Category: Elections (Page 6 of 17)

Far be it from me to offer advice to the Iowa Democratic Party. Sure, I had to join to caucus a couple times for Bernie Sanders. That hardly makes me a party member.

But let’s take a look at a fact no one – even the biggest IDP booster on Earth – will deny. The Iowa Democratic Party consistently lost almost every key statewide race in the 2010s. Yes, Obama delivered a win at the presidential level in 2012. Yes, they won some Congressional races and a State Auditor election in 2018. But look beyond that and you find one bloodbath after another.

Fred Hubbell was a dud. Theresa Greenfield couldn’t get it done. Terry Branstad crowned Chet Culver King of the Duds. Deidre DeJear didn’t bring home the win. And the less said about Bruce Braley, the better. No Democrat came close to winning a U.S. Senate seat, and Trump trounced both Clinton and Biden. Democrats failed to make gains in the state legislature, and so on.

Why? Blogs like Bleeding Heartland focus relentlessly on the question. Why has the GOP kicked the shit out of the Iowa Democratic Party from one end of the state to the other? And what can the IDP do about it?

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After winning the Nevada caucuses – his third win in a row – it looked like Bernie Sanders was well on his way to securing the 2020 Democratic nomination. He built a winning coalition. He did really well in the early states among voters of color – especially Latinx voters. And he polled really well in the Super Tuesday states.

In short, everything looked great for Bernie.

But it didn’t happen for him, as everyone knows. After a big win in South Carolina, Joe Biden nudged Sanders out of the lead on Super Tuesday and defeated him handily in the later states.

What happened, and what lessons should the electoral left learn?

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