The NPR Politics Podcast - Why Iowa's Caucus Comes First And Why That Matters

Episode Date: December 31, 2019

In this special episode of The NPR Politics Podcast we sat down with Iowa Public Radio's lead political reporter Clay Masters to talk about why Iowa's caucus comes first in the presidential election and why that matters.Masters explored the history and impact of the caucuses in IPR's new podcast Caucus Land, and we deep dive on the key things he learned while hitting the road and following the 2020 presidential candidates.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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Hey, Tam. So, New Year's is right around the corner. Do you have any resolutions? Well, I will tell you that I made a resolution last year. I quit Diet Coke and I still haven't had any. That's amazing. How about those Swedish fish? Come on, man. Only so many things. You know, like impeachment was not good for my no gummy candy thing.

Mine is cliche. Be kind and try to exercise more. Those are good resolutions. Those are good resolutions. So as we head into the new year, which is 2020, the election year, we are going to focus on the two states that lead it all off, Iowa and New Hampshire. The first of the nation caucus and primary. And it all starts on February 3rd when Iowa holds its caucuses. And eight days later, we're going to have New Hampshire voters weigh in when they hold their first in the nation primary. There's always this discussion and fight between the two. Who's first?

Who's not? They settle it by saying Iowa has the first caucus and New Hampshire has the first primary. So today and tomorrow, we are going to talk about these two states and their first in the nation status, why they are first and what the consequences are for the primary process. And we are starting today with Iowa because they do go first. And we have a very special guest with us, a friend of the pod, Iowa Public Radio's lead political reporter, Clay Masters. Hey, Clay. Hey there. So, Clay, you and Iowa Public Radio's Kate Payne spent all last year working on this awesome podcast called Caucusland,

all about the Iowa caucuses. That's right. So we wanted to be able to give people in Iowa kind of an idea of what this thing is, because, you know, a lot of people are always new to the process. People are always registering to vote. People are new to the state. And we also wanted to provide some context for people around the country who maybe hear about the Iowa caucuses, but they're like, you know, what is this thing that I have to hear about every four years? Because it seems like everybody always forgets, right? Everybody does always forget, but we are not going to let people forget, because we are now going to walk through some of the key parts of your multi-part podcast. And let's just start with this word we keep saying,

caucuses. Domenico, you have a definition or you have it now. Oh gosh, you want to go back to that? So the word caucus, it's funny, I put together these briefing books every election cycle on this, and someone had this question, why do they call it a caucus? And it's thought to come from an Algonquin Indian word, caucusaw, meaning one who advises, urges, encourages, and to talk to, give counsel, advise, encourage, and to urge, promote, or incite to action, which is exactly what happens in these. Yeah. So, Clay, you are a veteran of caucuses. What is, aside from the Algonquin word,

what is a caucus? How does it work? So, first of all, you're not voting, right? This is not a primary election. You're not voting. Caucus goers are physically going to show up to a high school gymnasium, maybe more rural parts of the state. They'll be showing up to somebody's home. And then they will hear from surrogates for the individual candidates. They will get up, they will make their case. And then the Democrats and the Republicans, they do it a little bit differently. And Republicans, we're not going to talk about, but they use like a secret ballot. So I mean, the Democrats, it's just a much more complicated process where people are packed into these gyms and like hearing why they should support candidate X, Y or Z.

And if they don't reach that 15 percent threshold, they've got to find somebody else that they want to support. So, Clay, your podcast does a really good job of going through the history of this. Thank you. Why are the caucuses a thing? How did this get to be a thing? And how did Iowa get to be first? Well, it was 1968 is where you can trace back. America was basically in turmoil. The Democratic National Committee was in Chicago. Their convention was in Chicago. There were riots outside. It was crazy. Yeah. And the sitting president,

Lyndon Johnson, wasn't running for reelection. And there wasn't, you know, a clear nominee. So the party was really tearing itself apart. And, you know, we played some audio in the very first episode that was from the Chicago Film Archive that really just demonstrated, I mean, the chaos that was in the streets. And, you know, out of that convention, you know, the party was saying, we need to open this up to more people. We've got to make it accessible,

get more people informed. And Iowa kind of saw an opportunity. There are some disputes about how calculated the move was. And some historians say it was just purely practical. They needed more time to handle the party business and all the extra paperwork for the Democratic caucuses to be held in February or January sometimes, too. I was going to say, speaking of the practicality of that, it's not a single day thing. People need to realize in order to win delegates, you go from these rooms, which are in precincts, then you go to county level and you go to the state convention.

