To take a step back for a second, the Iowa caucuses remind me how deeply ingrained geographic representation is here in the U.S. Now sure, it makes sense that since caucuses are physical meetings, you’d want caucusgoers to be neighbors. But the Iowa Democratic party then aggregates those precincts up at the county and congressional district levels to produce each candidate’s number of delegates statewide. And while I can see arguments about making sure that political candidates have broad support across states, I’m less clear on why the system should give weight to candidates with broad support across more arbitrary units, like congressional districts.
