The Iowa Primary

Some TV talking heads were droning away the other day when a particular exemplar made reference to "The Iowa Primary", not once but twice.  Taking heads are employed and given air time because of their expertise, right?  Except there is no such thing as an Iowa Primary.  What Iowa does is an entirely different type of political cat.  It's a Caucus.  I like to do posts on subjects where I can clarify and illuminate.  This boneheaded bungle alerted me to just such an opportunity.

And I'm not going to dive into the issues or spend time explaining what I like or dislike about any of the candidates.  I am going to stick with the mechanics.  What exactly is going on?  Why does this and the New Hampshire Primary even exist?  What are we to make of them?

The Iowa Caucus is the bastard stepchild of the New Hampshire Primary.  So what's the story behind that event?  It has been going on for a long time.  And for a long time I am convinced that the only reason it got any coverage at all was so reporters could write off their vacations.

New Hampshire is not far from New York City, still the headquarters of the US press.  North of NYC is Vermont, home of various ski resorts that New Yorkers like to frequent in the winter.  Next to Vermont is New Hampshire.  I am convinced that writers would head to Vermont for some skiing.

While they were there they would make a very quick detour over to New Hampshire.  They would later whip together a "New Hampshire Primary" story which they would subsequently file after they returned to work.  This ploy allowed them to charge all, or at least a big chunk of, their ski vacation off as a "business" expense.

So, for a long time the New Hampshire Primary survived by being kept alive by the cynical desire of multiple NYC based reporters to be able to write off their ski holidays as a "legitimate business expense".  Then 1968 came along.  Lynden Johnson seemed poised to easily cruise to re-election.  Then something happened that the press decided was newsworthy.

As expected, he won the New Hampshire Primary.  So that in itself was not especially newsworthy.  But it was a solid win, not the landslide that everybody expected.  A nobody named Eugene McCarthy finished a strong second.  This marked the beginning of the end.  Eventually, Johnson decided to not even run for re-election and that's how Nixon became President.

After that, the New Hampshire Primary became, and has remained to this day, a big fucking deal, at least in the eyes of the press.  And, seeing how well it had worked for New Hampshire, in about 1972 some political types in Iowa asked themselves "is there any way we can horn in on this?"  And thus the Iowa Caucus was born.

New Hampshire had deliberately positioned itself to be the first step along the road to the White House.  That was an integral part of the scheme, a scheme whose real goal was to raise the visibility of an otherwise insignificant state.  Iowa decided to try to jump in front of New Hampshire.

If they could pull it off it would definitely be good for Iowa and, by implication, bad for New Hampshire.  To cut a long story short, after years of squabbling, the two states eventually worked out a deal.  Iowa would be the first Caucus and New Hampshire would be the first Primary.  And both of them would work together to thwart plans by any other state to horn in on the whole "First" thing.

And, from a historical perspective, Iowa turned out to be a much condensed version of New Hampshire.  No one paid much attention in '72.  But in '76 an unknown peanut farmer from Georgia won the Iowa Caucus.  That peanut farmer went on to become President Jimmy Carter.  And with that, Iowa also became a big fucking deal.

But, as I said, a Caucus is a different kind of cat from a Primary.  A Primary is easy to understand.  It's just an election.  Someone wins.  Someone loses.  End of story.  Caucuses are much more complicated.  More accurately, what we are actually talking about something called a "Precinct Caucus".

Most states are broken up into precincts.  (The rest have something that amounts to the same thing.)  Everybody in a specific precinct votes in the same place.  And, on Caucus night, voters in Iowa go to their individual precincts and "caucus".  Iowa has 1678 precincts so they have 1678 caucuses.  Each precinct has about 370 Democratic voters in it.  (There are 1678 separate Republican Caucuses happening at the same time but, like everybody else, I am going to focus on the Democrats.)

That means that there will be 1678 separate events in Iowa on Caucus night.  And to participate you have to show up in person.  And you have to make it to wherever your assigned precinct is meeting.  There is no such thing as an absentee ballot in a Caucus.  If you don't show up at the right place at the right time you don't get a say.

So what happens at a caucus?  Well, given that it's a political event, a lot of hot air is expended.  But for our purposes what happens is that at some point in the evening attendees are segregated into groups, one group for each candidate that has at least one supporter present in that particular precinct.

Or voters can join the "uncommitted" group.  In a caucus you can support "none of the above" or, more accurately, "a candidate to be decided upon later".  It is also important to know that this is all done in public.  There is no secret ballot.  You literally have to stand for your candidate, which might be "uncommitted".  But you have to publicly pick a side.

Then the 15% rule kicks in.  If your group does not represent 15% or more of the attendees at your particular precinct caucus then your group must dissolve and its members have to join one of the "15% or more" groups.  Or, of course, you can just go home, leaving behind your ability to influence the process.  So when that's done, we are all set, right?  Not by a long shot.

