February 4, 2020

New Podcast Episode: What the Iowa Caucus Debacle Means

“Why are we doing it this way? Isn’t there a better way?”

Jack Kurtz/Zuma

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We’re putting out the latest edition of the Mother Jones Podcast a little bit early this week in order to bring you the very latest from Iowa, where Democratic officials are still scrambling to tabulate final results from the Monday night vote, blaming “inconsistencies” in the reporting data. Meanwhile, precinct-based volunteers running the contest on the ground slammed the party’s reporting app and said even calling in on the phones was causing problems. Officials have said they will begin to release partial voting data later this evening.

Senior reporter Tim Murphy has been criss-crossing Iowa for Mother Jones, and in this show we’ll take you right there, to his rental car, for his immediate reaction and to hear what voters are telling him about this headache-inducing vote.

You’ll also hear from our voting rights reporter (and Iowa native) Ari Berman, who analyzes what the debacle foretells for voting in America in 2020. And while we wait to assess the final votes, Micah Cohen, the managing editor of FiveThirtyEight, examines the trends as election season gets underway.

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So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

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