IOWA CITY, Iowa — Forget ballots, people of all ages and voter registration status are showing their support for candidates with coffee beans in Iowa City ahead of the 2024 Iowa Caucus.
The tradition dates back to 2003 for the 2004 Iowa Caucus. The Coffee Bean Caucus at Hamburg Inn No. 2 is simple. Mason jars are labeled with the name of each presidential hopeful. Customers can cast one vote, a.k.a. drop one bean, into the jar of their candidate of choice.
"Hamburg became a hot spot for political candidates to come by in 1992 when Ronald Reagan came here," Stephanie Breitbach, who is the director of hospitality for Gold Cap Hospitality, said. "He came in and ordered pie before his meal and the rest is history."
Gold Cap reopened Hamburg Inn No. 2 in October 2023. The walls are still filled with political memorabilia and pictures of candidates' past visits. They didn't want to forget the coffee bean tradition either.
"You can't do Hamburg without the Coffee Bean Caucus," Breitbach said. "It's been in 'The West Wing,' it's been in national news, so it made sense to keep that tradition alive."
For those wondering, Hamburg Inn No. 2 is featured in season six of "The West Wing," in an episode called "King Corn." Although it's not shot in Iowa City, the diner's classic sign is shown, as well as a recreation of the Coffee Bean Caucus. Alan Alda's character Arnold Vinnick also comments on its great pie.
Vanessa Murphy is a University of Iowa grad. As a student, she worked on Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's campaigns. Now she lives in the Chicago area with her family, but she remembers Hamburg's political history.
"Yes, yes that was huge," she said. "Everyone knew when (candidates) were coming. You couldn't get anywhere near this place."
When she saw the Coffee Bean Caucus jars, she was trying to explain the Iowa caucuses to her older daughter, eight-year-old Maggie.
"She's in third grade so she'll be able to learn about it this year," Murphy said. "Being able to watch it during a presidential year is going to be a lot different than it used to be because now she understands the meaning of it. She understands the different branches of the government and how voting works."
Mark Dilling is also a graduate of the University of Iowa. He lives in the Chicago area too and was visiting with his daughter after attending the women's basketball game the night before.
"I was trying to explain to her the (caucus) process, which as we talked about, is very complicated here in Iowa," he said. "Being from Illinois, we have our own system and it's totally different."
There was no competition for the top of the leaderboard. So far, President Joe Biden has the most coffee beans in his jar.
"It's good to see that Biden is winning, but this is Iowa City so what do you expect?" one man said on his way out.
News 8 counted all the beans in every GOP candidate's jar. There were a total of 772 votes. Here's how it broke down:
- Donald Trump: 43.7%
- Nikki Haley: 35.5%
- Ron DeSantis: 9.8%
- Vivek Ramaswamy: 5.6%
- Chris Christie: 5.4%
There was no jar for Asa Hutchinson.
It's a bit different when you compare it to how each candidate is polling on average in Iowa. As of Jan. 10, here's how ABC News' FiveThirtyEight has each candidate polling:
- Trump: 51.8%
- DeSantis: 17.2%
- Haley: 16.8%
- Ramaswamy: 6.2%
- Christie: 3.4%
- Hutchinson: 0.7%
The most popular choice, however, did not have a jar. News 8 visited Hamburg Inn No. 2 the day after Caitlin Clark hit a three-pointer at the buzzer to defeat Michigan State. She was the talk of the diner.
"We need to get a Caitlin Clark jar up there for sure," Breitbach said.
Once the caucus is over, Hamburg will count each bean for the official tally. Once the presidential nominees are chosen, they'll start the bean voting all over again.