What each caucus actually does is select delegates to the "district" convention.  Each delegate is committed to vote for whichever candidate (or, in the case of the uncommitted contingent, a candidate to be named later) they stood up for at the caucus.  The Precinct Caucuses are just the first step.  They are followed by "District Caucuses" and finally "State Conventions".

The process at the district caucus is pretty much the same except that even more hot air is expended.  But the delegates that actually show up again group by candidate.  The 15% rule is then applied.  The result, after a whole lot of bickering and the expenditure of vast amounts of hot air, is the election of a slate of delegates to go to the state convention.

The composition of the delegation mirrors the relative strength of support among district caucus attendees.  There is typically some falloff in attendance between the precinct caucuses and the district caucuses.  There is a whole "alternate" business.  But in practice it doesn't work.  So some delegates from some precincts don't show up.  And if you don't attend you can't vote.

This is followed by the State Convention.  Delegates selected at the district level tend to be more dedicated so there is usually very little falloff between the district caucuses and the state convention.  There, the same "group by candidate" business again happens.  The 15% rule is again applied.  Finally, delegates to the National Convention are selected.

A Presidential candidate is actually selected by the delegates attending the National convention.  There are rules governing how all the preceding steps operate.  But their entire job is to eventually feed delegates to the National Convention.  Depending on the year, the Iowa delegation will or will not closely track the numbers from the precinct caucuses.

If all this sounds exhausting, that's because it is.  Until relatively recently this process was designed to find and promote committed political types who would provide the blood, sweat, and endless amounts of time necessary to run a political party.  And, as such, it worked pretty well.  But then this whole "picking a Presidential Candidate" business got grafted on top of it.  This is supposed to be a better process than the old "smoke filled room" method previously employed.

So, at this point (focusing on Iowa for the moment) we are getting all kinds of polling and "informed speculation" about what will happen on Caucus night in Iowa.  All this can be indicative but that's it.  Iowa may come out the way the smart money thinks it will.  Or it may not.

Beyond that, the press will assume (because that's what they do every single time) that whatever numbers emerge from Caucus night in Iowa will at least tell the complete tale of which candidates will get how many delegates "from the Great State of Iowa" at this year's Democratic National Convention..

In reality, we won't know what the correct numbers are until the State Convention happens many months from now.  The better observes will monitor the district conventions to see what happens there because changes may creep in.  The process is pretty predictable from there on so extrapolation from that point is justified.

But let me circle back to Caucus night.  As I said, there are about 370 registered Democrats in each precinct in Iowa.  Should we expect 370 people to show up?  Of course, not.  How about, say 180, about half?  (That's close to the percentage of registered voters that voted in 2016.)  Probably not.  The actual answer is "nobody knows".

Washington State has, for the most part, been a Caucus state.  That's why I know so much about the process.  In off years attendance at the Precinct Caucuses I have attended has been in the single digits.  In hot years it has run as high as 40-60.  So 40-60 is a good guess for Iowa for this time around.  But it might go higher.  People are extremely revved up.

And, for context, if 20 people attend then 15% is 3 people.  Also, for context, it is impossible for more than 6 candidates to simultaneously hit the 15% threshold.  There are 12 Democratic candidates still in the race, at least according to the New York Times, so that means that half of them are going to get aced out.  And if there are 3 undecideds then that's another candidate who won't get anything.  And if a candidate gets 30% that means another candidate gets the boot.  So in most precincts three or perhaps four candidates will make the cut.

But a candidate can make up for a loss in one precinct if the same candidate does very well in another precinct.  Candidates tend to do relatively better in some places and worse in others.  So there should be some averaging out.  But the 15% rule and other rules are there to funnel most support toward a few candidates, maybe even only one.

By now it should be obvious that in Iowa it's all about the ground game.  A supporter who stays home might as well not be a supporter at all, as far as the results of the Caucus are concerned.  A campaign expecting to do well in Iowa must be good at getting their supporters to attend a caucus.  And absolute numbers don't matter.  A thinly attended caucus in one precinct sends the same number of delegates as a heavily attended caucus in another precinct.  And all that matters is delegates.

Carter put a lot of effort into Iowa while other candidates didn't.  He was able to identify people who would support him and who would stick with him all the way through the process.  He made sure they showed up at caucuses.  Other candidates didn't invest as heavily in their Iowa "ground game" and they ended up losing out.  But everybody has long since figured this out.

This "strong ground game in Iowa" strategy works best in years when the energy level is low.  If other candidates are coasting along then a lesser known candidate can sneak in and run away with Iowa even if he doesn't actually have that much support in the state.  If the supporters of other candidates stay home then it takes only a small group of dedicated followers to make a big splash.

