This video will explain,
with the help of a friend,
why the Iowa Caucuses are always first.
If you’re a political junkie like me and my youtube community
you already know that the Iowa Caucuses are the first events in the Democratic and Republican
Presidential Nomination Process.
On a cold night in January or February,
Iowans of both parties attend town-hall-style events where candidates are debated
delegates to county conventions are assigned
and the nomination process moves to other states from there.
But we already know all that.
We want to go deeper with this topic.
Why is Iowa always first?
It’s not a large state.
Demographically, they aren’t reflective of the nation, aka.
they’re 92.1% white.
They aren’t economically powerful
they’re aren’t even very good at predicting the nominee.
If you take out times when the incumbent President was running for a 2nd term,
the Iowa caucuses are pretty much go 50:50 in predicting the nominee.
Look at Mike Huckabee, who won Iowa in 2008.
He wasn’t the nominee.
Neither was the winner in 2012, Rick Santorum.
And even if none of what I just said were true,
why not switch it up just in the interest of fairness?
Why not give Oregon or Alaska a turn to kickstart an election season every now and again?
To answer this question, we need to ‘step back’ and look at two things.
First, the history.
How did Iowa get to the number 1 slot at the very beginning?
And two, Why did it stay that way for so long?
To help us with the history question,
I turn to my friend Tristan from Step Back History here on YouTube.
He makes awesome animated videos where he connects the past with the present every week.
Tristan, what happened in 1968?
[Tristan] Thanks Will.
Well, Iowa’s political parties were organizing themselves through caucuses before even acquiring
statehood in 1846
But the Iowa’s Caucuses didn’t become nationally important until over 100 years
later.
In fact, their influence in the nomination process was originally the result of a fluke
in their rules.
The 1968 Democratic National Convention was chaos.
Eugene McCarthy, who had won 6 state primaries, was usurped on the convention floor by
Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who had won none.
The party leaders, not primary voters, made Humphrey the nominee,
much to the disgust of many.
After the chaos of 1968, new rules were established to make the democratic nomination process
more transparent,
starting in 1972.
The new rules specifically required that all party members be allowed to participate in
each state delegate selection process.
This had a big impact on Iowa.
They have a four step delegate selection process,
going from the precinct level, county, state, and ending with the national convention.
And their rules stipulate that 30 days must transpire between each step.
So this meant that in order to have all party members participate
and send delegates to the 1972 Democratic National Convention on July 9th,
Iowa had to push their caucus way forward, to January 24th.
Now, in 1972 this change wasn’t very consequential.
The eventual Democratic nominee, George McGovern came third in Iowa,
losing to both Edmund Muskie, and “Uncommitted”,
to whom he lost by 13 percent.
None of the candidates and few of the media payed much attention to the new ‘first in
the nation caucus’.
But this all changed in 1976 when virtually unknown Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter
took the nation by surprise and finished 2nd place in Iowa,
far exceeding expectations.
People saw the momentum building potential of Iowa when Carter used it to launch himself
as a national candidate.
For every cycle thereafter, the Iowa caucuses were not ignored again.
[Will] Thanks Tristan.
So now we know why Iowa became the first state in the nomination process, but how have they
stayed that way for so long?
Part of this is the natural product of their new-found influence after 1976.
Candidates learned with Jimmy Carter that a strong performance in Iowa could make them
a nationally viable candidate.
In fact, no candidate of either party who finished less than 3rd place has ever been
the nominee.
But there’s more than that.
Number one:
Advocates of having Iowa go first point to the advantage a small state gives to underdog
candidates.
Rather than fighting to make a name for oneself in the expensive and geographically large
states like California,
Iowa has a more intimate feel,
giving otherwise unknown politicians a chance to thrive.
Second, even if we wanted to bestow this honor on another small state,
Iowa’s lawmakers, both Republican and Democrat,
have made it state law that Iowa be the first Caucus.
This means that if, say, Nevada were to move their caucuses before Iowa,
by state law, Iowa would automatically move theirs again to be first.
Third, which Presidential candidates or potential candidates
in their right-mind are going to go to Iowa and advocate taking 1st-in the nation status
away?
It seems like an obvious way to make Iowans hate you.
To compound on this, consider the money.
Cash flows into the state because of the caucuses.
both directly in the form of local television political ads.
Local TV Stations will receive a disproportionately large amount of the 3.3 billion dollars spent
on ads in the 2016 cycle.
Money also comes in indirectly,
in the form of promised corn subsidies.
In 2014, Iowa farmers received 1.3 billion in farm subsidies.
And don’t forget the closely related, ethanol subsidy.
Nationally, ethanol fuel subsidies have cost american taxpayers 10 Billion since 2007,
and a large chunk of that goes to corn growers in the hawkeye state.
This is important stuff to caucus goers.
In January 2016, the governor of Iowa went so far as to
anti-endorse Republican Ted cruz because of his stance against ethanol-fuel subsidies.
Needless to say, most savvy politicians won’t rock the boat.
Now if you want to learn about the craziest Iowa Caucuses in history,
click here or check the description to watch part two on ‘Step Back History’.
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