The Iowa Caucuses rarely pick the President. Here's why they still matter in 2020 - Los Angeles Times

By Chris Keller, Rahul Mukherjee and Mark Z. Barabak

Jan. 30, 2020

Iowa voters aren’t going to pick the country’s next president. But they will eliminate several possibilities.

The rap on the state, which begins the balloting with its Feb. 3 caucuses, is that it is too small and rural to speak for the rest of America.

However, the state's impact is undeniable.

In the last seven contested races for the Democratic nomination, five candidates went on to become the Democratic nominee after winning Iowa. Three winners of the New Hampshire primary, which traditionally follows soon after, went on to claim the nomination.

That is because the main function of the early states is to cull the field of hopefuls, separating the also-rans from candidates with a real shot at success.

No two campaigns are alike. But the past could provide some clues to what happens next.

Twenty-seven Democrats have had their names in the 2020 mix at one point or another. That is a record and more than the last four contested campaigns combined.

Most have already quit the race. Many more will make the choice after voters in Iowa and New Hampshire weigh in.

The closest examples to this election may be the 1984, 2004 and 2008 contests. Each was competitive with large – or so it seemed at the time – fields of eight candidates apiece.

Iowa trimmed the field each time. New Hampshire eliminated even more of those running. But the true reckoning came on so-called Super Tuesday, the coast-to-coast balloting extravaganza that takes place this year on March 3. (California will vote then along with 14 other states.)

Candidate dropouts during nomination process

New

Hampshire

3 dropouts

Super

Tuesday

Convention

Candidate dropouts during nomination process

New

Hampshire

3 dropouts

Super

Tuesday

Convention

Candidate dropouts

during nomination process

New

Hampshire

Super

Tuesday

Convention

3 dropouts

The five Iowa winners who went on to become the party’s nominee were: Walter Mondale, Al Gore, John F. Kerry, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton. Only one of them – Obama in 2008 – went on to win the presidency.

The New Hampshire victors who claimed the nomination were Michael Dukakis in 1988, Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. None of them reached the White House. Each lost to a Republican named Bush.

How past Iowa winners fared

Walter

Mondale

Richard

Gephardt

Tom

Harkin

John

Kerry

Barack

Obama

Hillary

Clinton

Named

nominee

Won

presidency

How past Iowa winners fared

Named

nominee

Won

presidency

Hillary Clinton

Barack Obama

John Kerry

Tom Harkin

Richard Gephardt

Walter Mondale

How past Iowa winners fared

Named

nominee

Won

presidency

Hillary Clinton

Barack Obama

John Kerry

Tom Harkin

Richard Gephardt

Walter Mondale

The candidate who stands out is Bill Clinton, who was elected president in 1992 after failing to win Iowa or New Hampshire.

He defied history under a distinct set of circumstances. The '92 field included Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, which effectively rendered the caucuses moot, and Sen. Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, whose victory in New Hampshire was discounted because of his next-door neighbor status.

Clinton's second-place finish was good enough to stick around, picking delegates prior to Super Tuesday.

Then the Arkansas native benefited from what amounted to a Southern primary, He won Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas on Super Tuesday.

Clinton called himself the "Comeback Kid" and he took the Democratic nomination and, ultimately, the White House.

To learn what role the Hawkeye state historically has played when it comes to winnowing the field of candidates we built a database of the major candidates who campaigned for the Democratic nomination dating back to 1984.

We gathered the dates of when a candidate dropped out of the race or suspended their campaign from media reports. In cases where a candidate continued to campaign until the party's convention, we used the date that delegates selected the nominee.

We then classified each candidate's dropout date by comparing it against the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire primary and Super Tuesday.

Past Iowa winners are from the state's Democratic Party, the Des Moines Register and Times reporting.

We've excluded uncontested caucuses in 1996 and 2012.

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The Iowa Caucuses rarely pick the President. Here's why they still matter in 2020 - Los Angeles Times
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