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  • In December of 2007, a US Senator named Barack Obama was running for president.

  • It didn’t look like he would beat the well-known front-runner, Hillary Clinton.

  • She was nearly 20 points ahead of him in the national polls.

  • But then, one month later...

  • A huge, huge victory.

  • Obama won the Iowa Caucus.

  • The Iowa Caucus is like an election, but instead of voting in a voting booth you stand with

  • other people to be counted. It’s weird.

  • But it’s also the very first contest in America’s presidential primary process to

  • determine the two major party’s nominees.

  • And if you win it, it’s a pretty big deal.

  • You have done what the cynics said we couldn’t do.

  • [cheering]

  • Literally overnight, Obama shot up in the polls.

  • Winning Iowa turned him from a long-shot candidate to a real possibility.

  • For the last 50 years, Iowa has been a hugely influential part of the presidential primary system.

  • But in 2020, well

  • Epic failure.

  • Meltdown of the vote reporting system.

  • First, a bunch of technical mishaps delayed the caucus results.

  • Then, when the results came out, no one was actually sure if they were correct.

  • And it started to raise questions about whether the Iowa Caucus deserves to be so important.

  • The way America’s political parties choose their presidential nominees

  • starting in Iowa, and then with 63 other elections on 21 separate days

  • was kind of set up quickly, and without any real thought behind the order.

  • Sowhy do we choose presidents this way?

  • And is there a better way to do it?

  • To understand how we do things now, you have to go back about 50 years.

  • As recently as the 1960s, only a few states even held primaries.

  • Most states didn’t.

  • And party leaders would just pick the presidential nominee at the convention.

  • Voters were much more divorced from the process than they are today.

  • This is Li, she’s been covering the 2020 primaries for Vox.

  • At that time the people in charge were effectively picking the people that would stay in charge

  • Which mostly worked fine, until 1968.

  • In the few primaries that year, young democrats voted in big numbers for candidates who were

  • against the Vietnam War.

  • But at the convention, the party delegates instead chose the pro-war Vice President.

  • Who wasn’t even on the ballot in the few states that actually held primaries.

  • It did not go over well.

  • Gas is being spread, it’s coming this way and it’s awful.

  • There was huge push back to that.

  • The protests were incredibly effective and actually ended up in the changes that we see now.

  • What changed after that was that the Democratic Party decided to let voters pick the nominee,

  • with elections in each state.

  • Republicans soon followed suit.

  • Today the delegates from each state still officially vote on the nominee at the convention.

  • Arizona delivers 58 bound votes...

  • but they have to vote according to how the candidates did in their state primaries.

  • To win the nomination, a candidate needs a majority of all the delegates.

  • And big states with big populations, like Florida, have lots of delegates for the taking.

  • Small states, like Iowa, have just a few.

  • But even though it’s not a delegate powerhouse, in the sequential primary system, Iowa has

  • a crucial job.

  • As do other small states that vote early in the process,

  • Let’s look at the 2016 Republican primary as an example.

  • When the Iowa Caucus kicked things off, there were 12 serious candidates on the ballot.

  • After Iowa, three immediately dropped out.

  • And after the New Hampshire primary a week later, three more dropped out.

  • This is what those early states are there to do.

  • The early states end up winnowing the field to a slate of what people might consider

  • front runners.

  • They help candidates generate hype, press coverage, additional donations.

  • In other words, instead of the rest of the country having to choose between 12 candidates,

  • early states help the party narrow down its options to just a few viable candidates for

  • the rest of the primaries.

  • That also gives voters in these early states a lot of power.

  • A voter in the earliest state has five times the influence on deciding the nominee as a

  • voter just a few weeks later.

  • But here’s the problem with that.

  • So there was no real rationale in the way that these early states were initially determined.

  • Iowa goes first because in 1972, the first election after the changes, Iowa said they

  • needed a long time to compile their results.

  • So they had to hold their caucus early.

  • And as it held onto that spot, Iowa got more and more important.

  • And New Hampshire is the first traditional primary because they have a law saying they

  • have to be first.

  • Yup, that's…. it.

  • And the questions around whether these states should go first are not new.

  • The main problem that people bring up over and over again is that both states are super

  • white.

  • When you look at the actual numeric breakdown, both are about 90 percent white so neither

  • of these states is very representative of either the US or the party itself.

  • And that's become a huge concern.

  • That’s partly why in 2008, the parties moved two more diverse states, Nevada and South

  • Carolina, to also be early in the calendar.

  • Then there’s Super Tuesday, which started in the 80s when southern states decided to

  • have their primaries at the same time to try to have a bit more influence.

  • Over the years, Super Tuesday has gotten more and more super.

  • In 2020, one third of all delegates will be awarded on this one day.

  • In other words, Super Tuesday has been looking more and more like a national primary.

  • So why not just have a national primary and have everyone vote on the same day?

  • The answer has to do with who would probably win.

  • If there was a national primary today, whoever has the most money as well as the

  • most name recognition would probably do the best because they're able to reach people

  • and they already have an established backing in place.

  • Think about that in terms of the 2020 primary.

  • If everyone voted on one day, and money and name recognition mattered the most, this is

  • who would probably come out on top.

  • Remember that poll from December 2007?

  • If everyone voted at once, Obama would have lost.

  • Which brings us back to Iowa and New Hampshire.

  • I won Iowa because I spent 87 days going to every small town, fair and fish fry.

  • Both Iowa, New Hampshire, they're very accessible.

  • You can drive around.

  • You can hold events.

  • You can go to the fair and meet with voters.

  • And also their media markets are much cheaper than other larger states like California.

  • Both of those factors make it easier for a candidate who maybe isn't that well known

  • and doesn't have a huge amount of money in their pocket to also make the same type of

  • impression of somebody else who might be, you know, wealthier and more well resourced.

  • So the sequential system helps narrow the field and starting in a small state can help

  • underdog candidates emerge.

  • But should that state be Iowa?

  • Why start in Iowa?

  • Well that’s the conversation that we'll absolutely happen after this election cycle.

  • There have been a bunch of different options floated.

  • One is to change the state that goes first.

  • So which state should go first?

  • The website 538 tried to figure this out by looking at the racial, ethnic, and education

  • breakdown of every state, to find which one was most representative of the Democratic

  • Party as a whole.

  • Number one was Illinois.

  • Iowa was 42nd.

  • Another option is to actually just move it so that 10 states that go in February.

  • That kind of dilutes the influence of Iowa, New Hampshire a little bit.

  • And then another possibility is the idea of rotating.

  • They more talk about rotating regions that would dominate the primary one year and a

  • different region that would dominate the primary a different year.

  • The way America nominates its presidential candidates isn’t set in stone.

  • The political parties can and have changed the process over the years, but it’s been awhile.

  • Maybe it’s time.

In December of 2007, a US Senator named Barack Obama was running for president.

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アメリカの大統領選、解説 (America's presidential primaries, explained)

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    林宜悉 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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