How The US Primary System is Broken - Kayleigh Simpson

Earlier this month, thousands of Iowan voters crammed into a collection of school gyms and auditoriums. Why? To be the first to vote for the Democratic nominee for president.  Why does Iowa go first, you may ask?  Nobody really knows why.  In fact, the recent Iowan caucus was a complete disaster.  The biggest failure of the caucus was its struggle to report results promptly - something that Iowa has previously prided themselves on doing well.  Then, once the results were finally reported, nobody was sure if the results were even correct.  In fact, it took 24 days after the caucus for the state to release the "official" results, which are now basically irrelevant.

So why is the Iowa caucus so important?  This question is one I can't help but think about a lot.  Why does Iowa of all states get to go first?  According to Li Zhou, a Vox reporter, the early states in the primary system are meant for "winnowing the field" of candidates for a particular party.  A perfect example of this is the 2016 Republican primary.  Before the Iowa caucus, there were twelve serious candidates on the ballot, but following the Iowan caucus, three already dropped out.  Then, after the second primary in New Hampshire, three more candidates dropped out.  According to Vox, "a voter in the earliest state has up to five times the influence on deciding the nominee as a voter in a state just a few weeks later."

So clearly, if these early states have such influence as to who can continue in the election, there must be a good reason, right? Wrong, when the order of primaries was chosen, Iowa claimed they needed more time to compile their results because they ran a caucus instead of a traditional primary.  So, they declared the first spot.  Even New Hampshire, the second primary, goes second only because they wrote a law claiming the spot.  This is a big issue though, primarily because those states are mostly white.

Above is a chart indicating the percentage of whites in Iowa, New Hampshire, the US as a whole, and the Democratic Party as a whole

Clearly, it does not make sense to have these states represent the party so early in the election because they eliminate potentially popular candidates in other states.

In response, many states have been placing their primaries on the same day to try to have more influence.  The greatest example of this is Super Tuesday, which falls on the first Tuesday of March for each primary season.  On this day, over 1/3, or 1,357, of all delegates will be awarded!  So, with so many primaries falling on the same day, you have to wonder why we don't just have a national primary where everyone votes on the same day.  However, there are issues with this too.  If primaries were all held on the same day, the people who win would likely be the ones with the most money and name recognition, not necessarily someone who represents the party. According to Zhou, this is likely because "they're able to reach people, and they already have an established backing in place."  So, if you used the 2020 primary as an example, the winner based on money would likely be Bloomberg, and the winner based on name recognition would probably be Biden.

Nevertheless, Iowa is the first state in the primary system, and it isn't all bad.  For one, it's small enough that candidates can reach out quickly to locals to grow their name.  In fact, in the 2008 election, Barack Obama was significantly down in the polls until the Iowa caucus.  Obama himself said, "I won Iowa... because I spent 87 days going to every small town and fair and fish fry." Having staggered primary dates helped the people learn about a candidate who would have never won if all primaries took place on the same day.

Obama vs Clinton in the 2007/2008 polls before and after the Iowa caucus

So clearly, small states are useful for helping unknown candidates become more formidable in the elections, but the question remains, why Iowa?  The website FiveThirtyEight tried to formulate which states should go first based on how well they represented the Democratic party.  According to this website, Iowa shouldn't be first.  The state they thought should go first was Illinois.  Iowa was the 42nd.

The theoretical order FiveThirtyEight created for state primaries to take place

Personally, I think the best solution to this primary crisis is to either rotate which states/regions vote first or to have more states have primaries earlier to spread out the influence more.


Sources:
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/01/presidential-primary-process-is-broken-heres-how-we-can-fix-it/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCvMtkEVqdA