Sequence of primaries deciding who runs for president ripe for reform

Electing a president of the United States is certainly a marathon rather than a sprint.

Cynics may say that campaigning for the next presidential election starts from the day the previous one ends, if not even beforehand.

Before a candidate gets on to the ballot to represent their party on a presidential ticket, he or she generally has to come through a gruelling series of primary elections in states across the country against increasingly a large number of internal competitors.

Ahead of the 2016 presidential election, a total of 17 candidates sought the Republican party nomination that was eventually secured by Donald Trump.

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On the Democratic side, initially 29 people threw their hats into the ring for the right to face off against Donald Trump in 2020.

In a country as large as the United States – with 168 million people registered to vote in 2020 – organising nationwide primary elections on the same day would, to say the least, be a challenge.

To get around this issue the two main parties have spread their primary contests over a number of months, starting in the early part of the year of a presidential election.

For decades, the tradition in both Democrat and Republican parties has seen their presidential nomination calendars start off in Iowa and New Hampshire.

However, there has been a growing question, particularly among Democrats, on whether such a traditional sequence is actually fair, both on the basis of population numbers and diversity.

Barnstorming start

In the American primary election system, momentum is the key ingredient for a candidate who wants to achieve success.

A candidate who gets off to a barnstorming start, generates publicity and media attention and can raise money from the all-important donors more easily. This allows him or her to pay for more staff and advertising, further boosting his or her profile.

Equally a candidate who does badly in the early states can see their funding and support dry up even before they get near the larger or more diverse states where they may have far more backing.

In the 2020 race, Joe Biden’s candidacy was nearly on the ropes after early losses.

After finishing in fourth place in Iowa, an even-worse fifth in New Hampshire, and a distant second in Nevada, Biden faced a must-win contest in South Carolina.

The make-up of the Democratic electorate in South Carolina – where black voters represent a significant number – is very different than in Iowa.

The victory in South Carolina changed the dynamic and gave Biden’s campaign the kick-off it needed to win elsewhere in the bigger states and eventually to take the nomination.

However, it was a relatively close-run thing. The election race and indeed American history could have turned out very differently.

There are now strong moves within the Democratic party leadership to look again at the sequence for its presidential primaries.

Democrats at national level have questioned whether Iowa, for example, is too white and rural to play such a crucial role in determining the frontrunner for the presidential nomination before voters in much bigger, more populous and more diverse states have got an opportunity to have their say.

Caucus method

Some American electoral history buffs trace the importance of Iowa back to Jimmy Carter’s successful run for the presidency in 1976.

Carter’s team had spotted the potential for building up the all-important momentum ahead of their rival and campaigned early in Iowa. He won there, subsequently took the Democratic nomination and later was victorious in the presidential election in the following winter.

Iowa doesn’t have an election in the traditional sense with people going to polling stations. Instead it has what is known as a caucus. A caucus essentially is a meeting where people gather in a variety of locations, potentially for a couple of hours, before they decide on a preferred candidate, maybe by a show of hands or a head count.

However, major blunders with the Democratic Iowa caucus in 2020 where problems with communications and technology led to delays in the results being certified for three weeks, may well result in the state losing its coveted place at the top of the queue in future. What all this would mean for New Hampshire, the other state that traditionally leads the early primaries, remains to be seen.

The Democratic National Committee’s rules and bylaws committee, which manages the party’s primary calendar in election years, indicated at a virtual meeting last Monday that it would be open to a shake-up of the traditional sequence.

Among reforms being mooted are that states could apply to hold an early primary and ultimately up to five could run their contests ahead of the rest.

A final decision may be taken later this month.

However, the days of candidates, their supporters and the accompanying media caravan heading out across the wintery roads of Iowa and New Hampshire to see who has the early momentum in the race for the White House may be coming to an end, at least on the Democratic side.