First in the Nation Status for Iowa Caucuses Should be Non-Negotiable

Roll Up Your Sleeves and Fight, Iowa Democrats

If Iowa Democrats want to save the first in the nation status of the Iowa caucuses, they are going to have to fight for it. A lot more is at stake for the Democratic Party in Iowa - with long term consequences - than many realize.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) voted to revoke that status on Saturday. As a practical matter, it likely isn’t the last word on the subject, nor should it be.

First, let me acknowledge that President Biden and the Democratic National Committee have advanced some rational reasons - not decisive, mind you but rational - for kicking Iowa out of its traditional “starting blocks” position.

Yes, there are other states that better reflect America’s electorate today, and Democratic voters, specifically. Critics argue that Iowa’s demographic profile, as a state, is too white, too old, and too Republican for the race for the Democratic nomination for President to begin there. Perhaps, but no state is a perfect mirror of the nation or Democrats, so there will always be a reason to object wherever the race begins.

Nor have Iowa Democrats done much to help their cause lately.

The 2022 mid-term election melt down in Iowa was an epic disaster, while nationally, Democrats were over-performing at historic levels in off year elections that historically hand the incumbent President’s party big losses, but didn’t in 2022.

The botched 2020 Iowa Democratic precinct caucuses also left a bad taste in many mouths. Yes, the “botching” was done with more than “a little help” from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which jumped in late in the game to “big foot” the caucuses by trying to micro-manage them.

Nobody cares about the micro-management. Today, the mess is all that is remembered.

All of those are rational, reasonably valid criticisms.

But, in all honesty, I would take them much more seriously if it wasn’t so obvious they are mere excuses, rather than the real reason the Iowa Democratic precinct caucuses have been put on the exit ramp.

The fact is, Iowa, the Iowa caucuses specifically, and Joe Biden have a history. A very uncomfortable one, from Joe Biden’s perspective:

He finished fourth in the Iowa Caucuses in 2020, the year he won the nomination. His candidacy was rescued by South Carolina, which - not coincidentally - shows up as the new “number one” in the new Biden/DNC delegate selection calendar.

Biden did not carry Iowa in the 2020 general election, either. He won just under 45% of the vote, making him the first Democratic nominee to win the presidency but NOT carry Iowa since Jimmy Carter in 1976, nearly half a century earlier.

In 2008, he won a whopping 0.09% - less than one tenth of one percent - on Caucus Night.

In 1988, his candidacy floundered so badly he was out of the race months before the caucuses occurred.

After campaigning for President in Iowa for decades, Joe Biden has many friends in the state. But, with his political track record there, of course Joe Biden wants the delegate selection process to begin as far away from Iowa as possible as he eyes re-election.

Let me be clear: I respect Joe Biden enormously. I want him to be re-elected in 2024. He has been a very successful US President, by any measure.

But he and Iowa have a history - and there is no reason to simply accept his call on whether Iowa’s role as the starting place for Democratic presidential candidates should continue.

He may be the President and the leader of the Democratic Party, but Iowa Democrats have their own interests to look after, just as Biden is looking out for his.

Iowa’s new Democratic Chair Rita Hart - and God bless her for being willing to step into the middle of this tornado - says whether Iowa remains first or not “is far from settled.” Her promised action on that front, however, is that “Iowa Democrats will continue to be part of the ongoing conversations about the calendar.”

The first part of her statement is a good start. The part about continuing “to be part of the ongoing conversation,” though? That sounds tentative to me - and not very hopeful about the outcome.

She should, instead, make clear that moving Iowa out of the way is non-negotiable. Period. End of conversation.

I’ve seen an earlier version of this movie.

In 1983 and 1984, I had a front row seat at the Iowa Democratic Party, as the party’s Communications Director. The DNC, for the first time, came after Iowa and its “first in the nation” status that year, too.

The fight was joined very differently.

Then Iowa Democratic Party Chair Dave Nagle made it very clear, right from the start, that Iowa wasn’t moving. Period. He joined forces with the Chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party - also in the DNC’s sights that year. They fought together. It was a partnership that was hard to ignore.

The DNC threatened to retaliate against Iowa by giving the state’s delegation to the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco that year bad hotel rooms. Nagle laughed. He fought them every step of the way and held the caucuses on the state party’s schedule. There was never a question about what Iowa would do.

Eventually the national party gave up and moved on - and the hotel rooms for the state’s delegation at the national convention were just fine, thank you.

Now the national party is threatening to cut Iowa’s number of national convention delegates in half if it goes ahead with the first caucuses in the nation.

I have news for the DNC. Candidates and reporters never came to Iowa because of the size of its delegation to the Democratic National Convention. They came to Iowa because of the national boost they could get if they won the first contest, and because Iowa was a good, honest, and easy state in which to campaign. If Iowa Democrats simply go forward as planned, they’ll all show up again. Despite the DNC vote Saturday.

But what if Biden skips Iowa?

Then he turns the field over to whoever wants to challenge him in a state that will still have massive media attention throughout the campaign and will boost the winner nationally.

Republicans are still holding their first in the nation caucuses, remember, and their contest promises to be the biggest show in town.

If Biden does skip Iowa, a challenger who competes in Iowa doesn’t even have to win. Doing “better than expected” becomes a pretty easy bar for a challenger to clear if an incumbent President sits things out.

If Biden does compete in Iowa, my guess is he wins it this time. So why even risk giving a challenger a clear field to get that “big momentum?”

But what happens to the Iowa caucuses is bigger than Joe Biden or anyone else who enters the 2024 race.

Having no simultaneous caucuses with the Republican caucuses, which will remain the first in the nation - and the campaigns that go with them - changes everything for Democrats. It will be a disaster for Democrats if Iowa Democrats and Republicans go separate ways with the Republicans holding their first in the nation caucuses as usual while Democratic Caucus Night is buried somewhere deep in the calendar.

Iowa’s Democratic caucuses were created as a party organization building vehicle. They brought in fresh energy, new volunteers and contributors, new ideas, future campaign workers and even future candidates. When two year presidential campaigns leading up to the caucuses became part of the picture, they similarly spread the Democratic message and exponentially expanded the opportunities to build the party and Democratic campaigns.

It works the same for Republicans.

If Iowa Democrats accept the DNC’s vote on Saturday as the final word and let their first in the nation status slip away, they will be handing Iowa Republicans an advantage from which it may take generations to recover.

That’s because Republicans will still have the two year Republican presidential campaigns in the state, spreading their message and ideology across the state. Republican candidates will still run millions of dollars of TV, radio, and newspaper ads. They will raise money for local Republican parities and candidates as they speak at their fund raising gatherings, hungry for a Republican audience. At each event, Republicans will sign up new campaign workers, contributors and volunteers.

Meanwhile, Iowa Democrats will be parked on the side of the road, reading about campaigns taking place in the new gate states.

Two years of high octane party building by Iowa Republicans. Comparative radio silence from Iowa Democrats. It’s hard to get back up from that, especially when a political party is already trying to crawl out of the deep hole in which Iowa Democrats already now find themselves.

It’s not enough to be part of continuing conversations.

Iowa Democrats must make clear that losing the first in the nation status of their precinct caucuses is simply not going to happen. Any conversations beyond that need to reflect that fact.

Iowa Democrats should simply move forward with their first in the nation precinct caucuses, as Iowa’s law requires.

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