DES MOINES, Iowa — Most Iowans won’t be out Monday night. Never mind that temperatures are expected to be well below zero, with wind chills reaching minus 40 degrees, and roads could still be icy from a series of snowstorms that hit the state over the past week.
That’s because they are not registered with the Republican Party, which kicks off the presidential election season with its famous caucuses. Or because they don’t want to make the commitment to attend, which means going to the nearest of 1,500 caucus locations and sitting in a room — possibly for hours — for a chance to be the party’s presidential nominee.
But the winter weather, which is intimidating even for Iowa, will make an already unrepresentative process even less representative. Older Iowans, the backbone of the caucus, are wondering how they will get to their locations on Monday. Political types mentally lower their expected turnout and wonder who a smaller, harder-core electorate will favor.
All of this gives longtime critics of the caucus even more reason to be critical.
“This is no way to start electing a president,” said Julian Castro, a former San Antonio mayor and federal Housing Secretary who was a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, as he called for Iowa to have a less prominent role to play. “You have to be a die-hard who is willing to trudge through the snow and stay there for several hours. And if you miss it, your chance to vote is gone.”
Democrats have already demoted Iowa after the state party bungled vote counting in the 2020 caucuses. Democrats relegated the state to a later stage in their nomination process after President Joe Biden said he wanted more diverse states that would better represent his party and the country to cast early votes. That party’s trial begins Feb. 3 in South Carolina before moving to Nevada and then New Hampshire.
But Republicans have stuck with Iowa, which was once competitive but has lurched firmly to the right in the era of Donald Trump, who carried the state in the 2016 and 2020 general elections. The population is whiter, more rural and more evangelical than the nation. , but that better reflects Republican Party voters than Democratic Party voters.
Some Republicans expect still-robust turnout, but most acknowledge the weather will turn off at least some voters.
“This is going to be worse than we’ve ever had,” said Doug Gross, once a top aide to former Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, who said his own 90-year-old mother decided she couldn’t meet under the circumstances. . “It will dampen turnout.”
Brad Anderson, state director of AARP Iowa, said older voters historically decide who wins and loses the contest because “the caucuses tend to get older in terms of turnout.”
This caucus could be “somewhat of an outlier,” he said.
The cold and potential snowstorms, especially in rural parts of the state, make conditions “treacherous” for people of all ages, Anderson said. He advised extreme caution, especially for those with mobility issues, and hopes Iowans will keep safety in mind.
An elderly woman living in a Newton retirement home called Jasper County Republican Chairman Thad Nearmyer and said she still drives but would be “a little more comfortable if someone else drove,” he said. She will ask friends, family and neighbors to ride along to Monday’s caucuses.
It would be a huge undertaking for the provincial party to organize ridings on a large scale, but Nearmyer advised those wanting to attend a caucus to contact friends, family and neighbors.
“You know, if it was like this right now, with this wind and snow, no one would make it,” Nearmyer said Friday. ‘But I think we still have time to clear the roads and let the wind die down. I think it will be quite well attended.”
Even under better conditions, only a small portion of Iowans participate in the caucuses. In 2016, 186,000 votes were cast in the Republican caucus out of a state population of more than 3.1 million. And that is what provides the most important kick-off to the struggle to lead a nation of 330 million people.
The caucuses are a remnant of the push to reform party election processes in the 1970s, which freed them from the influence of party bosses. They helped underdogs like Democrats Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama enter the White House.
Caucuses typically favor movement candidates — liberal Democrats and conservative, increasingly evangelical Republicans — whose supporters are more willing to carve out time in their schedules and dominate the caucus space.
The small size of the event, and of Iowa in general, is part of the pitch, said Rabia Belt, a law professor at Stanford who has been critical of the caucuses.
“There are conflicting desires in shaping the nomination process,” Belt said. “If you start with large states, or states in expensive media markets, it creates barriers for potential candidates who may not have a lot of money or organizational power to begin with. Also, a small state can allow candidates to tailor their messaging and work on their political game during intimate conversations with committed and interested people.”
Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver, prepared Friday to take 13 of his students to the caucuses. He braced himself for the weather, but also for the arbitrariness of the American nomination process.
“No one would ever intentionally design this,” Masket said. “No one would ever design something where the most important games are in Iowa and New Hampshire – in January!”