But, given how much coverage is already focused on Iowa this year, all the candidates know that having a strong ground game in Iowa is more critical than ever.  A whole lot of second and third tier candidates are hoping that their Iowa ground game will catapult them up in the rankings.  If that happens we will know within twenty-four hours of the end of Caucus night.

On the other hand, if you are a top tier candidate and you don't do well in Iowa, expect to see a lot of "candidate in trouble" ink immediately spilled.  The good news for these candidates is that Iowa is not the whole story.  If you "bounce back" in New Hampshire then a poor showing in Iowa will soon be forgotten.  If you are a top tier candidate and you do poorly in both Iowa sand New Hampshire, then you are toast.  Or so the conventional wisdom has it.

Both Iowa and New Hampshire are atypical states.  They are small and rural and white.  They have hung on to their prominence because of their track records.  Historically, if you do bad in both state events, you are toast.  Given that they are so atypical, lots of people have advocated for diminishing their power.  There is a simple way to do this.  Tarnish their track record.  And this is the year that might happen.

Biden has been "the one to beat" for more than a year now.  He could do fairly poorly in both Iowa and New Hampshire (not a prediction, just a thought experiment).  He is currently polling extremely well in South Carolina, the fourth of the "big four" Presidential contests that come before Super Tuesday.  (I'll get to what Super Tuesday is in a moment.)  Besides the two states I have already discussed, Iowa and New Hampshire, the third "big four" state is Nevada.  If he actually does well in South Carolina and then follows that up with good success on Super Tuesday then he could end up with the nomination.

An even more interesting possibility is Bloomberg.  He has made no secret of his strategy.  He is, in effect, skipping all of the "big four" early contests entirely.  Not surprisingly, the "smart money" expects him to do badly in all of them.  Instead, he is betting heavily on doing well on Super Tuesday.

Super Tuesday happens exactly a month after the Iowa Caucus.  The Iowa Caucus is on February third.  Super Tuesday is on March third.  On Super Tuesday twelve states hold primaries.  Included in this list are Texas, California, and several other large states.  So it differs from the "big four" events in pretty much every way possible.  They are "one state at a time" contests.  Super Tuesday is a "many states at a time" event.  They are small, homogeneous states.  (At least Iowa and New Hampshire are.)   Super Tuesday includes large states and states with diverse populations.

Combined, the number of delegates at stake on Super Tuesday is enormous.  Iowa and New Hampshire, in particular, will each send small delegations of delegates to the Democratic National Convention.  They have such an outsized impact because of the press coverage they get and not because of either's actual direct effect on the outcome.  (BTW, the Washington State Primary is on March 10, a week after Super Tuesday.)

If Bloomberg cleans up on Super Tuesday he will be in good shape to snare the nomination.  He has been spending heavily for several weeks already.  And he has enough money to spend everywhere, not just in the "big four" early states.  If he then goes on to win the nomination (or if Biden follows the path I have outlined above) then he will have shown that there is a path to the nomination that does NOT go through Iowa or New Hampshire.  And that will substantially diminish their clout.

Finally, there is a little noted impact of caucuses.  Besides being responsible for each state's role in selecting Presidential Candidates, this whole Precinct - District - State business is also responsible for putting into place all of the official that run the local, regional, and state party apparatus.

In 1988 Pat Robertson took advantage of this in Washington State.  On the Republican side it was a low energy year so few people showed up on Caucus night.  That allowed his small but committed group of supporters to take control of all of the Republican party apparatus in this state..

They sent a slate of delegates consisting almost entirely of Robertson supporters to the Republican National Convention that year.  But they also put their people in place to run the Republican party in this state.  Their control lasted for many years.

Pat Robertson was a major figure in the religious right.  His bid to snag the Republican Presidential nomination went nowhere.  But the Republican party in this state fielded candidates that were closely associated with the religious right long after Robertson and his people faded from the national scene.

They were able to do very well in various regions in the state but pretty much struck out in state-wide elections.  Our last Republican Governor was John Spellman.  He left office in 1985.  It's not that the Democrats keep putting strong candidates up.  It's that, due to the control exerted by the religious right, for a long time Republicans put up very weak ones.

Their lock on the levers of power within the state Republican party has finally weakened.  But then the state has drifted decidedly blue in the past few years too.  This has allowed Democrats to continue to have great success in statewide races.  But if Republicans put up strong candidates, who knows what will happen?

Anyhow, you should now have a deeper understanding of what's what with the Iowa Caucus.  Is that going to affect the outcome?  Nope.  But it should better equip you to deal with the BS that is and will continue to be spewed by people who are supposed to know what they are talking about.  That's all I can hope for.