As the nation turns its eyes to Iowa for the first skirmish to determine the Democratic presidential nominee, I offer here some observations about Iowa and the caucuses.
I spent my high school years in Des Moines. I have family there, I return whenever I can, and in many ways, I still consider Iowa my home. I have contributed commentaries, albeit episodically, to the Des Moines Register since the early 1980s. Twice, in 1988 and in 1992, I rode across the state in the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, known as RAGBRAI, and I’m prepared emphatically to refute the common misconception that Iowa is flat.
The Iowa precinct caucuses have been in place for a long time; their purpose is actually to begin the process of selecting delegates to county, state and national party conventions — therefore the early date. In 1972, the campaign manager for George McGovern, Gary Hart, looked at the calendar and decided that the Iowa caucuses could provide publicity and a springboard for his candidate.
It worked. I recall my high school government teacher coming to class the morning after the caucuses to report that McGovern had finished a surprisingly close second to the favored candidate, Edmund Muskie of Maine.
In the runup to the 1976 campaign, the former governor of Georgia spent a lot of time in Iowa, visiting farms and coffee shops across the state. By October 1975, a dispatch from Ames rocked the political world. “Jimmy Carter of Georgia appears to have taken a surprising but solid lead in the contest for Iowa’s 47 delegates to the Democratic National Convention next year,” an article on the front page of The New York Times read. “Iowans like courtesy and the personal touch,” the story continued, and they found Carter’s low-key style winsome.
Less than a year earlier, when the Gallup organization had surveyed voters about the field of potential Democratic candidates, Jimmy Carter’s name was not among the 32 names in the survey. The one-term governor of Georgia — known derisively as “Jimmy who?” — confounded the pundits with his energetic grassroots campaign in the villages of New Hampshire and the small towns of Iowa. Before any other candidate had announced for the presidency, Carter had already traveled more than 50,000 miles and visited 37 states. He believed that he could win the nomination—– and the presidency — simply by outworking everyone else.
“Seems like everywhere I’ve been lately, they tell me Jimmy Carter was just through there a week or so ago,” Morris Udall, one of Carter’s rivals for the Democratic nomination, complained. “The sonofabitch is as ubiquitous as the sunshine.”
On Jan. 19, 1976, Carter won more votes in the Iowa precinct caucuses — 27% — than any other candidate. (“Uncommitted” was favored by 37% of voters.) The New York Times credited his “assiduous personal campaigning and rural style” for giving Carter a 2-1 victory ratio over his closest competitor, Birch Bayh of Indiana.
“My husband and I wanted a fresh face and a new approach,” a woman in Davenport said, reflecting the sentiments that would propel Carter to the White House. “We wanted someone who could clean up the mess in Washington because he wasn’t part of it.”
Carter’s success in 1976 emboldened other candidates to focus on Iowa. Since then, there have been more than a few memorable moments. Who can forget Howard Dean’s “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” campaign in 2004, or George W. Bush’s declaration on the eve of the 2000 caucuses that Jesus was his favorite political philosopher?
I returned to Iowa for the caucuses in 1988. I was writing a book about evangelicalism, and I wanted to see how evangelical activists were engaging in grassroots politics. (I continued on to New Hampshire the following week.) Ronald Reagan was completing his second term, and the Republican free-for-all included such names as Robert Dole, Jack Kemp, George H.W. Bush, Alexander Haig, Pierre du Pont IV and Pat Robertson, the televangelist.
I spent time with evangelical Republicans, most of them involved in politics for the first time. The women, who proudly proclaimed themselves “housewives,” said they were “lobbying from the kitchen table.” By 1988, opposition to abortion had settled into the agenda of the religious right, and Iowa evangelicals were locked into the issue.
“The most dangerous place to be these days,” the head of the Iowa chapter of Concerned Women for America told me, her finger shaking, “is inside a mother’s womb.”
Within the religious right there was a division between those who supported Robertson and those who supported Kemp in 1988. The two candidates campaigned furiously for evangelical votes, including appearances in churches. By caucus night, the heart and soul of the Republican Party was up for grabs.
In the Republican caucus I attended, in West Des Moines, the room was tense; the country club Republicans, longtime party members, were trying to hold their own against the newcomers, religious right Republicans.
Just minutes into the caucus, it was clear it was no contest. The religious right was both organized and passionate, and the country club set clearly believed that their party was being hijacked.
I continue to believe that the 1988 caucuses marked a turning point in Republican politics. Since then, in Iowa and many other states, because of the growing influence of the religious right, no pro-choice Republican has a prayer of winning the Republican nomination for any office whatsoever.
Robertson won the Iowa straw poll (a separate event held earlier) and finished second overall in the caucus to Dole, senator from nearby Kansas. George H.W. Bush, the eventual nominee, finished third — which brings up another characteristic of the Iowa caucuses. The outcome in Iowa tends to be more predictive of the eventual nominee for the Democrats than for the Republicans.
Republican winners in Iowa who did not win their party’s nomination include George H.W. Bush (1980), Dole (1988), Mike Huckabee (2008) and Ted Cruz (2016). Huckabee and Mitt Romney essentially tied in 2012.
Over the years, the Democratic winners in Iowa have gone on to win the nomination more often than Republicans: Carter (1976 and 1980), Walter Mondale (1984), Bill Clinton (1996), Al Gore (2000), John Kerry (2004), Barack Obama (2008 and 2012) and Hillary Clinton (2016). Obama credited his nomination in 2008 to his victory in the Iowa caucuses, even though he lost in the New Hampshire primary the following week.
This pattern lends even greater importance to the outcome of the Democratic caucuses tomorrow night — as if there were not already plenty at stake: the judiciary, the separation of powers, America’s standing in the world, the environment and, perhaps, democracy itself.
Tomorrow night, all eyes are on Iowa.
Randall Balmer, author of Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter and Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America, teaches at Dartmouth College.