Early Primary States and What They Tell Us
In recent weeks, American politics has become consumed with the first votes being cast in the Democratic primary. In the short amount of time that has taken place since Donald Trump’s acquittal, Bernie Sanders has emerged as the clear front-runner and favorite for the Democratic nomination, a position further solidified by a commanding victory in the Nevada caucuses on Saturday night. If Bernie continues his current trajectory, I suspect his general election strategy will be a frequent topic of my columns. For now, it’s important to look at what the early contests tell us.
The first thing we need to recognize is that the early states are not necessarily that indicative of any general election picture. Each of the states is quite small and national media often over-inflates the significance of the contests. However, there are a couple of things we can discern from the results (or lack thereof, looking at Iowa).
While it is risky to make any prediction in the Trump era, I am going to make one. Donald Trump will carry Iowa in the general. It’s not the most surprising prediction, but given the state went for Obama twice it's still significant that the GOP feels so safe. In theory, Iowa should be contested heavily by the Democrats, given the possibility of an extremely narrow Electoral College margin and Joni Ernst being up for reelection in the Senate. All of that said, the Iowa Democratic Party has nothing short of a nightmare on their hands in terms of trust of its own voters and national party groups. I don’t expect Democrats to pour resources into the state that may have just gone first in their primary for the very last time.
In New Hampshire, a state narrowly carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016, expect a tight race and a lot of attention from the White House. However, I take less meaning from the results in New Hampshire than from the organization. It was reported that Bernie Sanders volunteers knocked on more than 140,000 doors in a single day leading up to the primary. That is the type of organization that it will take to win swing states in November. It is possible that any Democrat would have the same capacity in the general, but the fact that Sanders already has this capacity should be encouraging to Democrats worried about his “electability.”
Finally, the results from Nevada signal the future of the Democratic Party. While it’s a caucus and that means it is not necessarily indicative of a general election result, the general structure of a high-minority turnout, high-youth turnout election show the roadmap for Democrats going forward. The days of relying on rural, white states are fading quickly. Expect a future party focused on states like Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas. Whether or not the party pursues these states this year will have grand implications for the election.
Ryan Costley is a sophomore in the SFS studying International Politics. He is from Atlanta, Georgia.