City High’s Little Theater was buzzing as Bernie Sanders won a decisive victory in the school’s first mock caucuses.

The “mockus” was originally going to be held on the school’s Martin Luther King, Jr., celebration day, however, school cancelations caused both to be rescheduled. City High’s Caucus Club, the group that planned the event, moved the mockus to February 3, the same day as Iowa’s actual caucuses. Although many of the students went on to caucus that night, students who were not eligible for the Iowa caucuses came to learn about the process anyway. Francesca Brown ‘21 was among those who would not be able to officially caucus.

“Unfortunately, I will not be old enough to caucus, so I really wanted to see what it was like and have a similar experience,” Brown said.

Brown was happy with her experience, and thought future events like this would be interesting.

 “Although [the mockus] was disorganized, I think that represent[s] the majority of caucuses anyway. It was very informative for students that are going to the caucuses and for those who aren’t. I think that if Caucus Club…or any club would continue, would do events like this, with the political aspect in there, I think it’d be interesting to go to,” Brown said. 

Social studies teacher Jason Schumann, who served as the honorary caucus chair for the mockus, echoed Brown’s opinion that it was disorganized.

“I think the level of confusion and chaos is pretty consistent with what typically happens, and also the passion that people had for their particular candidates, reflected what typically you see an actual caucus,” Schumann said.

One way that Schumann thought the mockus differed from an actual caucus was the discussion between the students.

“The goal behind a caucus is to get community members together to debate and deliberate, and ultimately trying to achieve some kind of understanding of each other’s positions,” Schumann said. “I think sometimes we envision that happening more in a caucus than it actually does. I saw more of that kind of dialogue and discussion in our mock caucus that I saw at an actual real caucus.”

After all was said and done, Schumann thought the students walked away with a greater understanding of the system. 

“I think students came out with more familitary to how the Democrat[ic] caucuses work, with the process of aligning, how viability works, and how realignment works,” Schumann said.

After over an hour of aligning, discussing, and realigning, 30 students caucused for Bernie Sanders, 18 for Pete Buttigieg, and 13 for Elizabeth Warren. This awarded three delegates to Bernie and two each to Buttigieg and Warren.