Iowa, Where Political Narratives Go To Die, Gussies Up For Funerals
Iowa is a wonderful place full of wonderful people. The 2024 Iowa caucuses are a complete waste of everyone’s time, money, and bandwidth.
Fitting that part of the lore of how Iowa became a thing is the word “Iowa” itself, originating from a native tribe of a similar sounding word meaning “sleepy or drowsy ones,” because this 2024 GOP primary is a snoozer.
Donald Trump, who lost Iowa to the artist formerly known as TrusTed in 2016, has expanded his lead by doing essentially nothing. NBC News and the Des Moines Register polling has all the gory details as “ground game” and “endorsements” politispeak begin their death rattle:
In addition to showing Trump with more than a 30-point lead over his nearest competition, the poll finds majorities of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers saying the endorsements don’t affect how they will vote in the Jan. 15 contest.
Fifty-four percent of likely GOP caucusgoers say Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ endorsement of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis doesn’t matter to their vote choices.
That compares with 31% who say her endorsement makes them more likely to vote for DeSantis — higher than DeSantis’ current level of caucus support but still not enough to catch Trump — and 14% who say it makes them less likely to support him.
After he received Reynolds’ endorsement in early November, DeSantis got 19% support among likely Iowa caucusgoers in the new survey, slightly more than the 16% he had in October — within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points. Trump, by comparison, went from 43% in October to 51% in November.
Meanwhile, 73% of likely caucusgoers say Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats’ endorsement of DeSantis doesn’t matter to them.
And 71% say Americans for Prosperity’s endorsement of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley doesn’t matter to their vote choices. (Americans for Prosperity is the political arm of the conservative Koch political network.)
“These endorsements didn’t hurt Trump,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, who conducted the NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom survey.
“Didn’t hurt Trump” is the key metric to discerning all of the 2024 GOP primary coverage. Every headline, poll, event, debate, story, or narrative should be held up to “Does this hurt Trump” before deciding if it has any value. If that thing does not hurt Trump, and more specifically move voters away from him, that thing does not matter.
Case in point is the still 0-for-forever endorsement of Bob Vander Plaats resulting in a GOP primary win, but folks still pretend that little bit of theater matters. Even when we have election after election of it not mattering. Even after 73% of polled Iowa folks tell us he doesn’t matter. If the Iowa caucus somehow survives to 2028, some news outlets and candidates will fall for it again, spend money and bandwidth on it again, and it will matter as much then as it does now and has all the other times.
The same goes for polling. Again, apply the “did this hurt Trump” standard to the headlines, think pieces, campaign spin, and commentary. No poll has shown any significant move away from Trump to one of the distant also-rans. When the also-rans swap a few percentage points between them, that makes a better story so that gets covered. Who is second place – an increasingly distant second place – starts to dominate the coverage. This happens in NASCAR too, when the leader is lapping the field so the cameras and crew calling the race focus on the “best battle” between second and third to make the best TV product.
The Rule of Nelly is still undefeated: two is not a winner, and three nobody remembers. The moment is taken up with the also-rans, but the winner is unbothered on the way to victory nonetheless. The also-rans can blame themselves, since one of the dynamics of this race is an outright refusal to attack Donald Trump in meaningful ways because Donald Trump voters won’t tolerate it.
Also freezing to death on the cold realities of Iowa is the “ground game” myth. Tens of millions of dollars and a bazillion campaign emails, pitches, and promises talked about how “ground game” in Iowa could make any candidate a winner. The truth is Iowa is no longer a “show up and put work in” kind of place. Like everywhere else, elections are nationalized, and the folks in Iowa are just as informed as everyone else. Iowa primary voters have the same curated social media and news media feeds everyone else does. These news media and social media feds are set up just the way they like them, just like everyone else does. The primary voters that are paying attention to politics are already well marinated in whatever ideology and candidate they want. A campaign can have a paid operative or volunteer kid from somewhere else knock on their door all you want, that ain’t changing what their favorite pundit tells them for hours a day every day.
As long as 30+ percent of Iowa Republican primary voters still want Trump, he’s going to win, and no amount of money and effort will change that.
And right now, Trump is around 50 percent, and climbing.
Oh, and by the way, even if you win a contested Iowa caucus, you probably aren’t going anywhere. The last non-incumbent Republican Iowa caucus winner to represent the party and win the general election was George W. Bush in 2000. He’s also the only Republican to ever do that. The Democratic Party has done slightly better, with Carter and Obama both pulling it off, but Team Blue has now abandoned Iowa as an essential first state. Time will tell if the GOP wises up and does the same.
Iowa is a wonderful place full of wonderful people. The 2024 Iowa caucuses are a complete waste of everyone’s time, money, and bandwidth. Old narratives die hard, especially for campaign pros and fundraisers who pitch their services. Narratives are even more ingrained in a news media which relies on campaign coverage, political advertising, and the theoretical months of content that a contested primary can provide. But when that contested primary isn’t provided, too many just try to pretend it is anyway.
Thankfully, the 2024 GOP primary in Iowa is going to kill the campaigns of the also-rans, and with any luck might end their national political careers also. Hopefully, the Iowa caucuses die their long overdue death after this cycle and the whole farcical display relegated to the history books. But the longshot dream that a very specific, very unique voter base can be wooed just enough to make an also-ran a real contender will not die in 2024. Zombie-like, such thoughts will lurch forward to eat the brains of the political class in 2028 and establish a new narrative, which will resemble the old narratives, because narratives are very hard things to kill. Especially in Iowa, where bad strategy and worse political theory seem to live forever, propped up by narratives purpose-built to sustain the illusion. And the fools and marks call it hope.