Have New Hampshire and Iowa Lost the Power to Elect Presidents? It’s complicated

(Charles Krupa/Associated Press)

Have New Hampshire and Iowa Lost the Power to Elect Presidents? It’s complicated

Opinion piece, Elections 2024

Caitlin Jewitt and Gregory Shufeldt

January 27, 2024

Voters in New Hampshire went to the polls this week more than a month before most voters had a chance to voice their opinions on the presidential candidates. They were preceded only by the small number of Iowans who braved subzero temperatures last week to participate in the nation’s first Republican caucuses.

Yet we appear to remain on a collision course with a Biden-Trump rematch that no one wants

.

But we shouldn’t blame Iowa and New Hampshire for that.

Voters in these early states, along with the political elites fighting to protect their privileges, tend to take their roles very seriously and believe they are specially equipped to judge the candidates. They’re called presidential wine tasters, who might not make a choice until they shake hands with every hopeful. Ever since Jimmy Carter won the 1976 Iowa caucuses and was catapulted to the nomination by the momentum that George HW Bush called “big mo” voters in the early states, they have been widely regarded as “kingmakers.”

However, the reality is not that simple. Donald Trump is the first non-incumbent Republican to win both Iowa and New Hampshire in modern times. On the Democratic side, only Al Gore and John Kerry have both won since Carter. Moreover, winning either state is rarely associated with winning the presidency the following November.

The presidential nomination process was overhauled after the 1968 elections with the intention of taking power from party elites and transferring it to the voters. The resulting system is federalist: the national parties set guidelines, and the state parties structure their contests within those boundaries. Most states are allowed to hold primaries and caucuses between early March and mid-June, but a few are given exemptions to hold earlier contests.

In 2008, Nevada and South Carolina were added to the early contests in predominantly white and rural Iowa and New Hampshire to increase diversity. The Democratic Party sought to bring even more diversity to the front this year with additional changes.

That made the nomination process even more complicated. Now some states hold separate Democratic and Republican primaries and caucuses (Michigan, Nevada); others were so desperate for an early contest that they scheduled it in violation of national party rules (New Hampshire). States often fight for an early primary because it generates excessive attention from candidates and the media.

But Iowa, New Hampshire and other early states don’t elect a president as often, helping narrow the possibilities. At one point this year, more than a dozen Republican contenders were seeking the nomination. Two weeks after the vote there were only two left. Candidates often drop out early, sometimes before a vote is even taken, so that they are not seen as damaged goods, do not waste valuable resources and preserve their political future. Such calculations certainly played a role in Florida Gov.’s decision. Ron DeSanti’s decision to withdraw days after Iowa.

Trump has just 32 of the 1,125 delegates needed to clinch the nomination; his former U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, is trailing just 15 delegates and has vowed to stay in the race until her home state, South Carolina, votes in about a month. Still, it seems likely that there will be a likely candidate by the time the rest of us get a chance to weigh in.

While

some

nomination contests, such as the battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2008, lasted the entire calendar, other competitive races were quickly decided. In 2000, George W. Bush and Gore both became the presumptive nominees after just 45 days, before half the states held their contests.

While the first states don’t decide, they can help shape the trajectory of the race. They have given candidates a second chance, like Bill Clinton in 1992; delayed apparent coronations, as John McCain and Bernie Sanders did against Bush and Hillary Clinton in 2000 and 2016, respectively; or effectively seal the deal, as appears to be the case with Trump this year.

But the first matches do not cloud the field or determine our choices in themselves. Although the parties have less power than they did sixty years ago, party elites still influence nominations through endorsements in the invisible primary phase, before voting begins. This year, for example, the vast majority of Republican elites who endorsed supported Trump.

Focusing on the early states can blur the bigger picture. Trump and Biden led the polls for most or all of the invisible primary period, often by more than 50 points. Both strengthened the support of party elites and dominated early endorsements. Iowa and New Hampshire merely confirmed what has been quite clear for more than a year: 2024 will likely bring another battle between Trump and Biden, whether we like it or not.

Caitlin E. Jewitt is an associate professor of political science at Virginia Tech and author of The Primary Rules: Parties, Voters, and Presidential Nominations. Gregory Shufeldt is an associate professor of political science at the University of Indianapolis and a former Public Voices fellow at the OpEd Project.

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