This takes several steps to finally figure out how many delegates somebody actually gets out of Iowa. So they had to sort of back time it. And by back timing it, they wound up being first. Well, and I guess the complaint with the Democratic Party process before Iowa became a thing was like it wasn't Democratic. Like it was sort of a backroom deal picked the nominee, the establishment picked the nominee. And the theory behind this and the primaries and the caucuses is like it brings more voices of the people into the process. Is that the idea? Yeah, no, no, definitely. And I mean, there are questions that continue to come up every four years about really how inclusive the caucuses are because of conflicts that people might have, you know, somebody who works nights and can't make it or people that just can be treacherous. So, yeah, opening it up for more

people is often, you know, a criticism that gets lobbed at Iowa for the caucus process. Clay, I want you to talk to us about 1976 and Jimmy Carter, because that seems to be like the year that made the caucuses. Carter, of course, went on to win the presidency that year. But at the time of the Iowa caucuses, he was unknown. Clay, here's your co-host on Caucusland, Kate Payne. One of Iowa Public Radio's reporters was covering politics back then. I'm Dean Borg. I am a correspondent with Iowa Public Radio. And I've been involved in the caucuses since the inception of the caucuses.

Borger remembers Jimmy Carter being an outsider, but Iowans kind of liked him. He came to Iowa as an unknown. He came to Iowa as a peanut farmer. You know, this is corn and soybeans country and beef and pork and a peanut farmer and a governor of Georgia, well, he was kind of a curiosity in himself. Jimmy Carter knows what it's like to work for a living. Until he became governor, he put in 12 hours a day in his shirt sleeves during harvest at his farm. Can you imagine any of the other candidates for president working in the hot August sun?

Clay, that is some amazing archival tape. A presidential candidate working in the sun. Amazing. But so what is the significance of Carter to Iowa's caucuses? Well, I mean, Jimmy Carter was the first time really that somebody was able to see an unknown do well in an early state and kind of turn people's heads. I mean, everybody says like, oh, and then Carter won the caucuses that year. I mean, he came in second to uncommitted, which is kind of one of my favorite things, right? Wow. Yeah, he won, but he came in second to, I don't know who I'm going to caucus for.

I don't know who I'm going to caucus for. I don't know who I'm supporting. But Jimmy Carter made people turn their heads and realize, oh, you know, well, if he can do really well in this race, maybe, you know, I should consider him in my state, in my early state. And so Jimmy Carter kind of just lit that spark that made the Iowa caucuses turn into eventually what it's become today. So let's fast forward to 2008. And, you know, a senator named Barack Obama, who really made his campaign next door, made his race, made his presidency in Iowa. So this is tape of caucus night 2008. And Biden and Richardson do not have enough to be a viable group. I watched in tally after tally, a group would break up and then people would go to their second choice. And overwhelmingly, that second choice was Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton. 186 Obama. 116 Edwards. And 74 for Clinton. Across the state, scenes like this were playing out.

Again and again, Iowans chose Obama. Barack Obama winning Iowa in 2008 was so important for him and his candidacy because it really was his launchpad. You know, you're talking about an African-American who was able to win in an overwhelmingly white state with an overwhelmingly white Democratic electorate. I mean, 2016, it was 91 percent white. And why that was important was it was kind of a bank shot for South Carolina. You had black voters in South Carolina where some 60 percent of the electorate in South Carolina is African-American. They were supporting Hillary Clinton. As soon as Iowa happened, that support changed really quickly and Obama blew it out in South Carolina.

It was like once people realized Obama could win in Iowa, then it was like, oh, well, maybe he could win anywhere. To put it more bluntly, black voters in South Carolina were telling me if white people in Iowa are going to vote for him, then maybe he can win. Then maybe there can be a first black president. And there was. All right. We are going to take a quick break. And when we get back, some of the criticism of Iowa's first in the nation status. Support for this podcast and the following message come from You Studio.

