Critics: Iowa Caucuses Give Tiny State Undue Influence

DES MOINES, IA – Robert Brownell, an elected official in Iowa’s most populous county, read a story in Politico that said Iowa hijacked America’s democracy with its celebrated caucuses with a great deal of skepticism and some outrage.

For months, Republican and Democratic candidates have been crisscrossing a state where retail politics are decisive, seeking residents’ votes and putting Iowa at the political epicenter of the 2016 presidential election.

Related

• When Are the 2016 Iowa Caucuses?

Whether candidates’ meet-them-where-they-live strategies will work will be decided Monday, Feb. 1, in first-in-the-nation caucuses that take place in schools, churches and other neighborhood gathering spots.

Politico wrote:

“Iowa looks nothing like the rest of the nation, and its wintry, time-consuming caucuses make participation difficult, if not impossible, for much of the citizenry — especially those with limited economic means. The Democratic caucuses in particular take two of the core principles of a free system — the secret ballot and one-person-one-vote — and throw them away.

“Indeed, if you look beyond the color and the pageantry, beyond the county fairs and butter cows, and appreciate the real workings and impact of the caucuses, you realize that Iowa is neither a useful bellwether or an important test for candidates. Moreover, there are baleful consequences of the inflated status of Iowa: It distorts the political process and leads to bad public policy.”

That rankled Brownell, a Republican on Polk County’s governing Board of Supervisors.

“Look at it this way,” Brownell told Patch. “Where else, besides Iowa and New Hampshire, could a person without a huge bankroll or being enslaved to some monied interests, go out and actually have a shot at being president of the U.S.? Once Iowa and New Hampshire are over, it’s all about the money.”

Brownell argues that a candidate like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders couldn’t compete against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in any of the larger states that envy Iowa’s influence over the presidential selection process.

Brownell said there’s no chance Sanders will get his vote Monday, “but I admire how he’s been able to get his story out in Iowa and New Hampshire.”

“Iowa is the right place,” Brownell said. “Without it, it will just boil down to whichever oligarch or super PAC-funded crony capitalist happens to spend the most cash up front.”

Politico isn’t alone in its criticism of Iowa’s role.

Stuart Stevens, GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s chief strategist in 2012, compared the caucuses to “a student body election.”

“You have to respect the absurdity of it,” Stevens told Vox.com. “Or it’ll drive you crazy.”

Romney finished a close second to former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum in the 2012 caucuses. Santorum was declared the official winner three months after the vote — early reports gave the win to Romney.

Is Iowa Too White, Too Old?

Criticism of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation role isn’t limited to out of staters and politicians snubbed by Iowa voters.

In a guest op-ed in The Cedar Rapids Gazette, Steve Corbin, an emeritus professor of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa, said Iowa ought to have to earn its place in the spotlight.

For starters, mostly white Iowa isn’t representative of the rest of the country, and the voter participation rate “has been called pathetic,” Corbin wrote.

Ninety-two percent of Iowa’s 3.1 million residents are white, compared with 77 percent nationally, according to December 2015 data from the U.S. Census Bureau. About 6 percent of the state’s residents are Hispanic, compared with 17 percent nationally, and about 3 percent of Iowans are black or African-American, compared with 13 percent nationally.

Iowa also has one of the oldest populations in the country, ranking 12th with almost 16 percent of residents age 65 and older. Nationally, 14.5 percent of residents are 65 and older.

It’s also true, as Corbin pointed out, that Iowans don’t turn out in droves to caucus for their favorite candidates.

Only about 20 percent of the electorate, or about 100,000 people each on the Democrat and Republican sides, actually turn out, according to the Iowa Caucus Project.

As a result, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg told Vox, “Iowa has just an amazing, outsize impact on the country.”

With only a fraction of the nation’s 319 million residents, Iowa has only three votes in the Electoral College. California, in comparison, has 55 electoral votes, Texas has 38, and New York and Florida both have 29.

Tell Us

• Should the presidential nominating process start in Iowa? Tell us what you think in the comments.

But what happens in Iowa matters, U.S. News & World Report asserted.

A candidate doesn’t have to win Iowa to get his or her party’s nomination — and, indeed, Santorum, the 2012 GOP winner in Iowa, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Iowa Republicans’ pick in 2008, both faltered when they took their campaigns to the rest of the country.

But early contests like those in Iowa and New Hampshire, home of the nation’s first outright primary on Feb. 9, are an indication of how voters will respond to campaigns in the rest of the country.

“In politics, momentum is king. If a candidate doesn’t place highly in the early states, support and dollars typically begin to dry up, which means that Iowa often is successful at winnowing the field,” U.S. News & World Report wrote. “In a race with many candidates, like the 2016 contest for the Republicans, how a politician fares in Iowa can determine whether he or she will remain on the ballots for the rest of the U.S.”

» Photo of Bernie Sanders meeting with young voters by Phil Roeder via Flickr / Creative Commons