Iowa Caucus

[Publius]

There is a lot wrong with how the parties go about nominating their candidates to run for President.

The delegate count doesn't make sense. They vote on different days. Caucuses allow people to choose nominees that specifically speak against what the majority of voters in a party want. A Republican state becomes an important battle ground during the nomination process (Texas, for example) even though it will do absolutely no good for a given party (Democrats) in a general election. Small states like Iowa, with only 6 electoral votes, suddenly become the second most important state for Democrats despite that it is a Republican state.

And the list could go on, but on top of all of that, we have the shitshow that is the Iowa Caucus itself.

In spectacularly moronic fashion, this can only be described as a catastrophe for those involved.

Further, this catastrophe may well significantly change who actually has a shot at being the eventual nominee.

Now whether or not this nominating system was broken or not to begin with is a different discussion (it was). However, this is the system that was in place, and it is now a total wreck.

For example, it is entirely possible that Buttigieg is going to come out of this with a top three finish. If this was true and the election ran smoothly, we could expect to see him receive a massive bump in the polls and an amazing amount of attention suddenly swing his way. This would be a boon for his campaign and would make him finish in a strong position, opening doors for the future if not for today. However, because of the muted finish in Iowa, the whatever bounce Buttigieg does receive will be heavily muted, and it may well result in him never gaining the momentum he would need to make it through, or perhaps even to Super Tuesday.

For Bernie Sanders, who is also likely to finish top three, the result is the same. Sanders does not have the same appeal in later states that he has in the early states, and he needs to harvest momentum. He needs to do it right now. Bernie needs and must have the added attention, the momentum, and the energy from Iowa to pile it on in New Hampshire (February 11) and roll that forward to try to pull off a coup on Super Tuesday, which would set him in a position of viability down the road.

For Warren, it's largely the same. Although her appeal is not limited to early states, because she has a tendency to do really stupid things and because it is in fact, harder to win an election as a female, she needs all the momentum she can get. She too is in position to potentially finish as a top three in Iowa, and this robs her of the opportunity to be playing it forward.

Biden, oddly, is the one who is not in position to gain much from Iowa, but rather is in a position to suffer the least damage in Iowa. This isn't a state Biden should statistically appeal to anyway. It's 94% white, the education level is only 1 in 4 Iowans with a college degree or more, and a few other factors. That said, Biden was also in a position to be a top three finisher. However, the delay actually doesn't impact him the way it does the other candidates vying for good showings in Iowa. Because this isn't his best demographic and because his campaign had not tossed resources at Iowa to the same degree as others, and because many projections showed him in bad position in Iowa, he actually doesn't lose anything if the results of the caucus are muted.

The result of this, since Biden is the front-runner overall, is that those playing catch up are suffering some amount of loss of wind from their sails, while Biden's camp actually loses less wind from its sails in Iowa than they had perhaps been prepared for.

Because of how the nominating process works, the outcome in any given state can largely be influenced by the outcome in a previous state. Since Iowa has lost its ability to catapult any given candidate to the front of the pack as it sometimes does, this has dramatic implications for every campaign that was hoping to overcome the leader.

This could dramatically alter the outcome of this nomination.

If anyone else thinks it can have an impact, I'd love to hear your ideas of how it could change things too.