Why We Should Think Twice Before Ditching the Iowa Caucuses
After last week’s struggle to produce and report out timely results to an anxious nation, Americans quickly jumped to social media, calling for Iowa to abolish their caucuses. While we surely can’t ignore their flaws, we must recognize that the Iowa caucuses are a unique and important facet of American presidential elections, and a true expression of democracy.
What are the Iowa caucuses?
As a political junkie, I marked the Iowa caucuses on my calendar months in advance. Outside of the political world, however, most people have only a vague idea of what the Iowa caucuses are and their implications for the rest of the presidential race.
There’s reason to believe that the Iowa caucuses are flawed, aside from this year’s reporting issues. First, they have been a source of confusion since they began in 1972, largely due to their eccentricities. Rather than walking into a polling place, filling in a circle next to the name of your favorite candidate and calling it a day, Iowans flock to one of 1,681 precincts in sites such as high school gymnasiums and public libraries. Caucus-goers participate in two rounds of voting where they huddle in a designated area — a corner of the room, or a section of bleachers — alongside fellow supporters of their candidate. Then, they cross their fingers that they have enough people.
Enough people for what? Well, if a candidate’s “section on the bleachers” fails to gather at least fifteen percent of people in the room during the first round of voting, the candidate is deemed unviable and is removed from the running in that precinct. This means that during the second round, voters will have to realign with a viable candidate, and unfortunately, some leave without casting a second vote.
Second, caucusing tends to be inconvenient for many Iowans. Caucus-goers often spend at least two and a half hours at their precinct to participate in the process. Many working Americans cannot spare this amount of time. Subsequently, turnout is skewed towards older voting groups like the silent generation and baby boomers, many of whom have retired and thus are available to participate.
What’s the point of the caucuses?
The technical purpose of the Iowa caucuses is to determine the number of delegates each candidate will receive from Iowa during the nomination process at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) where the DNC will choose its nominee for the general election. The real significance of the Iowa caucuses, however, is momentum. Momentum is why political junkies like myself pay attention, and why candidates spend millions of dollars campaigning in the tiny state.
The Iowa caucuses represent the first major presidential contest of the primary election season, meaning that a candidate who finds success at the caucuses can use it to slingshot their campaign forward. The Iowa caucuses can also benefit lower-polling candidates. Realignment gives these candidates higher numbers than they would have earned in a standard primary. Instead of allocating a small portion of the votes to the lowest-polling candidates, such candidates receive none, and the viable candidates win bigger.
Pete Buttigieg is a prime example of these phenomena. Though he was polling between fourth and fifth place among Democratic candidates leading up to the caucuses, results show Buttigieg in first place among Iowans. Many voters outside of Iowa had a new confidence in Mayor Pete’s campaign heading into the New Hampshire primary. The Iowa caucuses made room for a mayor from South Bend, Indiana — often a second choice for voters — to beat out two sitting US senators and a former vice president. This is the realignment feature at work.
Are these benefits enough to keep the caucuses given their flaws?
Let’s “zoom out” and take a look from a wider perspective. Over the last decade, thoughtful listening and debate have been exchanged for hyper-partisanship. The nature of the Iowa caucus process can actually help to relieve this tribalism. Voters must do research ahead of time on all candidates in the field as they may need to realign. Those who don’t prepare may have to make quick decisions on candidates unfamiliar to them. On that same note, caucus-goers of viable candidates will often try to convince the “stray” voters to join them, requiring a compelling “elevator pitch” about their candidate. The caucus makes room for voters to listen to each other and strategize together, face-to-face.
In today’s polarized world where social media has become ingrained in daily life, we frequently miss out on discussing politics face-to-face. We often hide behind our screens and partake in unproductive comment section arguments which escalate into insults and attacks. We refuse to give up an inch to the other side because we have turned politics into a bitter “us versus them” competition, and we often forget that we are all Americans. If we took time to hear each other out, we might realize that we all have similar goals; if we worked together rather than against one another, we may have a better chance at solving our shared problems.
Now is the time to hear each other out. Respectful and productive dialogues — like the ones seen inside an Iowa precinct — need to be a permanent fixture of political conversations. The Iowa caucuses are perhaps outdated and messy, but ditching them may also mean forsaking guaranteed moments of thoughtful political interaction in America today.
By: Tate Barber
