There’s no good reason for Iowa and New Hampshire to keep their privileged places atop the calendar forever. Voters in other states deserve better.
There’s no good reason for Iowa and New Hampshire to keep their privileged places atop the calendar forever. Voters in other states deserve better.
S ay the words “Iowa” or “New Hampshire,” and presidential candidates’ eyes light up. Every man and woman vying for the presidency — and all of their campaign consultants — knows the rest stops, diners, and small-town committee meetings of these two early voting states by heart.
Voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and the next few states on the presidential-primary calendar — Nevada and South Carolina are third and fourth each cycle — receive heaps of attention, adulation, and pandering from White House hopefuls every four years. It’s a time-honored tradition that these states defend fiercely. But it’s time to do away with it, because the outsized role these voters play in our elections is fundamentally undemocratic.
The Democratic National Committee, for the first time in generations, has decided to refresh the order of its 2024 primary calendar, with states from Michigan to Georgia vying for an earlier, more influential position on the schedule. We Republicans can roll our eyes at the Democrats, but a clock, however broken, is still right twice a day. The GOP should follow suit in amending its own calendar, giving its candidates a chance to hear from different voters and restore a measure of fairness to the process.
Why are voters in Des Moines and Concord given such astronomically greater influence over American political outcomes than those in Tallahassee and Pittsburgh? The frozen primary calendar means that the 1.4 percent of Americans who are Iowans and New Hampshirites — with their unique outlooks, regional concerns, and biases — serve as power-brokers for the entire country.
Since 1976, seven of the ten Democrats to win competitive Iowa caucuses have gone on to become their party’s nominee, and seven of the nine Republicans to win competitive New Hampshire primaries have gone on to do the same. The huge clout New Hampshire and Iowa have just by virtue of voting before everyone else is obvious. It’s the reason why over 20 states applied to move up their Democratic-primary dates after the DNC announced its intent to remake its calendar. (No state has yet asked the DNC for a later primary.)
It’s also arbitrary. Why should Iowa and New Hampshire always lead the way? There is something to be said for preserving traditions — but not when doing so prevents the rest of us from having an equal say in the contest for the world’s most important office.
Unfortunately, the RNC has declined to follow the DNC’s lead: Back in April, it announced that it would be “sticking with tradition” in 2024. But it’s not too late to change course.
In fact, if the RNC were smart, it would go even further than the Democrats, implementing a more appropriate, fair solution: a primary calendar determined by randomized lottery each cycle, with mechanisms in place to ensure that no state could enjoy a coveted early slot two cycles in a row. Voters would benefit from the variety this system created. So would our calcifying political system.
As voters across the political spectrum have learned over the last decade, there is no easy way to overturn stale political systems and topple incumbents. New Hampshire is clinging to its early state status, and Iowa will put up a fight in defense of its first-in-the-nation caucuses; after all, one could hardly expect these states to willingly relinquish the power they get from voting before everyone else.
Then again, there’s a rich American tradition of challenging entrenched special interests, too, and in this case, the cause is righteous. It won’t be easy — things worth doing rarely are. But those of us who care about the health of our democratic process must demand that the RNC reconsider its position. Voters in the other 48 states deserve nothing less.