In recent weeks, Julián Castro argued against Iowa and New Hampshire’s position as the first voting states in the presidential nomination system. Why? He said Iowa doesn’t reflect America’s diversity. By contrast, Elizabeth Warren took a big pass on that question. She said she’s ‘just a player in the game‘.
A couple of questions: Is Castro right? What kind of system might be better?
The First Four States
For anyone unfamiliar with the details of the US presidential nomination system, four states vote well before the other 46 (plus US territories). Those four states are: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. For a bit of timeline here, all these states vote in February 2020, and no other state votes before March 3 (Super Tuesday).
Does it matter? Do these states exercise large influence? One might be forgiven the naive impression that these states aren’t important because they’re a small drop in the bucket in terms of the convention delegates who select the nominee.
In short, yes. It does, and they do. Iowa and New Hampshire, even among the first four, have the most influence of all. Why?
The short answer is: the campaign narrative matters. Both Democratic and Republican leaders have tons of incentives to wrap the nomination up pretty quickly. And most of the time, that’s what happens. Democrats have nominated a candidate 8 times since 1976 where there was no incumbent on the ballot. In 3 of them (1976, 2000, 2004) the nomination contest was basically over by the end of Iowa and New Hampshire voting. The other 48 states, including even Nevada and South Carolina, were basically irrelevant. And in 2 others (1984 and 2016), a pretty overwhelming favorite had emerged by the time New Hampshire finished voting.
That leaves only 3 contests (1988, 1992, and 2008) where the rest of the states mattered much.
What’s that about ‘narrative’?
OK, so most of the time the other 46-48 states don’t matter. And even when they do matter, it’s usually only the ones in March. Keep in mind that some states vote all the way down in April, May, or even June, where the votes almost never matter at all.
But that only really tells you what happens, not why it happens. So why is it usually over by the time the first four states vote? One reason is the reason I listed above: it’s in the interest of party leaders to pick a candidate quickly and start organizing.
But a second reason is the campaign media narrative. Candidates who win Iowa and New Hampshire, or at least beat expectations, get an overwhelming lift in the narrative and the polls. It starts a snowball effect. Candidates who don’t do these things face a bunch of headlines about how they’re losing. They respond by…actually losing.
This is why candidates who skip Iowa and New Hampshire, e.g., Rudy Giuliani in 2008, lose horrendously. And it’s also why candidates like Joe Biden, despite claiming they don’t need to win Iowa or New Hampshire, probably do need to win. Or at least finish near the top.
Diversity
And so, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina are more influential than the other states. And Iowa and New Hampshire most of all. Got it. But is Castro right that they don’t represent America?
Yes, he is. Here are the voting data from the first four states from the 2016 nomination:
“But, Matt, where did you get those voter totals from?” For the raw numbers, here are links to the sources: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. And, of course, exit poll data for the racial demographics.
But there’s a question about what we’re comparing these data to. Are we comparing them to the general public or to to the Democratic Party? Here’s the exit poll data for both:
In at least some sense, it doesn’t matter too much. Iowa and New Hampshire are significantly more white than both the general public and the Democratic Party. But especially the Democratic Party.
And, for what it’s worth, this goes beyond just racial demographics. I’ve written about the Democratic Party coalition elsewhere, but it’s quite a bit more diverse than these early states. Neither Iowa nor New Hampshire has a city with more than 250,000 people in it. New Hampshire doesn’t even have a city with more than 125,000 people in it. Thus, not only are Iowa and New Hampshire too white, they’re also too rural and small town based.
What Should Democrats Do About It?
Finally, there’s the question of how to do this so that the process does reflect America’s diversity. And one that doesn’t feed Americans’ declining trust in institutions.
One option is to hold a national primary where everyone votes at the same time. This is 100% representative of the electorate by definition. The problem? It cuts the campaigning and vetting process while increasing the amount of money required to run a viable campaign. More established candidates would hold an overwhelming advantage. In 2008, Hillary Clinton would’ve defeated Barack Obama. And in 2016, Joe Biden would greatly benefit.
A second option is to pick different states to go first. Why not replace Iowa and New Hampshire with more representative states? Perhaps that’s ideal, though it’s a bit easier said than done. From the data above, you’d need a state that’s 55-71% white, 12-22% black, and 11-15% Latinx. How many states fit the bill? Not many. While Castro and others tout the diversity of Nevada and South Carolina, neither state fits these parameters. Nevada comes very close, but South Carolina misses by an even wider margin than Iowa and New Hampshire.
There’s exit poll data on this. You can look it up on CNN’s website. Here are all the states that hit the above targets: New York. That’s it. No other state hits all three targets. To be fair, some states are very close, including Connecticut, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and, yes, Nevada. But only New York hits all three groups, and even New York barely makes it. And New York has several undesirable features for a first primary state: it’s very urban and has very expensive media markets. It turns all of Iowa’s advantages into disadvantages.
Combining States
And so, I think Democrats should probably look to a third option: combining various states. What if, rather than scattering Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina throughout the month of February, all four states voted on the same day?
Remember that first table I posted above? Let’s take another look at it. Specifically, the bottom row.
Overall, not too bad! The states are a bit more black than the targets, but that seems fine. If there’s a problem here, it’s that the four states combined don’t have enough Latinx voters. Democrats could potentially solve this issue by switching out South Carolina for a state that still has lots of black voters, but is a bit more Latinx. Georgia is a possibility here.
