Things did not go as planned in Iowa on Monday night. The Iowa Democratic Party’s inability to announce results on caucus night has amplified criticism of Iowa’s crucial spot as the start of the presidential nominating process. But Iowa’s prime position is probably not changing any time soon. This explains why.
People have been complaining about Iowa for a long time — without success
For more than 40 years, people have been complaining about Iowa’s spot at the beginning of the presidential nomination process. If it were easy to displace Iowa, officials would have done it by now. Obviously, they haven’t — which suggests there are institutional reasons for Iowa to stay up front.
Every four years, Iowa fights tooth and nail to protect its position on the calendar. Sometimes those fights are fiercer than others. After the 2004 election cycle — when Democrats lost their bid to replace George W. Bush in the White House — the Democratic Party chartered the Commission on Presidential Nomination Timing and Scheduling to examine the question. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), a member of the commission and a U.S. senator at the time, led the charge to replace the states at the beginning of the process. Instead, Nevada and South Carolina were added to the early lineup to bring some racial and regional balance.
Since then, the question of replacing Iowa has come up every four years, but it has always been sidelined by more pressing nominating problems.
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Iowa also benefits from an informal alliance with New Hampshire, which wants to stay up front, too. When new Democratic National Committee rules pushed Iowa to make its caucuses more open and inclusive, Iowa Democrats and the DNC consulted with New Hampshire’s Secretary of State Bill Gardner to ensure these changes wouldn’t conflict with a New Hampshire law requiring the state’s primary to take place at least seven days before any other similar contest. The consultation helped maintain the two states’ symbiotic relationship.
The DNC helps, too
The Rules and Bylaws Committee is the key body in the national party. Its members have a vested interest in the calendar order and don’t want too many surprises. Repeated experience in Iowa and New Hampshire gives the national parties some confidence about what to expect out of each state. If another state jumped to the beginning of the process, that could disappear.
Yes, both states are overwhelmingly white, which contrasts sharply with the demographic coalition that supports the Democrats. But this is built into the way these states’ results are interpreted. For example, the media has given former vice president Joe Biden something a of pass for comparatively weak polls in Iowa and New Hampshire because black voters, one of his primary constituencies, largely don’t weigh in until the South Carolina primary.
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It’s hard to coordinate Democrats and Republicans
Another barrier to replacing Iowa is that doing so would require informal or formal coordination between the national Democratic and Republican parties. Otherwise, Iowa’s state-level Democratic and Republican parties could work together to prevent a single national party from moving the caucuses, uniting to hold it on one early date. Already, prominent Iowa Republicans have defended the caucuses.
If not Iowa, then who?
The final institutional protection is the fundamental question: If not Iowa, then who? Advocates of change can easily say “get rid of Iowa.” It’s much harder to actually change the rules, enforce them and determine which state fills the void. Iowa can point to years of trials (and errors) and its comparably small population, which facilitates retail politics. It wants the position and the scrutiny that goes with it. Other states would have other advantages but would have to build consensus for the alternative within, say, the DNC. And there may not be another state prepared to fight as hard as Iowa for the privilege.
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All these factors matter and have helped insulate Iowa in the past — making it hard to displace today. Of course, new arguments against Iowa could displace it in the future. But it wouldn’t be as easy as critics might think.
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Josh Putnam is a Wilmington, N.C.-based political scientist who runs the blog FrontloadingHQ and is the founder of the elections consulting firm FHQ Strategies.