounding the caucuses, it can potentially give candidates the momentum they need to get it.
So, in case you’ve been living under a rock and didn’t know, the Iowa caucuses were held this past week, Monday February 1st. Shortly after the votes were counted, it was announced that Ted Cruz, the Senator from Texas had beaten Donald Trump, the clear frontrunner; this came as a shock to many people. Cruz won the caucuses with 27.7 percent of the vote, while Trump followed up with 24.3 percent and Marco Rubio held strongly in third with 23.1 percent. Trump is now speaking out against Cruz’s win on Twitter and accusing him of “stealing” Iowa and calling for a re-vote or for Cruz’s results to be nullified.
Of course, this is probably nothing more than another episode of Trump’s melodramatics, to which Cruz responded that Trump was throwing a “#Trumpertantrum.” As of now, nothing major is set to happen and the candidates will move on to campaign in New Hampshire. If you are a millennial, or any citizen of legal voting age for that matter, please, please, please be an educated voter; you can’t rock the vote if you don’t know what the people you’re voting for actually stand for!