What Did — And Didn’t — Go Down In The Iowa Caucuses

I’m with you, Nate. I don’t really want a national primary, but rather some sort of primary where states with combinations of roughly equal and representative populations cast ballots on four or five dates. Or maybe the oft-suggested regional primary system, where you rotate which region goes first from cycle to cycle. Candidates do benefit from the experience of campaigning.

For what it’s worth … I see a lot of folks saying that all states should vote at once in the primaries. I don’t have time for a longer take on this, but I actually think the sequential nature of the primaries isn’t a problem — in fact, it’s potentially a more robust process. Voters get to react to previous results, and candidates have to show some stamina and endurance. They can’t benefit just by happening to have the whole election conducted in the midst of a favorable news cycle. BUT I think you have to create some incentives so that there isn’t a huge benefit to going first. That probably means some combination of (i) giving a larger delegate bonus to states that vote later in the process — the DNC already does this, but it could use a more aggressive weighting scheme — and (ii) allowing later-voting states to be partially winner-take-all.

I’m seeing lots of people on Twitter attacking Biden’s team for seeming to raise broader questions about how seriously the Iowa results should be taken, considering all of the challenges in getting the vote count completed, and attacking Buttigieg for saying last night, “By all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious.” I don’t see much problem with either comment. I don’t view either of them as really damaging the legitimacy of this process. If, say, Sanders is declared the winner, I don’t expect Buttigieg to go around claiming that he really won, not Sanders. Also, those statements have some truth to them. If Buttigieg finishes second/and or ahead of Biden — which is possible — that is a kind of victory, even if Buttigieg perhaps should have phrased his statement more carefully. And I have some questions about the Iowa results myself, so I understand Biden’s team raising questions, even if that has an element of self-interest. (It seems like Biden didn’t do well last night and he might want Iowa’s results downplayed a bit.)