Day of reckoning nearing for Iowa’s Democratic caucuses

President Joe Biden is not a big fan. Former Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez is opposed. And elsewhere in the Democratic inner sanctum, disdain for Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential caucus has been rising.

Now the day of reckoning for Iowa Democrats is fast approaching as the national party starts to create a calendar for the 2024 presidential nomination that could remove Iowa from its privileged position for the first time since 1972, when candidates started flocking to the state for an early jump.

The caucuses' reputation has been damaged by high barriers to participation, a dearth of racial diversity in the state, the rightward drift in the state's electorate and a leftward drift in the Democratic participants. The state party's inability to count the results in 2020 only deepened dismay in the party.

Biden, who handily won the party's nomination in 2020, noted the lack of diversity in Iowa and called his fourth-place finish in the state a "gut punch."

"We have to be honest with ourselves, and Iowa is not representative of America," Perez said last week in an interview. "We need a primary process that is reflective of today's demographics in the Democratic Party."

Others in Biden's extended orbit have come to similar conclusions.

"It is not suited to normal people --- people that actually have daily lives," South Carolina state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, a former chairman of that state's Democratic Party and a longtime Biden ally, said of the caucuses. He described the laborious process of participating — over multiple hours, in person, on a weeknight — as far more restrictive than the requirements of a new voter law in Texas that Democrats widely oppose.

That view is broadly held among party officers, even though Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, a former South Carolina party chair, says no decisions have been made. The party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, little changed from the past election cycle, has been charged with setting the calendar, with a decision as soon as the first half of next year.

In 2020, the Iowa caucuses kicked off the presidential nominating contest on Feb. 3. New Hampshire held the first primary Feb. 11, followed by two more racially diverse states, a caucus in Nevada and a primary in South Carolina.

Leaders in Nevada, with the support of Democratic former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, recently changed state law to transition from a caucus to a primary and schedule the date on the first Tuesday in February in a bid to increase the state's importance. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., a longtime Biden ally, has like Reid been critical of the demographics of New Hampshire and Iowa. Ninety-one percent of the 2020 Democratic caucusgoers in Iowa were white, according to entry polls.

Among the possible solutions, Perez has advocated allowing multiple states, possibly including South Carolina, Nevada and New Hampshire, to vote on the same day, forcing campaigns to split their resources more broadly.

But there remains broad concern about giving larger states too much say in the party's decision, as Democrats say they do want to allow for a process that encourages meeting with voters and gives less-well-funded or well-known candidates a chance to win on their merits.

"Iowa's position is really in danger. On the other hand, I have got to say, when you look at the early states, you can't have a big state. You don't want people to be priced out," said Jeff Weaver, a presidential campaign adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. "With California, Texas, Florida and New York as the first four, you would know who the nominee is before you even started."

A state law in Iowa requires both parties to hold their nominating caucuses at least eight days before any other state caucus or primary, and the state law in New Hampshire requires that its primary be at least a week before any other state. Republicans, who control government in both states, have made clear that they plan to stick to tradition for their party in 2024.

Iowa Republican Party Chair Jeff Kaufmann has been put in charge of the Republican National Committee's calendar planning process for 2024, all but ensuring that the state remains first in the nation for the GOP. Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly voiced support for the state's role.

Kaufmann said he is hoping to bring the Democrats along. "Setting Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucus has always been a bipartisan job," he said.

Iowans note that the DNC can threaten state party leaders and deny states that do not follow the rules representation at conventions. But in the past that has not guaranteed cooperation, especially if candidates disregard the rules.

"They can tell us we can't go, but they can't stop us from going," said Dave Nagle, a former congressman and Iowa Democratic Party chairman, who has been fighting for the state's position in the calendar since 1981. "You cannot stop us from running an unsanctioned process."

Iowa Democrats are scrambling to make their case to the rest of the party, offering to change some of the procedures that complicate the caucus, including the requirement that candidates get at least 15 percent support in any single meeting to be viable. But hose changes could cause problems with New Hampshire's secretary of state, who has long threatened to jump Iowa in line if the state's process looks too much like a primary.

Iowa also has taken steps to contest the claim that it lacks diversity, electing its first Black party chairman, state Rep. Ross Wilburn, and a Black vice chair, June Owens. Nagle argues that the state should be judged by its actions — supporting the candidacy of the nation's first Black president, Barack Obama, in 2008, and first female Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, in 2016.

One lingering stain on Iowa was its inability to count the results in 2020. A new system that recorded initial ballot preference exposed long-standing problems in the complicated calculations involved in the party meetings, and a smartphone app designed to report the results failed to function as planned on caucus night. Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price resigned.

But Nagle warned that if Biden backs away now from Iowa, he would be breaking past promises. Nagle said he spoke with Biden in 2008 during a car ride from the Waterloo airport, where Biden told him he would continue to support Iowa going first.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.