Democratic 2020 presidential candidates are laser-focused on the Iowa caucus. Here’s how it works.
All across this state, which launches primary season with its caucus Feb. 3., things have gotten particularly candidate-congested, more than in previous years.
DES MOINES, Iowa — In Pennsylvania, where votes aren’t cast until April, it’s easy to forget a presidential contest is around the corner — at least with the TV off.
In Iowa, the signs are everywhere.
At the recent Polk County Steak Fry, a 40-year Democratic tradition with red meat both literal and rhetorical, candidate signs occupied almost all the grass along the mile-long entrance road to Water Works Park in Des Moines, which launches the Democratic nomination contest with its caucuses Feb. 3 and has been congested with candidates for three months.
Marianne Williamson already lives here. Sen. Kamala Harris has pledged to move here soon. On any given day, three or four candidates might be in town. Long shot Joe Sestak has spent months in the Des Moines Econo Lodge. Five candidates have aired television ads in the state.
The better-funded campaigns have staffs of 100 or more people working in the state. It’s among the busiest campaigns here since 1988, when six Democrats and nine Republicans ran. That’s the year Dennis Goldford, a professor of political science at Drake University here, started attending caucus-related events.
“I’ve said if my shoelace were untied in the parking lot [that year], by the time I got down to tie it, a presidential candidate was tying it for me,” he said. “This year, there’s even more.”
With so many candidates still in the race, the first caucus will help winnow the field. While former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders top most national polls, in Iowa, Harris and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg poll closely behind. Plus, only about one in five Iowans have said they know whom they will support.
“There’s a saying: The Iowa Caucuses don’t tell you who will be president. They tell you who won’t be president,” Goldford said.
Seventeen of the 19 Democratic presidential candidates running spoke at the steak fry, which drew more than 12,000 people (and 10,500 steaks supplied by two farms). The fry sparked nearly 100 candidate rallies or appearances across the state. Sanders spent the days afterward touting his electability. Buttigieg took reporters on a bus tour — four days, all on the record.
“Only in Iowa could you be standing this close to the potential next president of the United States,” said Glen Sailsbury, marveling at his proximity to New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who had come to speak in Marshalltown, about an hour northeast of Des Moines.
Why does Iowa go first?
Since 1972, Iowa has gone first in the presidential primary season and thus grown to be the key state candidates vying for the nomination occupy.
Iowa became the first caucus state largely by accident. “It’s important because it’s first. It’s not first because it’s important,” said Rachel Paine Caufield, a Drake professor who wrote a book about the politics and culture of the caucuses.
After the divisive 1968 Democratic National Convention, the party wanted a more inclusive nomination process. In Iowa, that meant the state party had to find something to engage voters in the long winter before its spring convention. The caucuses were born, and ever since, Iowa’s been at the front of the line.
The reality of what Iowa could do for a candidate didn’t really dawn until 1976, when Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter won the then-obscure Democratic caucuses; the resulting media frenzy launched him toward the White House. And both parties’ caucuses grew.
OK, but should Iowa be first?
The influence Iowa has in terms of momentum for candidates has led to criticism that for a state that is much whiter than the rest of the country, it has an outsize impact on the process. Five-Thirty-Eight looked at which states demographically best represent the Democratic Party and Iowa wasn’t even in the top 20 (neither was New Hampshire or South Carolina, which follow Iowa). Illinois, New York, and New Jersey topped the list.
Critics have also said the caucus format excludes people who can’t participate.
A caucus isn’t a primary. It’s more like a community meeting where people make speeches on behalf of a candidate, and then negotiate and jockey to bring neighbors over to their side.
Democrats physically show their support by moving to a space in the room designated for each candidate. If a candidate doesn’t get 15% of the people in the room, a “realignment period” happens in which that person’s supporters can shift to another candidate’s group.
This year, following a charge from the DNC to be more inclusive, the process will involve some satellite locations for caucusgoers who can’t make it to the official caucus sites.
Can a candidate really come out of nowhere in Iowa?
In 2012, Rick Santorum lagged in the polls until a week before the Iowa Republican caucuses, then stunned the nation by beating Mitt Romney, who would go on to win the nomination. Iowa has long been seen as a place where a lesser-known, lower-polling candidate gets a fair shake from voters who actually get to see them all up close.
With debate-qualifying requirements this year based on national polls and fund-raising, it’s less likely that a complete unknown will emerge.
What’s more likely is that Iowa propels someone from the middle rank of candidates, or that a front-runner’s slip stalls a campaign.
“Everybody knows the risks of failing to meet expectations and the rewards of exceeding expectations,” Goldford said.
Iowans take their ‘first state’ duty seriously
At a community center in Marshalltown, a retired eye doctor brought a three-page letter to hand-deliver to Booker explaining why, based on his research and experience, Medicare for All would be problematic. (He had also given one to Warren.) In Iowa, you don’t need postage to communicate with candidates.
“We do our homework here,” he said at the gathering of about 50 people. Sound small? While many candidates, including Booker, stage larger rallies, staffers say Iowans prefer more intimate events.
About 100 people turned out to see Pete Buttigieg at a park in Clinton. It was small enough that everyone in the crowd seemed to know one another. When one man stood up to ask a question, a woman shouted, “Yay, Tom!”
Kelly Cornelius, 31, sipped a beer on a lawn just a few feet from Buttigieg at an appearance in Dubuque. She said Iowans can gauge who’s “putting on airs.” (Others described it as a good bull— meter.) “It is neat,” Cornelius said. “Whereas somewhere else you might be in the back of an arena if a candidate visits your hometown, here you get a front-row seat.”