On the menu today: Your friendly neighborhood morning-newsletter writer is in the Hawkeye State, preparing for this week’s two-candidate Republican debate and the final high-stakes days before the Iowa Republican caucus. But what arrived right after me? About a foot of snow, complicating the plans of the candidates and their campaigns. Also, some questions about why Iowa still goes first, at least on the Republican side, and whether the unique characteristics of this state and New Hampshire leave some promising presidential candidates out of luck.
A Snowy Start to the Caucus Countdown
Des Moines, Iowa — The pilot boasted that our flight would get into Iowa’s capital “about an hour before the snow arrives.” By late lunch, the first flurries descended, a sign that the final week before the Iowa caucuses was going to feature a lot of snow — up to a foot’s worth.
By evening, the streets in front of the Polk County Courthouse looked like this:
In fact, there’s a chance of snow in the forecast every day this week, with highs in the low 20s, and a forecast for caucus day of “partly sunny and cold, with a high near 5.” That’s not a misprint of “25” or “15,” and while Iowans are hardy folk, you must wonder if miserably cold weather will impact turnout on caucus night.
Monday’s snow, ice, and slush also meant that the Republican presidential candidates couldn’t get around the state the way they’d planned. The campaign of former president Donald Trump “indefinitely postponed” an event in Ottumwa. Nikki Haley canceled an event in Sioux City. (As of this writing, Haley still has events scheduled in Waukee Tuesday morning, in the Des Moines suburb of Ankeny Thursday morning, and in Cedar Rapids Thursday evening.)
Vivek Ramaswamy made a big deal out of this, posting a video declaring, “Did Washington cancel crossing the Delaware? No, he didn’t. Other candidates canceled their events today because of the snow. Not me. if you can’t handle the snow, you can’t handle Xi Jinping.” That may sound silly, but in Ramaswamy’s defense, he’s wearing a very cool-looking leather jacket. Still, Ramaswamy is trudging through the snow all across the state — he’s scheduled to hit Coralville, Burlington, Keokuk, Ottumwa, Oskaloosa, Pella, and Des Moines today.
CNN is hosting a debate here Wednesday at Drake University, featuring just Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley. Once again, Trump is skipping the debate, and counterprogramming it by appearing in a live town hall about two miles away at the Iowa Events Center, televised on Fox News Channel and hosted by Bret Baier.
To qualify for CNN’s debate, candidates had to reach 10 percent in three separate national and/or Iowa polls of Republican caucus-goers or primary voters. Neither Ramaswamy nor Chris Christie qualified. Lord knows if anyone who will show up on Wednesday night is still genuinely undecided, but this is the last shot for DeSantis and Haley to make their final sales pitches to Iowans, and to contend, “Hey, I am the lone legitimate, serious alterative to Trump in this primary.”
Iowa is a deceptively large state. When you’re looking at a map of the U.S., Iowa looks like a modestly sized, overstuffed sandwich — flat on the top and bottom, and the meat bursting out the sides. But in terms of square miles, Iowa is actually geographically larger than New York state, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, or Tennessee. Asa Hutchinson — yes, he’s still running for president — is hosting a meet-and-greet scheduled around midday on Wednesday at a coffee shop in Dubuque, and I was tempted to go and cover it, just to see who in Dubuque goes out to see Asa Hutchinson in the middle of the day. Then I learned it was a three-and-a-half-hour drive to Dubuque from here, separate from any snow issues. Sorry, Asa.
Not that the average Iowan has lacked opportunities to see these candidates in the flesh in the past year. The average Iowan or New Hampshire resident has so many more opportunities to see a candidate speak, ask a question at a town-hall meeting, or chat briefly (perhaps chat not-so-briefly) than the average American in almost any other state. (Nevadans and South Carolinians aren’t too far behind.)
According to the Des Moines Register, since January 1 of last year, former president Donald Trump has held 24 events in Iowa, Haley has held 51 events, and Ron DeSantis has held 99 (that seems low, if he’s visited all 99 counties). But credit Ramaswamy for his hustle; he’s attended an astounding 239 events in the state.
Why Does This Place Get to Go First Every Cycle?
Despite all my years of covering presidential campaigns, this is my first visit to Iowa. Now, so far, Iowans are quite nice; I’ve had a lot of readers reach out and offer to show me around or grab a beer. But there is something absolutely insane about the fact that this state has had such a spectacularly oversized role in selecting our presidents since 1972.
