Time Machine: How the Iowa caucuses became a big deal

If you did a Google search on Iowa caucuses, you’d come away with the conclusion that Iowa’s first-in-the- nation caucuses began in 1972.

Iowa Democrats can claim that early start in 1972 before Jimmy Carter’s second-place finish in the 1976 Democratic caucuses propelled the caucuses into the juggernaut they are today.

But political caucuses in Iowa started more than a century before that.

The first Iowa caucus was held in 1839, before Iowa was a state, when citizens gathered in Bloomington, a city that would later become Muscatine, according to an 1839 Iowa Patriot newspaper account.

During a caucus (or meeting), voters gather in living rooms, schools, community centers, libraries or church basements for precinct meetings, voting on issues and electing delegates for county and state conventions.

Insider politics

Early on, the caucus process wasn’t always aboveboard.

“The party caucus was a closely managed and too often manipulated event,” Emory H. English wrote in a 1948 essay, “Evolution in Iowa Voting Practices,” in the Annals of Iowa.

“All political parties had used it from the early days of statehood,” he wrote. “As a general rule, cliques or groups within party organizations controlled (the outcome). None other than well-known members of a political party were allowed to participate, and outsiders were excluded.

“Party lines were closely drawn, and the precinct, county and district committeemen were looked upon as all-powerful, if not omnipotent. Only zealous workers in a controlling faction had opportunity of expression; in fact, others would be lucky to know where and when the caucus would be held.”

In other words, party insiders determined which voters had a voice.

English provided an example in his essay:

“In a north Iowa county, the ‘fortunate’ burning of an old shed in the outskirts of a small town at exactly the advertised hour of the holding of the caucus attracted nine-tenths of the people of the village, including members of the volunteer fire department.

“In the meantime, those in the ‘know’ assembled at the caucus, the hour having been fixed, selected a ‘slate’ of delegates without opposition and adjourned. This group of seven delegates were sufficient to secure control of the county convention.”

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One Iowa primary

Iowa has always held precinct caucuses -- which are run by political parties -- rather than primaries, which are state-run elections conducted at polling places and by secret ballot, held throughout the day, rather than show up in-person at a caucus.

The only exception came in 1917, when it held its one and only presidential primary. Low turnout caused a return to caucusing, but those assemblies, too, often were sparsely attended.

By 1952, a presidential nomination year, people were becoming more interested in Iowa’s precinct caucuses.

The Gazette called them “an old-fashioned town meeting affair wherein everyone who has something to say has an opportunity to speak his piece.”

Rather than the caucuses being maneuvered by political bosses, people were discovering their rights and privileges as party members. The chairmen of both the Linn County Republican and Democratic parties advocated that the 1952 caucus dates and sites be well publicized and run democratically.

1972 change

Things changed in 1972, a presidential election year, when Iowa’s Democrats decided to hold their caucuses Jan. 24, basically because they wanted to have the state convention in May and backed up the calendar from there.

It turned out that the timing made Iowa the first test of Democratic presidential candidate strength. The planners admitted they’d wanted to be first in the nation but had no idea how big the caucuses would become.

National news media descended on Iowa to cover Maine Sen. Edmund Muskie and South Dakota Sen. George McGovern, both Democrats seeking the party’s presidential nomination.

Muskie won 35.5 percent of the delegates — about the same as the number of “uncommitted” delegates — but it was McGovern’s surprise showing, with 22.6 percent of the delegates, that gave his campaign momentum.

McGovern went on to be the party’s presidential candidate before a lopsided loss to incumbent President Richard Nixon.

The Iowa GOP caucus that year was held April 4. Although officials termed it successful, the turnout at caucuses near Iowa State University in Ames averaged six people.

1976 agreement

Sensing they were onto something, Iowa Republicans and Democrats agreed in May 1975 to hold their 1976 precinct caucuses on the same date, Jan. 21, 1976 -- again the first test of presidential strength in the nation.

Six Democratic presidential hopefuls showed up to campaign in Iowa, along with national media.

Jimmy Carter, the former governor of Georgia, spent much of 1975 campaigning in the state and won 28 percent of the delegates, finishing second to the 37 percent of “uncommitted” delegates.

Carter’s “victory” showed that a relatively unknown candidate could gain momentum by employing shoe leather and “retail” politics in Iowa.

"We organized a very, very significant kind of effort to convince first the candidates that they ought to be in Iowa because the national press was going to be here, and then to convince the national press that they should be in Iowa because the candidates were going to be here,” Iowa Democratic Party Chair Tom Whitney said in a 2007 interview with Iowa Public Television.

In the Republican caucuses that year, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan challenged President Gerald Ford. Iowans gave Ford a narrow nod, with 45 percent of the delegates, to Reagan’s 43 percent.

Ford would become his party’s presidential candidate, before losing the November election to Carter. The Georgian’s success cemented the Iowa caucuses’ place in the presidential selection process.

Through the years

Since 1976, only three of the seven U.S. presidents won the Iowa caucuses: Democrat Carter in 1976; Democrat Barack Obama in 2008; and Republican George W. Bush in 2000, Iowa PBS pointed out.

