Yesterday, Americans turned out to vote to overwhelmingly support abortion and legalize weed in Ohio, elect a Democratic governor in deep-red Kentucky, seat a liberal judge in Pennsylvania, and usher in a Democratic legislature in Virginia. This is a stark contrast to what is happening in the bellwether state of Iowa, where we are known for picking presidents.
In this newsletter, I break down what Iowa means anymore (if anything) and break down some caucus information. If you support this newsletter, please become a paying subscriber.
On Monday night, Iowa governor Kim Reynolds sat for an interview with NBC’s Dascha Burns to formally announce her endorsement of Florida governor Ron DeSantis. “I believe he can’t win,” Reynolds said of Trump, “and I believe that Ron can. The endorsement was a blip on a news day where the war in Gaza and Trump’s fraud trial dominated the headlines. It was yet another attempt to CPR DeSantis’s struggling campaign, where he has pinned all his hopes on Iowa.
Previously, Reynolds had vowed to stay neutral and welcome all the GOP candidates. But playing all sides proved nearly impossible for the governor. When the news broke on Sunday that she planned to endorse DeSantis, Trump attacked her, writing on Truth Social, “I opened up the Governor position for Kim Reynolds, & when she fell behind, I ENDORSED her, did big Rallies, & and she won. Now she wants to remain ‘NEUTRAL.’ I don’t invite her to events.”
Despite the outsize influence of the Iowa caucuses, which take place before every state’s primary, Trump has shunned lawmakers in the state. He chose to bring former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who grew up in Iowa, to stump for him at his Iowa events. He has learned that he doesn’t need to play these games of retail politics, so this election cycle, he simply hasn’t. He’s shunned the debates. Shunned most of the Iowa GOP events. All the while staying popular among voters in the state.
This spring and summer I attended eight DeSantis events and talked to voters there, they all seemed to love Donald Trump. Even the ones who liked other candidates were only looking for a backup, just in case — in case of what, they never said, but the implication seemed to be in case he went to prison. But he continues to campaign — amid his court appearances — and continues to be the GOP frontrunner by an enormous margin.
If Trump is good at anything it’s revealing how flimsy our institutions and respectability rituals are. He’s the naked emperor revealing everyone else's bare asses.
Why would the popular governor of a state where Trump is polling at 43 percent with Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley tied for second at 16 percent endorse a barely second-place candidate — and risk further pissing off the presumptive nominee?
One Republican staffer in the state told me that he thinks this is partially why Reynolds chose to change her mind about staying neutral and endorse DeSantis — the constant expectation to bend and scrape before the petty dictatorial whims of the former president. A president who would never pick her as a running mate, because electorally she brings nothing to the table, but who expects unassailable loyalty and fidelity. Reporting done by the New York Times backs this up, anonymously quoting another Republican aide as saying that Reynolds has been “enraged” by Trump’s attacks.
But by hitching her political wagon to the waning star of DeSantis, who lags Trump even in the state he governs, Reynolds is inadvertently making the case that Iowa is politically irrelevant.
This is also a governor known for her often vindictive approach to politics — after all she went and campaigned against lawmakers in her own party when they opposed her voucher bill. Turning against Trump because of his attacks makes sense with her previous political decisions.
And the two governors have a lot in common. Both have pushed through book bans, voucher bills, and anti-trans legislation. They are also the two most unfavorably viewed governors according to a recent Morning Consult poll.
But also, DeSantis is offering her something Trump never would, a chance to fulfill her political ambitions. And it’s not clear what the campaign has offered her, behind closed doors, but the VP slot is there, an enticing incentive, that may be just an illusion.
DeSantis has been and remains, despite his slipping poll numbers, a viable second-place option if the “what ifs” hanging over Trump’s candidacy are borne out. Plus, he’s teased a VP spot for Reynolds — saying frequently on the campaign trail, through Iowa barns and bars, that he’d consider adding her to the ticket. A line that always draws thunderous applause. Almost as much as when he talks about shipping immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard.
Picking a governor with little name recognition outside of her home state won’t help DeSantis get his polling numbers up. But he does need a win in Iowa, especially with Nikki Haley lapping him in New Hampshire. And in some polls Haley does better than any of the GOP candidates against Joe Biden.
This year, the caucuses are on January 15, two weeks earlier than the last cycle, and without the January post-holiday events, it’s now or never for candidates to make an impact with campaign events and debates. Many Conservative pundits are claiming this endorsement will move the needle on the DeSantis campaign. But that seems like magical thinking. Reynolds is popular among Republicans who run the state, but she has been campaigning alongside DeSantis all summer, and his support is still slipping. An enthusiastic endorsement by Reynolds is profoundly unlikely to power DeSantis to first place, but it could help him eke out a stronger second.
But by hitching her political wagon to the waning star of DeSantis, who lags Trump even in the state he governs, Reynolds is inadvertently making the case that Iowa is politically irrelevant.
With the exceptions of Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, Iowa is bad at picking presidents or even nominees, especially Republican ones in the past 20 years. In 2016, Ted Cruz won the Iowa GOP caucuses. Before that, Rick Santorum. Before that, Mike Huckabee. Iowa doesn’t pick the president; it picks the most evangelical reactionary.
Iowa has seemingly lost the Democratic caucuses after two consecutive presidential election cycles where they went disastrously. The ensuing fallout and the intra-party wrangling revealed a Democratic party desperate to take away Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status at all costs. Meanwhile, the Republican stranglehold on the state has remained strong.
If Trump is good at anything it’s revealing how flimsy our institutions and respectability rituals are. He’s the naked emperor revealing everyone else's bare asses.
