] Kevin: Hello everybody! This is your cohost Kevin Xu. So we have been doing a special Mini-Series on the Model Majority Podcast to profile the early primary states in the Democratic Primary this year, from the perspective of Asian American staffers who are currently working on a presidential campaign. A you know, two out of the first four early states are actually caucus states, that being Iowa and Nevada. But one thing that we really haven’t talked about in depth is how does a caucus work? 

] I mean, how do you actually build a campaign that is optimized for winning a caucus, which is incredibly crucial to do this stage of the game. Well, to answer these questions, I am super happy to welcome back Punya Krishnappa to the show. For a long time listeners of our podcast, you’d definitely have heard Punya’s voice before. She and I worked together in 2008. as field organizer for the Obama campaign. She has gone on to work on many different campaigns at many senior level positions. Pretty much every single cycle. And the most relevant for our discussion today was the fact that she was literally on the ground on day 1 for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in Iowa in 2015 even before she officially announced that she was running for president for that primary season. 

] And of course, that was also where Hillary beat Bernie in the Iowa Caucus by a fraction of a percent. She is currently serving as the deputy national field director at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee or the DCCC.

] Punya, welcome back to the Model Majority Podcast today. 

] Punya: Thanks Kevin. It’s good to be back!

] Kevin: So let’s start with some fundamentals. And this is as much for our audience as it is for me because I’m totally not that familiar with caucuses in general. It’s a bit of a relic in our democratic system that receives a lot of attention every time we have a competitive primary, which certainly is the case this year. Could you give our audience a sense of the caucus basics? Basically what is a caucus and how is it different from just like a straight up primary where people just show up to vote on a ballot for whoever they like. 

] Punya: Absolutely.