Every state is unique, but some are further from the mean than others.
Iowa can plausibly argue it is the capital of American agriculture; the state ranks first in the country in pork, egg, and corn production. It ranks second to Illinois in soybean production and fifth in oat production, ninth in cheese, twelfth in milk, and 13th in beef. There’s an excellent chance that part of your breakfast this morning came from Iowa.
Unsurprisingly, a state with so much farming also ranks first in the nation in tractor fatalities.
Iowa produces more ethanol than any other state, almost twice as much as the second-highest-producing state, Nebraska. Because so many Iowans support ethanol and all the federal programs designed to support turning corn into fuel, very few if any presidential candidates are willing to oppose those programs. The Iowa caucus’s going first means we can never get rid of the plethora of federal subsidies and incentives. Corn belongs in people’s stomachs, not in your gas tank.
The point is Iowa’s economy, politics, and society are heavily focused on agriculture, while agriculture is about 5.4 percent of the U.S. economy.
With all those farms, Iowa is not a particularly urban state. The state’s largest city, Des Moines, ranks as the 111th-largest city in the country. The second-largest city, Cedar Rapids, ranks 205th. Iowa is spread out — it ranks 42nd in the country in population density.
Some, mostly Democrats, have questioned whether the presidential primary should begin with a state that is 86 percent white. (The U.S., as a whole, is 75.5 percent white, according to the Census.)
This year, Democrats kicked the Iowa caucuses to the curb, and the state’s Democrats are moving to a vote-by-mail system; the results won’t be announced until March 5. And obviously, this year features a not particularly exciting or competitive matchup among incumbent Joe Biden, Marianne Williamson, and Dean Phillips. Biden isn’t even on the ballot in New Hampshire, and the Democratic National Committee is telling the state Democratic Party “Jan. 23 is a nonbinding presidential preference event and is meaningless and the [New Hampshire Democratic Party] and presidential candidates should take all steps possible not to participate.”
Hilariously, the New Hampshire attorney general’s office issued a cease-and-desist letter Monday to the DNC, accusing it of “voter suppression” in violation of state law.
Recall the Florida Democratic Party canceled its primary and just declared that Biden had won the state’s delegates without a vote. Sometimes democracy dies in darkness, and then sometimes somebody just stabs it to death right out in the open with everyone watching.
Now, by a lot of measures, Iowa is a nice place to live. By one assessment, it has the lowest housing costs of any state. When Iowans buy a house, they rank the happiest with their purchase of the homeowners of any state. Some say it’s the best state for retirement.
But the end result is that this state, going first, is way more rural, way more focused on agricultural issues, older, whiter, and about 7 percent more Christian than the country as a whole. And if you’re a presidential candidate, and you can’t win over this group, you pretty much must win or nearly win New Hampshire, or you’re toast. Iowa and New Hampshire alone don’t necessarily pick the major parties’ presidential nominees. (South Carolina: “That’s OUR job!”) But Iowa and New Hampshire thin the herd by a lot. A failure to gain traction here is one of the reasons Mike Pence and Tim Scott aren’t in this primary anymore.
For many cycles, frustrated voters in other states have talked about shaking up the schedule and allowing other states a chance to go early. (My proposal from many years back is here.)
The irony is that recent history suggests that winning the Iowa caucuses doesn’t really catapult you to victory in subsequent contests. On the Republican side, Bob Dole won Iowa in 1988, Mike Huckabee won in 2008, Rick Santorum won in 2012, and Ted Cruz won in 2016 — and there were Republican incumbents running in 1984, 1992, 2004, and 2020. For a long while, the way to win the Iowa Republican caucus was to be the most overtly Christian guy in the race. But there was considerable evidence that the Republicans in a lot of other states weren’t so interested in nominating the most overtly Christian guy in the race.
On the Democratic side, Obama’s win in the 2008 caucuses was a big deal. But last cycle, Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders were neck and neck, and Joe Biden finished fifth.
Maybe that’s changing. This cycle, Trump’s well ahead in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, nationally, you name it.
ADDENDUM: In case you missed it yesterday, some Democratic senators are already talking about the possibility of Joe Biden skipping the debates in the fall — not because he couldn’t handle it or would perform poorly, they insist, but because it would dignify and elevate Donald Trump.
What’s Trump going to say? That any serious presidential candidate is obligated to debate his opponents?