After more than a year of campaigning, the first votes of the 2020 Democratic primary have been cast. And while we are still waiting to see exactly how Iowa’s delegates will be allocated, we do have useful data on who Iowans caucused for and why from the National Election Pool entrance polls conducted for the news networks by Edison Research.

In terms of turnout, women, once again made up a majority of caucusgoers – totaling 58% of the electorate compared to 42% for men.

2020 Dem Iowa Caucus Turnout

 

As we know, women do not vote in blocs, and their vote was spread out considerably among the candidates competing in Iowa. Overall, Pete Buttigieg did the best among women caucus attenders picking up 24% of their vote. The next highest vote getter among women was Bernie Sanders at 20% followed by Elizabeth Warren at 18%, Joe Biden at 16% and Amy Klobuchar at 15%

Women Support

 

And what about the gender gap – how did women differ from men in who they supported?

Men were more likely than women to support Sanders (a 6 point gap) and Yang (a 5 point gap) and women were more likely than men to support Klobuchar (a 5 point gap), Warren (a 4 point gap) and Buttigeig (a 3 point gap).

And in terms of female candidates and the Iowa caucus. This year marked the first time in almost 50 years, that voters in a presidential caucus had a choice between multiple women candidates. It was way back in 1972 when Rep. Patsy Mink and Shirley Chisholm made history when they both ran for the Democratic presidential nomination.

President Donald Trump overwhelmingly won the Iowa Republican caucus, through no entrance poll data is available.