system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why is Iowa so important in presidential elections?
gpt
Imagine that there are two groups of dinosaurs - T-Rexes, and Velociraptors, and they are fighting each other over who will get to be the king of the area where all of the dinosaurs live.

The figure that the best way of deciding the king is a fighting match between the best Velociraptor, and the best T-Rex.

There are about 10 T-Rexes that think they are the toughest, but the t-rexes can't figure out who to send to the fight.  The decide that the best way to choose is to go around to all of the groups of T-Rexes and ask them who they think is the toughest.

So they draw up a big sheet, and send it all over the place where the T-Rexes live.  On it is a list of the different groups they're going to visit, as well as a place to put down who that group thought was the toughest.

When they go to the first group, they ask who they think is the toughest, and that group says "Rex" the T-Rex is the best choice to fight the Velociraptors.

The T-rexes then write "Rex" down next to group two.

The reason this is so important is that all of the other T-rexes weren't really *that* sure who the toughest was, so when they see that "Rex" won the first group's selection, they figure "Hey, maybe this Rex guy is a pretty good idea!"

Rex gets more popularity from this, and eventually wins the overall nomination from the T-Rexes.


In politics, instead of dinosaurs fighting each other, it's old crazy people electing one another to office.  The groups are called "political parties" and the selection groups are called either "Primaries" or "Caucuses".

Iowa Caucus is really important because it's the first one, and it gives the winner a **ton** of momentum.