Welcome back to the weekly Nuts & Bolts Guide to small campaigns. Over the course of more than a decade, I’ve taken time to speak with campaign managers, field directors, communications directors, finance directors, and, of course, be a part of as many campaigns as I can. Through the feedback I receive, I try to build out Nuts & Bolts to better inform Democratic voters and donors how a campaign can and does work. Some of the questions I get aren’t about the inner workings of a campaign, though; they’re about the party: Why has the Democratic Party held onto the core concept of the caucus? Why has the Iowa caucus survived so long? And is the Party really thinking of addressing issues with the caucus system?
With the Democratic National Committee meeting, one of the topics that came up again is strongly considering changing the primary calendar in presidential election years. I’ve given a few rants on this before, but now is the time to look at why this is the right time to change our way of looking at nominating a president.
Democratic growth and the census continues to teach us
The Democratic Party is a party of diversity, a party where we have growth. What we are seeing over time is that our methodology as currently presented is not representative of our party. One of the biggest problems with managing a caucus is that it is a core conflict with our Democratic belief that every vote should count; we are the party of ballot access, but a caucus limits access.
The traditional caucus is difficult for people to participate in, complicates voting, and can be a true hassle. In 2020, Democratic parties around the country tried new tactics, the best of which was the “firehouse caucus” style. A firehouse caucus allows people to vote via mail-in ballot; this increased voter participation in 2020.
Using that as a standard isn’t a long-term viable option. When it is up to state parties to pay for a caucus, state parties lose out on resources they need to help put funds toward anything else—like actually electing candidates and winning electoral delegates.
Why does this happen?
Even in the best of circumstances, with tons of training and pre-planning, state parties aren’t equipped or staffed to manage full elections today. The Des Moines Register covers it:
The conversation follows disastrous 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses in which technological and logistical failures coalesced, preventing the party from declaring a timely winner. The caucuses’ ugly conclusion undermined more than a year’s worth of organizing and campaigning that preceded it, stoking renewed calls to move the nation toward primaries and replace Iowa as the first state to cast its presidential preferences.
There is simply too much room for failure—and too many opportunities to make the party look bad. Why put ourselves in that situation? Simply, we can do better.
2024 is the best shot
It is very difficult to change the direction of the caucus in a year when everyone is running for president. Candidates don’t want to come out against Iowa being first, as long as Iowa is first. It just guarantees they will fall into a deficit right off the bat.
When the White House is held by a Democratic president who will run for re-election, we have the best chance to change the order of the process. It is easier to rearrange so that no candidate in the future is burdened by new processes. It is also the time when it can happen so that states feel the least loss.
If we cannot get movement on this issue before 2024, we’ll be waiting again for quite some while, I predict.