Not even the Associated Press (AP) had declared them, the news agency that thanks to its complete data collection operation is the one that indicates the winning trends in every election. In fact, AP acknowledged that it could not identify a winner, so that the result of the electoral assemblies was in limbo.
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“The Associated Press indicates a winner when there is a clear indication of a winner. Due to the narrow margin between former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Bernie Sanders and irregularities in this year’s caucus process, it is not possible to determine a winner at this point, ”said Sally Buzbee, executive director of the agency.
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That has not prevented both Buttigieg and Sanders from being victorious, the first because, by the small margin of votes, he would get a couple of delegates more than the second, who would have taken more direct votes (the popular vote).
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Already for the weekend the result of Iowa, or rather, the lack of it was irrelevant to the dynamics of the primaries, which has focused on what will happen on Tuesday in the first election of the season in New Hampshire.
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The Democratic caucus fiasco will be thinking for Iowa because it puts at risk the position of the state that is proudly proclaimed as “first in the Nation.” Every four years, the primary elections with which the political parties choose their presidential candidates start from here. Now that seems to be at risk.
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Recurring debate
Every four years the political preponderance of the Midwestern state is questioned by experts, campaign commands and even public opinion, who wonder why Iowa has that position of honor if it does not serve as a representative sample of American society and is not even a primary but caucus or electoral assemblies.
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The state is considered “very white”, with 90% of the white population, 3% black and another 3% Hispanic. That is why it is said that it is not representative of American society and therefore does not serve as a barometer of the electoral climate. In addition, its process is a caucus, or electoral assembly and not an election, which is considered to reduce voter participation.
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However, what happens in Iowa is expected by the candidates to project themselves as the best option. A good place can catapult aspirations, as happened with the then unknown Senator Barack Obama in 2018.
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For Democrats, winning Iowa is seen as a good sign. Those who have won the presidency have imposed themselves on the state, with the exception of Bill Clinton. But a first place does not guarantee anything either, as Senator Ted Cruz, winner of the 2016 caucus will remember, when he disputed the Republican nomination for Donald Trump and several others.
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Then, if after a year of intense campaign, the commanders cannot use the result of the state caucus to project themselves before the electors of the following primaries and, above all, convince the financiers that theirs is the winning bet, why Does Iowa serve?
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That is the question that many are asking these days, especially in campaign commands. The political science professor at Iowa State University, Steffen Schimdt, says that, this year, it won’t help much: “I think it won’t have any impact because Iowa’s results are already irrelevant.”
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“It is probably the end (of the tradition of being the first in the Nation) because it gave a tremendous blow to the Democratic leaders and was also humiliating for the national party,” Schimdt.
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Complex process
The Iowa tradition began in 1972, when the Democratic Party changed the rules of how to choose a presidential candidate, precisely because of the problems experienced during the tumultuous Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968. The idea was to make the process more democratic and reduce the power of political clans in selecting the nominee.
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Taking the place of honor from Iowa is not easy. It is a negotiation in which the parties must enter and change the process of assemblies to direct elections puts it in a collision course with another state that claims a first place in the primaries: New Hampshire.
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The small state of the Northeast is also defined as “first in the Nation” because it makes the first election of the primary process (not caucuses or assemblies).
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Sources from the Democratic Party in Washington who spoke with Univision News said that within the national committee there was no real debate about taking Iowa first.
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Some hope that the debacle will be forgotten as the primary progresses and that within four years the bad taste of what happened in 2020 is already more diluted. However, the episode will be another element in the eternal debate as to why Iowa has to be first.
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