After a…very long slog, looks like the primaries and caucuses almost here. Just kidding! There’s another…debate, and a couple more months. Many of us in Iowa are ready to be done with them, for sure. A question going into the Iowa caucuses: For each of the first four states, which are ‘must win’ for which candidate?
Let’s find out.
What’s A ‘Must Win’ State?
What makes a state a ‘must win’? I mean, it’s nice to win everywhere, right? But must win? Can’t any candidate recover from any loss? Especially with a long primary season?
Not exactly. If each state held its primary or caucus on the same day, Biden would probably win. Maybe even comfortably. But the earlier states impact the later ones, often heavily. If someone rolls up strong wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, or loses only one of the first four states, a snowball effect will probably carry them to the nomination. Even if they’re losing in the polls in most places right now. That’s how, for example, Barack Obama won the 2008 Democratic nomination. His early win in Iowa proved he could win, particularly among white voters in the Midwest. That led to a flip in the polls, where Hillary Clinton quickly went from strong favorite to mild underdog.
For Obama, Iowa was indubitably a must win state in the 2008 primaries and caucuses. Clinton would’ve marched straight to the nomination with a win in Iowa. Instead, Obama won it and Clinton finished third. You know what happened next.
And so, a must win state is often one a candidate needs to win to prevent something like that from happening. It might also be a state a candidate needs to win to stay competitive in a larger field. Such as, oh, the one in 2020.
Iowa: Pete Buttigieg
First up is Iowa, and first up is the Booty Judge. There’s not really much in the national polling to suggest Buttigieg has a good shot at winning the nomination. He’s doing great for a small city mayor, and he’s doing excellent for someone trying to run for vice president. But he’s still polling a consistent fourth place.
That said, Iowa is an almost perfect match for his voter demographics: well educated, white voters leaning toward older people. If Buttigieg can’t win Iowa, he probably can’t win anywhere. His path to the presidential nomination is a win in Iowa, lots of favorable headlines, and then a massive broadening of his voter base.
It’s possible he could stay in the race with a very close second place finish to, say, Bernie Sanders. But, more likely, lose Iowa and he’s done.
New Hampshire: Elizabeth Warren
New Hampshire and Elizabeth Warren are the most difficult state and candidate, respectively. I don’t think anyone really must win New Hampshire. And I don’t think Elizabeth Warren really must win any particular state. Other than her home state. But this was the least imperfect of the possible matches.
The fact is that Warren probably has to win either Iowa or New Hampshire. And winning New Hampshire would be the more impressive statement for her. It’s a state Sanders easily won in 2016, and a Warren win there would very seriously complicate his path to the nomination. Plus, Nevada and South Carolina are weaker states for Warren. A win in New Hampshire would generate some great headlines and momentum heading into two states where Biden’s likely to do well.
And if all that isn’t enough, there’s the fact that anyone else winning New Hampshire is potentially devastating for the Warren campaign. If it’s Biden, he probably wraps up the nomination with big wins in Nevada and South Carolina. If it’s Sanders, he probably also scores a second win in Nevada. And if it’s Buttigieg, particularly if Buttigieg also wins Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina might become a two-way contest between Buttigieg and Biden.
All these scenarios are pretty bad for the Warren campaign. And so, a win in New Hampshire puts her in a great spot.
Nevada: Bernie Sanders
As I’ve said a number of times, the Sanders 2020 campaign rides a diverse demographic coalition into the primaries and caucuses. Iowa and New Hampshire present challenges to him for this reason. But Nevada, on the other hand, turns into a great test case for whether Sanders can win. It’s by far the most diverse of the early four states, and it has a particularly heavy Latinx population. We know from polling that Sanders does especially well with Latinx voters.
And so, Nevada becomes the state where Sanders can turn his coalition into a winning one. If he doesn’t win Nevada, he’s probably not going to remain seriously competitive for long.
South Carolina: Joe Biden
Joe Biden does very well with black voters. It’s his advantage with black voters that’s really holding him up in national polling. The South Carolina Democratic electorate is very disproportionately black, and also disproportionately moderate. In 2016, for example, 61% of South Carolina primary voters were black and 46% were moderate or conservative.
That’s a home team voter profile for Biden. And, really, any plausible path to the nomination for Biden depends on landing big wins across the South. If he can’t do it in South Carolina, he’s not going to be in the race for long. This is the strongest of the four must win state-candidate matches.
Bonus: California
And then there’s the fifth state up: California. What’s going on with it? The short answer is that there are more plausible candidates in the 2020 cycle than most cycles. Odds are that the nomination picture will clear up quite a bit by the time the first four states vote.
But it might not! And, if it doesn’t, California becomes more than a must win state. It becomes a bellwether.
We could look at a few scenarios. Suppose Buttigieg wins Iowa, Warren wins New Hampshire and Nevada, and Biden wins South Carolina. Kind of a logjam, right? Enter California. Whichever candidate wins California probably becomes the strong frontrunner. Or suppose Warren wins Iowa, Sanders wins New Hampshire, and Biden wins Nevada and South Carolina. Enter, again, California. And, again, whichever of the three wins California becomes the frontrunner.
You can play around with a few other scenarios. On any plausible one, if the race isn’t effectively over by the time the South Carolina votes are counted, California probably decides it.