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From how to do dry January to how to start a creative habit. We've got new episodes all month to help you start the year off right. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Listen and subscribe to Life Kit. And we're back. And, you know, another person who made a play in Iowa is Donald J. Trump. And Clay, you also talk about his campaign in your podcast, bringing a helicopter to the Iowa State Fair. The early days of chopper talk.

Yeah, really. And in caucus land, you also have this interview that you did in October of 2015 with Jeb Bush, who was seen as sort of the leading candidate when that race first began. I noticed as I was coming in here to speak with you, we're in your West Des Moines headquarters here. There's something sketched above one of the desks that says, how do we combat Trump? Is he hurting this process in the Republican presidential race? You know, it's interesting because one thing he's doing, and you got to give him credit, there are two things I think, I mean, some of the things he says are absolutely divisive, offensive, wrong, and not grounded in fact. But I think people

admire his political incorrectness. There's points past which you got to, you know, stop it. But there's, you know, we're way uptight as a society, and Trump has, I think, played a constructive role to get people to lighten up a little bit about the righteousness of everything. I don't know if he's fully gotten everybody to lighten up about the righteousness of everything. But I mean, this was the thing. It's like everybody was waiting to see, like, who is that candidate going to be that's going to knock Trump off his rise? I mean, Ted Cruz won the Iowa caucuses in 2016 on the Republican side. Trump came in second and third place went to Marco Rubio. And if you remember the kind of narrative out of that was like, hey, maybe Marco Rubio is the guy that's going to be the more, you know, centrist candidate on the Republican side that was

going to, you know, maybe go on to be the nominee. Look, the fact of the matter is on the Democratic side, Iowa is a far better predictor than on the Republican side. Seven of the last nine Democratic nominees have won Iowa. You've only had three since 1976 on the Republican side who've gone on to become the nominee. Huh. Wow. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. President Mike Huckabee or Rick Santorum. Rick Santorum. There you go. Correct. Yeah. Why do you guys think that is? Is it something about like super progressive Democratic voters somehow being more predictive than super conservative Republican voters?

Because the state is very polarized in that way. Yeah. I mean, I think that there could be something in the the idea that there's such an activist base that it takes a lot of campaigning. Iowa for the Democrats really does show how much strength your campaign has. You know, it's really kind of a show of all of the effort that your campaign can put in and whether or not you can win in a general election. It's sort of a mini election as opposed to on the Republican side. It really is much more of a straw ballot. And to be honest, the Republican side in a lot of ways has been taken

over by the white evangelical right. The number of people who go in there are far more evangelical than they outstrip the number in the party overall. I guess the one big question hanging over both Iowa and New Hampshire is Iowa is a super white state. And particularly on the Democratic side, it's not a super white party. So is there an issue with the first state, this one that is so influential in the Democratic primary, not being reflective of the electorate? Well, the state party chairs in Iowa would tell you that the four early carve out states are a good representative of the United States, right? Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada are a representation of the country. And so together, they are making the case. But there are criticisms that are lobbed at Iowa every four years for this, being a very

predominantly white state. And then also what we talked about earlier, the caucus process itself is always something that people criticize and say that it's not fair and including more people and bringing more people into the process. You know, Bill Clinton is the only person in the last 40 years who's lost both Iowa and New Hampshire and gone on to be a nominee. If you reverse that and think about a candidate who could potentially win Iowa and New Hampshire, but then lose the nomination. That is what a lot of Democratic strategists I've talked to are starting to say could be the thing that breaks up Iowa and New Hampshire as the first, especially as the Democratic Party has become more diverse. But, Clay, as you say, every four years there's hand-wringing about Iowa being first. And you guys just sit back, you just sit back, and then you're first again.

Yeah, and I mean, like, there is, within those that are very plugged in, they pay attention. I think there's some eye-rolling that happens. But there are concerns every four years that get brought up as these articles and these stories and these questions and even candidates questioning the process are coming forward. You know, should Iowa continue to go first is going to continue to be a question that gets asked as long as the caucuses exist. As long as Iowa is first. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, we will inevitably spend more time talking about Iowa and hopefully hearing from you, Clay, on the podcast. So until then, we highly recommend checking out Iowa Public Radio's podcast called Caucusland. Thank you, Clay Masters, for being with us. You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

And good news, if you want to hear more of Clay on this podcast, he's joining us for a live show in Des Moines, Iowa on January 31st. Tickets go on sale January 9th at nprpresents.org. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.