Citizens of Iowa they speak deeply pride of his role in the United States electoral process, where in 1972 his caucus They began to open the race for the presidential nominations and earned that “first in the nation“that they wear like a medal. They are described as “good people, normal and ordinary“, words that Vince Newendorp chose a few days ago at a Nikki Haley event. There are very few who, within the population of 3.2 million inhabitants, They participate, but they celebrate their political weight and national and global media attention, even though it has long been questioned that both are oversized. And they applaud that the system allows them “have a voice“.
This Monday, in the middle of an infernal cold storm, it once again rose only on the Republican side in a duel overwhelmingly dominated by Donald Trump in which Haley and Ron DeSantis were fighting for second place to prevent their ambitions to continue in the race from being silenced. But role and relevance of these caucuseslooking to the future, walks through the Tight rope.
Purely electoral calculations and the radical transformations of political traditions that have been experienced in the US since the emergence into the arena of Trump, a unique political animal, They question whether the model of the last five decades continues to be maintained. And there are warnings that the voice of money is increasingly outweighing the voice of the citizenry.
Democratic strategy
The Democrats have already downplayed the role of caucuses of Iowa after they were marred by doubts about the credibility of the results in 2016, when the big fight was between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, and after the chaos that followed in 2020.
Precisely then, an attempt was made to make the process more credible and transparent, but there was a debacle that left the team and the country for days waiting for results, which also came with errors, leaving Iowa with what is one of its main assets: act like a screencapable of boosting or burying candidates.
With a Joe Biden’s clearly political strategythis year the caucuses here have not even been the first electoral event of the process of democratic primarieswhich has also formally skipped New Hampshire and is It will officially open on February 3 in South Carolina. Assemblies were being held this Monday, but only to resolve bureaucratic and party matters, and the results of an open vote by mail will be announced on Super Tuesday on March 5.
Faced with a state like Iowa dominated by white vote, older and deeply religious, South Carolina is undoubtedly more representative in terms of racial, demographic and ideological diversity. Not coincidentally, he was also the one who in 2020 helped the current president, who had placed fourth in the Iowa caucuses and fifth in New Hampshire, to position himself and lay the foundations of the coalition that allowed him to win the nomination and, later, the Banking House.
The republican model
In the Republican field (where the historic cold weather made it doubtful that the participation record set by 186,000 people in 2016, when Trump came second after Ted Cruz, would be broken) the caucuses are also experiencing a moment of transformation.
DeSantis and Haley have developed the traditional campaigns that make Iowa the center of the US political universe for months. They have launched organization machinery in the state, especially powerful and well-oiled in the case of the governor of Florida (although the fights within his own campaign and between it and the Super Political Action Committee that has been vital to him in Iowa have also been debilitating, damaging and open door to attacks trying to weaken his image as a good manager).
Haley and DeSantis have made frequent visits to the state, where the latter has set foot in all 99 counties at least once, a complete tour that Vivek Ramaswamy has completed twice. And on his agenda there has been dozens and dozens of events and meetings with voters, sometimes small groups of no more than 20 people.
trumpthe great disruptor of American politics, has partly shattered that concept. His organization on the ground has been, like that of DeSantis, mammoth and exemplary to mobilize volunteers, supports and voters. But their visits have been much less frequent, 30 scarce in one year. And at his events, usually large or medium-sized rallies like the last one on Sunday in an auditorium at Simpson College in Indianola, with about 1,000 attendees, the former president is not forced like its rivals to submit to the rigors of retail politics of which Iowa is the maximum expression. Your followers no longer need to ask you questions to get to know you. They are capable of queuing for hours at wind chills of almost 40 below zero just to see him from afar.
In that intervention in Indianola, which at times during the 100 minutes made the a night at El Molino in Barcelona As a political event, Trump took the opportunity to accuse the Democrats of having “abandoned Iowa” and promised: “You will continue to be first in the nation as long as I have anything to say.” His own figure, however, weakens that commitment.
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His overwhelming advantage, which has eliminated suspense in this race (although the duel for second place counts, a lot) has meant that Reduced attention to Iowa and the rain of millions that usually accompanies that attention. If in 2020 the direct economic impact in the capital’s metropolitan area in the last week before the vote was more than 11 million dollars in expenses such as hotels, restaurants or car rentals, this year it is estimated that it will remain at 4.2 million.
Although the Republican caucuses have continued to create an economic boom (more than 105 million, for example, spent in this campaign on ads), some observers have warned that they are becoming another political capitalism machine, which takes away the DNA of citizen voice that Newendorp spoke of with so much pride. Meanwhile, young people democrats They believe or perhaps hope that there is no turning back and they are betting on taking advantage to permanently delete caucuses that they see as a distraction from what they believe is truly important: the organization and politics at the local level.