Yet, as Reynolds persists in standing by DeSantis, and assuming Trump is the nominee — and it seems all but inevitable he will be — it’s hard to see how anyone can make the argument for Iowa’s relevance, even to the party that is preferred by rural voters and farmers.
By standing for DeSantis (who trails Trump even in Florida), Reynolds is tacitly arguing against the relevance of Iowa. She is badly out of step even with her own party, which heavily favors Trump. She’s even out of step with other female Republican governors of rural red states. On the same day Reynolds endorsed DeSantis, Huckabee Sanders endorsed Donald Trump. It feels, at least implicitly, like an indictment on Reynolds.
But the argument is inadvertently a good argument to make. For too long, America’s presidential primary system has been unduly influenced by states whose voters are predominately white and rural. This is a narrative that Iowans (Democrat and Republican alike) have pushed back against, arguing for the closeness, the small media market, and the chance to meet with an engaged electorate. But the reality is, that the electorate is not engaged. The media market is devastated. And the idea of Iowa as the testing field for America’s presidents is and always has been a mirage born of a media narrative and political mythmaking.
By clinging to DeSantis against the hurricane of Trump — Reynolds is looking for hope on a sinking ship.
What the hell is going to happen in January?
In 2008 and 2012 I attended the Republican caucuses as a reporter. Republican caucuses in Iowa are cast by secret ballot: You check in, you go into a room, there is some party business, and then the caucus chair invites people to give short speeches for each candidate. The speeches are usually polite, although in 2012 I heard a man declare that there was a vast Republican conspiracy against Newt Gingrich. He was booed off the stage when his speech went over the allotted time period. (Apparently, the conspiracy didn't work; Gingrich beat Rick Perry by 3 points in our precinct that night.) On January 15, the Republican caucuses will go as planned.
Meanwhile, on January 15, the Democratic caucuses will once again be a nightmare. Previously, the Democratic caucuses have been in person; you essentially vote with your body. So people get up out of their chairs and move to stand in groups for their candidate. All the Elizabeth Warren people in one corner. The Bernie Sanders people in another, etc. Then, there is a realignment period, where people have to convince other people to join their group. For example, if you were in a Martin O’Malley group with two other people, you might join the Sanders group because O’Malley didn’t have a chance in hell. If you are thinking it’s a mess, you are right. It’s confusing and can take a long time. People who like it say it draws neighbors together. Others point out that it’s inaccessible, clunky, and nearly impossible. After the fallout from 2016, when the Sanders campaign rightfully challenged the results, there were changes to the caucus process that made it even more cumbersome. In 2020, I predicted these changes would make the caucuses a fucking nightmare. And they were! Very famously they were a nightmare. In the ensuing years, the Iowa Democrats have been blaming an app (which wasn’t even half the problem) and desperately begging not to have the caucuses ripped away from them.
But to no avail: In February, the national Democratic Party essentially voted to take away Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status. But the Iowa Democratic Party refuses to let go and has been vowing to maintain its position. What will actually happen on January 15 remains unclear. For example, the Iowa Dems say they are holding a caucus, but there isn’t much point when a sitting Democratic president is running for reelection. The media circus around the caucuses has been so confusing that I cannot imagine people showing up to them.
Right now, the plan is: Iowa Democrats can request a presidential preference form to fill out. And there will be an in-person caucus on January 15. But Iowa won’t release the results until Super Tuesday. It’s all a part of a complicated compromise to hold onto the caucuses, while not failing afoul of party rules. And like all complicated compromises, I don’t think it will go well. But we will see. And I will be here writing about it.
When has Iowa actually picked the president?
If you analyze caucus results, Iowa has only picked the president four times since we accidentally got first-in-the-nation status in 1972. I don’t count the years the eventual president ran unopposed in the caucuses. For example, in 1984, Ronald Reagan was unopposed in the Republican caucuses, so he won and went on to win the general election. Similarly, in 1992 George H.W. Bush technically won the caucuses, although he ran unopposed. Again in 2004, George W. Bush won the caucuses but ran unopposed. I think this is an important distinction when we consider how effective Iowa is at picking the president. Additionally, the narrative has always been that Jimmy Carter made his name in the caucuses, but in 1976 he came second behind “Uncommitted.” Given those caveats, these are the years that the winners of the caucuses won the presidency. That’s essentially three out of 12 cycles. And I’m being generous because I could argue that 1996 doesn’t count.
1996: Bill Clinton1
2000: George W. Bush
2008: Barack Obama
[Editors note: This post previously claimed that Jimmy Carter won in 1980. He did win the Democratic caucuses that year but not the presidency.]
Further reading:
I wrote about the DeSantis campaign in Iowa for Rolling Stone. And last year, I did a deep dive on Casey DeSantis.
Last year, I interviewed Julian Castro for this newsletter about the caucuses. That piece links to some of my other caucus pieces.
And in 2020, I wrote a deep dive into the history of the Iowa caucuses for The Columbia Journalism Review.
Technically, he wasn’t running unopposed, but the challenger was Ralph Nader, bless his heart.
" If Trump is good at anything it’s revealing how flimsy our institutions and respectability rituals are. He’s the naked emperor revealing everyone else's bare asses." <---- Truly incredible writing this. *chef's kiss*
You’re on point. Iowa is no longer relevant, if it ever actually was, and then when caucuses functioned mostly as an injection of dollars every four years into our normally weak hospitality sector (when else is Iowa a “destination state?”). Adding to the R-factor, IA Republicans aren’t really evangelical anymore. They’ve exposed themselves at core as Reactionaries more even than Texas, where school vouchers won’t win, while our teachers are foundering and our hospitals hemorrhaging Ob-Gyn doctors. Now IA is deeply dumbly Red under Reynolds, the most unpopular governor in the country, We are Redundantly not Relevant.