Iowa caucuses underway, kicking off 2020 U.S. presidential primary

Iowa, a state in the Midwestern United States, is holding Democratic and Republican caucuses Monday night, kicking off the 2020 U.S. presidential primary.

The caucuses began at 7 p.m. Central Time on Monday (GMT 0100 on Tuesday), bringing tens of thousands of Iowa's registered voters to churches, public libraries, and school gyms for discussions of their presidential preferences.

Sitting U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sail through the Republican caucuses, in which participants cast a vote to indicate their support, in the "Hawkeye State" that he won by 9.5 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election.

Unlike the Republican process, the Democratic caucuses require party members to show up to their precinct and physically move into designated parts of a room to express their preference for a certain candidate.

A crowded field of Democrats are vying for Iowa's 41 pledged delegates to the party's national convention on July 13-16 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a gathering for the party's delegates to choose their presidential nominee.

Though delegates of Iowa account for only 2 percent of the 1,991 national delegates a candidate needs to win the Democratic nomination, a strong performance in the state could inject strong momentum into his or her campaign.

(CGTN)