Meet the Little-Known Biggest Players in the Iowa Caucuses

DES MOINES, Iowa — What distinguishes the caucuses in Iowa from the primaries in most other states is persuasion: the notion that, even if someone enters their voting site with a preferred candidate, they might still be open to changing their mind.

While electioneering is commonly prohibited at polling places in other states, in the gymnasiums, auditoriums, churches and community centers where Iowans will gather Monday night, it is actively encouraged. And the people formally tasked with doing it — the precinct captains — are some of the caucuses’ most important players. Yet, they are little known to outside observers.

The goal is to have one captain for each candidate, at each site. They try to personally persuade people before the proceedings begin, and later comes the central responsibility: a short speech on why their neighbors should support their candidate.

Some are seasoned operatives — one of Ron DeSantis’ captains is a former co-chair of the Iowa Republican Party, and one of Nikki Haley’s is a state senator.

But many are just ordinary Iowans who decided to volunteer, often for the first time. Meet four of them:

Mary Doyle

Supporting former President Donald Trump in Des Moines

When Doyle, 69, attended a Trump rally last summer, she checked a box on a form saying she wanted to help the campaign. On Monday, she will be a precinct captain — a job she hesitated to agree to.

“I was a little bit leery because, oh, wait a minute, that sounds like it’s important and I should know what I’m doing,” she said.

Doyle, who works in data analytics, said she would plot out her speech carefully to stop herself from rambling. “My mind sometimes thinks faster than my words can come out,” she said.

In an interview Saturday, she said she believed Trump was the only candidate who could “whip this country back in shape” and, amid international crises, “jump up and just kind of dictate to the other countries what we’re going to do.”

“I don’t want younger kids today to not be able to enjoy the country the way I was able to enjoy it,” she said.

She said she “won’t deny” that Trump has an ego. “But I saw something in him. I just sense something about him.”

John Weihs

Supporting Haley in Hudson, Iowa

Weihs is the only captain for Haley’s campaign at a site that is hosting three precincts’ caucuses — so he will have to deliver his speech three times, in three different rooms at the same school.

But he said he was ready. “I feel pretty good,” he said in an interview Saturday.

Weihs, 58, who retired from John Deere, describes himself as a moderate conservative — he crossed the aisle to support Amy Klobuchar in the 2020 Democratic caucuses, but reluctantly voted for Trump in the general election.

“I’m going to emphasize character,” he said of his speech.

He doesn’t plan to speak negatively about Trump, he said, “because I know that will turn people off, but I basically just want to contrast the two by emphasizing her strengths.”

Those strengths? He listed “positive leadership, experience, intellect” and his belief that “she’s open to input and discussion but can also hold her ground and be persuasive, and reach agreements rather than being in battle mode all the time.”

Lori Tiangco

Supporting DeSantis in Des Moines

Tiangco — who will be a precinct captain for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida in a different room of the same school where Doyle will be a captain for Trump — has volunteered for Republican candidates dating back to George W. Bush. At previous caucuses, she has been both a captain (representing her preferred candidate) and a chair (overseeing the whole proceeding).

“I don’t want to be somebody that just sits on the sidelines and complains,” said Tiangco, 56, a criminal-background checker.

She said her speech would focus on the economy — she has relatives working two jobs to get by, she said, and she is struggling to afford diabetes test strips — as well as border security and her belief that the government is taking freedoms away from Americans, such as with calls for gun restrictions.

She praised DeSantis’ military service and said she saw him as “standing up for parents’ rights,” with regard to schools that mandate diversity, equity and inclusion teachings in their curricula.

“I just feel like he’s the one candidate that gives us hope,” she said. “When he has said he’s going to do something, he has done it.”

Joanne Keane

Supporting Vivek Ramaswamy in Sioux City, Iowa

Keane does not see herself as “a political person,” so she surprised herself when, at a rally for Ramaswamy, she raised her hand to volunteer.

Keane, 57, immigrated from Vietnam 34 years ago, after the country held her father prisoner for 10 years for helping the U.S. military during the Vietnam War.

She sees Ramaswamy as the candidate best able to preserve the promise of the United States as she experienced it.

“I left my motherland behind, which is Vietnam, and America is the promised land,” she said, adding, “I want my children to see America as a promised land, and I want that promised land to last, to have a national identity.”

She was attracted to Ramaswamy’s list of “10 truths,” including that “there are two genders,” “reverse racism is racism,” “an open border is no border,” “capitalism lifts people up from poverty” and — most important, she said — “God is real.”

Being intelligent and wielding power is not enough, she said.

“You have to have the virtue of the humankind, the human race,” she said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .