Team Starting Line

Welcome to our first Scenes From The Iowa Caucus Trail piece! The Starting Line team has long wanted to do some sort of regular Sunday morning series to give our readers something consistent to read with their coffee and morning news shows. We’ve settled on doing a round-up of all the fun, weird and insightful…

Fresh off her presidential debate performance, one that catapulted her to the top of Google candidate searches for the evening, Marianne Williamson returned to Iowa today for a series of events with local Democrats. At an event in Grimes, the author acknowledged that some of her comments on stage about the lack of importance of…

If you haven’t stopped thinking about Marianne Williamson’s debate promise to harness love to cast out Donald Trump, just know this: that moment was 100% pure, unadulterated Marianne, and yes, she is always in that mode. Iowans have gotten the full Marianne Williamson experience up close for almost a year. She started with early, testing-the-waters…

The second group of ten Democratic presidential candidates took the stage in Miami tonight, all while thousands of Iowans got together at debate watch parties to check out their choices. Iowa Starting Line once again sent our team to multiple watch parties, including in Burlington, Winterset, Clive and several Des Moines locations. You can see…

Iowans gathered once again at debate watch parties across the state to watch the second night of the first Democratic debates. Many took notes as they intently watched the candidates square off with one another. Iowa Starting Line sent our team out again to multiple watch parties, including in Burlington, Winterset, Clive and several Des…

Tonight was the biggest night of the year yet for the Democratic field, and hundreds of Iowa caucus-goers filled bars, coffee shops, homes and county party offices to watch the first debate. Team Starting Line deployed reporters to seven different debate watch parties throughout Iowa, speaking with voters in urban, suburban, rural, college town and…

First-in-the-nation Democratic caucus-goers gathered en masse Wednesday night to hear what one round of presidential candidates had to say during the first of two 2020 Democratic debates. Iowa Starting Line reporters joined the crowds of Democrats gathered in Ames, Winterset, Clive, Altoona, Fairfield, Johnston and Des Moines to see whether any of the ten candidates…

Today’s party gathering in Cedar Rapids was the largest crowd yet for an Iowa Caucus event, and 19 presidential candidates took the opportunity to impress the key activists who showed up. For many of the Iowans there, it was their first time hearing in-person from a dozen or more of the contenders. Starting Line fanned…

Nineteen presidential candidates made their case to a ballroom packed full of the very Democratic activists who will help determine the next nominee of the party. Despite the lengthy program line-up, the day actually ran decently on-time, and most attendees stuck around for the full three hours. How do you make your case to be…

Senator Amy Klobuchar landed her second Iowa endorsement just in time for her speech at the Iowa Hall of Fame Dinner in Cedar Rapids this Sunday afternoon. State Representative Marti Anderson announced her support for Klobuchar, citing the senator’s experience in working on mental health care issues and criminal justice. Anderson represents House District 36…