With its cornfields as far as the eye can see, its capital with a French name – Des Moines – Iowa, a small rural state in the Midwest, is the first to hold its Republican caucus. On the evening of Monday, January 15, Republican voters will gather in schools, churches or pubs to choose whether former US President Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis or former UN ambassador Nikki Halley will represent them in the race for the White House.
It's the first full-scale test that gives this small state of barely three million people – less than 1% of the population of the United States – a disproportionate place in American political life. And this has been the case for more than 50 years.
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The caucus, a vestige of participatory democracy
The caucus is a vestige of participatory democracy. Unlike a primary, which is run by the state where it is held and operates, like most elections, with anonymous voters voting in person or remotely, a caucus is organized directly by the local branch of the party.
Members of the party concerned gather in small groups, on the same day and at the same time, in schools, churches, fire stations or in private homes. In each of its locations, representatives of the various candidates in the running give a speech in favour of their champion. At the end of the meeting, participants are invited to vote by writing their candidate's name on a piece of paper.
For Republicans, the vote in Iowa will determine 40 delegates out of the 2,467 who will attend the Republican convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in July, where the party's presidential candidate will be officially nominated. Delegates are allocated to candidates in proportion to the number of votes obtained.
It should be noted that this caucus system is increasingly decried by a part of the American electorate, which perceives it as "archaic", inflexible, and which deplores the fact that the vote does not take place in the secrecy of the voting booth. In 2020, a dozen states abandoned this system in favor of primaries. Only Iowa and Nevada still cling to it.
A first date that was a coincidence
How did a small state like Iowa end up running the race for the White House? By total coincidence, recalls The New York Times.
Until 1968, primaries were held in a handful of states, but the final choice of the candidate rested largely with the party's top brass at their National Convention.
That year, Democratic Party leaders meeting for their convention in Chicago decided to nominate Hubert Humphrey, President Lyndon Johnson's vice president, as their candidate for the November presidential election. But the announcement provoked the anger of part of the population. The United States was in the midst of the Vietnam War at the time, and the President was highly unpopular because of his support for the conflict. Protests erupted to demand a more transparent choice of candidate.
After this crisis, in 1972, the Democratic Party decided to reform its procedure and expanded the primary system. Iowa then opted for a caucus, which was complex to organize. To ensure that it was ready for the next Convention, the State decided to organize its caucus the following January. He thus becomes the first to vote.
A thermometer of the electorate
In terms of numbers, Iowa, with only 40 delegates up for grabs among Republicans, has little political significance. At every election, however, it's the same old story. In the weeks leading up to the caucus, candidates rush in, followed by a host of media outlets, and crisscross the state, multiplying rallies and speeches. The year 2024 is no exception: according to a count by NBC, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has participated in no less than 125 events (rallies, debates, etc.) since May in Iowa, 33 for Nikki Haley and 27 for Donald Trump.
"This is the first opportunity candidates have to impress their constituents," Katie Akin, a political reporter for the Des Moines Register newspaper who has covered caucuses in the state for several years, told The Independent. "Iowa isn't first because it's important. He's important because he's the first," Dennis Goldford, a professor at Des Moine's Drake University, told The Guardian.
The objective for each of the candidates is to take advantage of this first meeting to create momentum in their favour by causing a surprise or by consolidating their position as favourite.
And it is to Jimmy Carter that Iowa owes this almost mythological aura of "kingmaker". In 1976, the former governor of Georgia, little known to the general public, decided to bet everything on Iowa and campaigned there relentlessly for fourteen months. He won the election, was propelled to the front of the stage and won the presidential election. In 2008, Barack Obama followed exactly the same trajectory.
In the same vein, even without reaching the White House, other candidates were able to create surprises. "Iowa is unpredictable," Ann Selzer, a polling executive, told The Independent. "In 2012, for example, [Republican] Rick Santorum was polling at 5 or 6 percent. In the end, he won the vote," she said. And in 2016, on the Democratic side, "Hillary Clinton was leading, leading, leading. Bernie Sanders was far behind and he ended up losing by a tiny margin to his opponent."
For Republicans, however, winning the Iowa caucus does not mean being chosen as a presidential candidate, let alone winning the highest office. Since George Bush in 2000, no caucus winner has secured the party's nomination. Among Democrats, on the other hand, every winner since 2000 has swept the party's nomination, except Joe Biden in 2020, who finished in fourth place.
Confirming Trump's frontrunner, DeSantis and Halley's second place
On Monday, Donald Trump will face voters' judgment for the first time since leaving the White House. At the top of the polls for the moment, he has above all the ambition to consolidate his position as favourite.
Of the five other candidates in the running, only Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley still seem to have a chance to assert themselves as an alternative. The former ambassador to the UN, the only woman in the race, appears to be the new darling of the right, appreciated by the American business community. For his part, the governor of Florida, a former naval officer, seems to have staked everything on Iowa by visiting each of its counties in recent months.
Donald Trump is well ahead in Iowa with 48 percent, ahead of Nikki Haley with 20 percent and Ron DeSantis with 16 percent, according to a poll commissioned by several media outlets, including the Des Moines Register, NBC News and Mediacom, and released Saturday.
But "Ron DeSantis and Nikki Halley are in a position to get a second place and hot on Donald Trump's heels. That could be enough to change the dynamic in the upcoming primaries," Akin said. The stakes are all the higher for both opponents as the former president, who is being prosecuted in several court cases, could be prevented from continuing his presidential race.
There is also a last-minute unknown that could disturb the caucus: the cold. All of Iowa has been battered in a blizzard for several days and temperatures have plunged below -20°C.
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Change of timetable on the Democratic side
This year, however, Iowa is in danger of losing some of its political aura. Because if it will always be the place of a great Republican mass, it will not, for the first time in forty years, open the ball of the Democratic primaries.
Pushed by President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party has decided to reshuffle its calendar and offer its members the opportunity to vote by mail between January 12 and February 19. It's a way of looking away from the results of this 90% conservative state with a white majority. It's also a way to forget the fiasco of 2020 when the Democratic caucus turned into a disaster due to a faulty vote-counting app.
The Democratic Party prefers to focus on the primary in South Carolina, dominated by a large African-American community, which will take place on February 3. In 2020, after failures in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, it was this state that allowed Joe Biden to reverse the trend and finally be chosen to challenge Donald Trump.
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