Iowa caucus losers who went on to win the White House in that time span were Ronald Reagan in 1980, George H.W. Bush in 1988, Bill Clinton in 1992, and Donald Trump in 2016.

Since 1976, seven of the Iowa Democratic caucus winners have gone on to win their party’s presidential nomination, while only three of the Republican caucus winners have secured their party’s nomination.

Trump took note of that Republican track record in 2016, telling an Iowa crowd, “You guys haven’t picked a winner in a long time, I hate to remind you. Come on, Iowa, will you get with it, please?”

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz would win that year’s caucuses, but Trump won the party’s nomination and the White House.

And in 2020, the mismanaged and app-challenged Democratic caucuses, where the winner was unknown for a week, resulted in the national party bumping Iowa out of its first-in-the-nation slot.

Democrats still will caucus this year, doing party business, but will be mailing in their presidential preferences to the party, with the results announced in March.

Iowa Republicans stayed the course and will announce their presidential preferences after the Jan. 15 caucuses this year.

Comments: D.fannonlangton@gmail.com

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Iowa caucus winners

DEMOCRATIC

Jan. 24, 1972: "Uncommitted" (36%), Edmund Muskie (36%), George McGovern (23%), Hubert Humphrey (2%), Eugene McCarthy (1%), Shirley Chisholm (1%), Henry M. Jackson (1%)

Jan. 19, 1976: "Uncommitted" (37%), Jimmy Carter (28%), Birch Bayh (13%), Fred R. Harris (10%), Morris Udall (6%), Sargent Shriver (3%), Henry M. Jackson (1%)

Jan. 21, 1980: Jimmy Carter (59%), Ted Kennedy (31%)

Feb. 20, 1984: Walter Mondale (49%), Gary Hart (17%), George McGovern (10%), Alan Cranston (7%), John Glenn (4%), Reubin Askew (3%), Jesse Jackson (2%)

Feb. 8, 1988: Dick Gephardt (31%), Paul Simon (27%), Michael Dukakis (22%), Jesse Jackson (9%), Bruce Babbitt (6%)

Feb. 10, 1992: Tom Harkin (76%), "Uncommitted" (12%), Paul Tsongas (4%), Bill Clinton (3%), Bob Kerrey (2%), Jerry Brown (2%)

Feb. 12, 1996: Bill Clinton (98%), "Uncommitted" (1%), Ralph Nader (1%)

Jan. 24, 2000: Al Gore (63%), Bill Bradley (37%)

Jan. 19, 2004: John Kerry (38%), John Edwards (32%), Howard Dean (18%), Dick Gephardt (11%), Dennis Kucinich (1%)

Jan. 3, 2008: Barack Obama (38%), John Edwards (30%), Hillary Clinton (29%), Bill Richardson (2%), Joe Biden (1%)

Jan. 3, 2012: Barack Obama (98%), "Uncommitted" (2%)

Feb. 1, 2016: Hillary Clinton (50%), Bernie Sanders (49%), Martin O'Malley (1%)

Feb. 3, 2020: Pete Buttigieg (26%), Bernie Sanders (26%), Elizabeth Warren (18%), Joe Biden (16%), Amy Klobuchar (12%), others (2%)

REPUBLICAN

Jan. 19, 1976: Gerald Ford (45%), Ronald Reagan (43%)

Jan. 21, 1980: George H. W. Bush (32%), Ronald Reagan (30%), Howard Baker (15%), John Connally (9%), Phil Crane (7%), John B. Anderson (4%), Bob Dole (2%)

Feb. 20, 1984: Ronald Reagan (unopposed)

Feb. 8, 1988: Bob Dole (37%), Pat Robertson (25%), George H. W. Bush (19%), Jack Kemp (11%), Pete DuPont (7%)

Feb. 10, 1992: George H. W. Bush (unopposed)

Feb. 12, 1996: Bob Dole (26%), Pat Buchanan (23%), Lamar Alexander (18%), Steve Forbes (10%), Phil Gramm (9%), Alan Keyes (7%), Richard Lugar (4%), Morry Taylor (1%)

Jan. 24, 2000: George W. Bush (41%), Steve Forbes (31%), Alan Keyes (14%), Gary Bauer (9%), John McCain (5%), Orrin Hatch (1%)

Jan. 19, 2004: George W. Bush (unopposed)

Jan. 3, 2008: Mike Huckabee (34%), Mitt Romney (25%), Fred Thompson (13%), John McCain (13%), Ron Paul (10%), Rudy Giuliani (4%), Duncan Hunter (1%)

Jan. 3, 2012: Rick Santorum (25%), Mitt Romney (25%), Ron Paul (21%), Newt Gingrich (13%), Rick Perry (10%), Michele Bachmann (5%), Jon Huntsman (1%)

Feb. 1, 2016: Ted Cruz (28%), Donald Trump (24%), Marco Rubio (23%), Ben Carson (9%), Rand Paul (5%), Jeb Bush (3%), Carly Fiorina (2%), others (7%)

Feb. 3, 2020: Donald Trump (97%), Bill Weld (1%), Joe Walsh (1%), others (1%)