Why does Iowa launch the presidential campaign?

Iowa assumed its position as the state that votes first for a presidential nominee more than 50 years ago. But its 1972 caucuses didn’t feel very historic.

Two folding tables at state Democratic Party headquarters were enough to accommodate all staff and media present. No TV cameras rolled. Results from around the state trickled in on two phone lines because the party didn’t want to pay for a third. Just one person, a then-25-year-old anti-Vietnam War activist who helped engineer the Iowa caucuses, did the counting.

“I did borrow a memory calculator to speed up the process,” recalled Richard Bender, now 78, with a laugh. “That was state of the art.”

“We did not have any clue how big this was going to get,” he said.

<bsp-list-loadmore data-module="" class=«PageListStandardB» data-gtm-region=«Other news» data-gtm-topic=«No Value» data-show-loadmore=«true» data-gtm-modulestyle=«List B»> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> Other news </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> Iowa’s Republican voters are less interested in talking about abortion<use xlink:href="#play-icon" xmlns:xlink=«http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink»> </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> DeSantis interrupted by three protesters at campaign stop days before Iowa caucuses<use xlink:href="#play-icon" xmlns:xlink=«http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink»> </bsp-custom-headline> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> Haley’s frequent reference to new anti-DeSantis website falls flat with some supporters in Iowa<use xlink:href="#play-icon" xmlns:xlink=«http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink»> </bsp-custom-headline> </bsp-list-loadmore>

So big that the Iowa caucuses became an entrenched part of U.S. politics and launched