( CNN ) -- A frequently overlooked place of farms , friendly towns and relatively few people is , for now , the epicenter of U.S. politics . The place is Iowa . The question is Why-owa ? The answer is a quaint and quirky institution known as the Iowa caucuses -- an unusual , old-fashioned evening of talking about the candidates running for president and then voting on them . Separate caucuses are held across Iowa as neighbors debate the pros and cons of candidates with each other before they vote among themselves , and that result then gets totted up with the other caucuses statewide to decide the winner . The U.S. presidential campaign has been under way for months as Republicans decide who they want to run against the presumed Democrat candidate , the incumbent President Barack Obama . Candidates have spoken at rallies , debated each other on TV and opinion polls are released at least weekly . But the Iowa caucuses , to be held on Tuesday January 3 , are the first time anyone will actually vote . `` The Iowa caucuses are really like nothing else in American politics , '' said CNN Political Editor Paul Steinhauser . `` I mean , imagine a cold winter night , sub-freezing temperatures . It takes a lot for a person to come out to their local school , the local church and take part for about two hours in a caucus . You 've really got to be into the process . '' Americans have long chosen their presidential candidates sequentially state by state . Most states hold what they call 'primaries ' -- primary elections -- to choose delegates to attend national conventions later in the year that formally select the Democratic and Republican party nominees . This year , all attention so far has been on the fight to become the Republican nominee because Obama is expected to be the Democratic candidate . To a casual visitor the primaries look a lot like any election , with the familiar routines of voters , ballot boxes and booths . But Iowa caucuses are different and the rules vary in the roughly 1,800 state precincts that hold them . There is n't necessarily a secret ballot ; sometimes there 's no ballot at all . After everyone gets a chance to express their opinions , the vote can be on paper , with a show of hands or , for Democrats , just by congregating into groups corresponding to the different candidates and seeing who has the biggest group . It 's a particular kind of politics with a long past . The caucuses date back in different forms more than 150 years . But they never attracted much attention until the 1970s when Iowa moved its caucuses ahead of the first primary and decided to stage them all on the same evening . The media started paying attention and candidates learned that a strong showing could generate headlines nationwide . Even so , winning Iowa does n't predict much because with just three million people , the state is so small , so rural , so white and , these days , so affluent . Its agriculture-based economy is doing well enough to be spared the worst of America 's economic downturn . A recent New York Times/CBS News poll found that nearly 90 percent of likely caucus-goers described their financial situation as good . The Times says that 's about 20 points higher than the average nationwide . So maybe it 's no surprise that , looking back over the decades , the most popular candidates in Iowa do n't tend to get their party 's nomination or the presidency . To be fair , Iowa did do better than usual last time : it was half right . On the Republican side , Mike Huckabee won his party 's caucuses in 2008 , but he did n't win the Republican nomination and he 's not the president today . The Democratic caucuses that year were more telling . Barack Obama did win them , the start of a long and surprising campaign that ended in the White House . So does Iowa matter ? Historian Hugh Winebrenner writes at IowaPolitics.Com that it does because America 's media say it does . `` Iowa is first , '' Winebrenner notes . The `` caucuses provide early evidence -- hard news -- on the progress of the presidential race . This is the perception of Iowa 's role , and it is therefore the reality ... '' But there is more to the reality . Even if Iowa does n't add much to the process , it does subtract . After the Iowa caucuses the most successful or determined candidates will stay in the race and head to the northeastern state of New Hampshire for its primary , the first in the nation , on January 10 . The others tend to start heading home . This year , the Republican race is so unsettled , with so many candidates trading the top spots in public opinion polls , that Iowa could be unusually close and confusing . And quirky . You can count on quirky .
After months of debates and rallies Iowa is the first state where people actually get to vote for a candidate . The state holds caucuses where communities debate each candidate 's merits before voting , sometimes with a show of hands . Iowa 's status as first to vote means it is watched closely although it does not always pick the eventual winner . Its issues are sometimes different to the nation -- so far Iowa has been spared the worst of the economic downturn .