There has been a lot less fanfare for Democrats in Iowa picking their presidential nominee this year
DES There’s a lot less fanfare for Democrats in Iowa picking their presidential nominee this year, and it’s not only because Democratic incumbent Joe Biden is in the White House.
Instead of congregating for caucuses, a one-night spectacle where community members publicly signal their support for a candidate, Iowa Democrats headed to the mailbox to send in their ballot. The results will be released on Super Tuesday, a slate of primaries and caucuses across more than a dozen states.
The break with five decades of tradition follows chaos that mired the party in 2020 and the reshuffling of the Democrats’ 2024 calendar to prioritize more diverse states. The fallout has disappointed Iowa party leaders and activists, with some feeling jilted by the national party.
Even more, it has left many worried about the deterioration of Democrats’ grassroots organizing and about the prospects for success in a state that has morphed from a purple toss-up into a Republican stronghold over the last decade.
Nancy Bobo, a longtime Democratic activist in Des Moines, was able to vote for a presidential nominee this year by mailing in her ballot even though, for the first time since 1980, she was sick and couldn’t make it to her caucus on Jan. 15. Nevertheless, the change is a “thorn in my side,” she said.
“Yeah, you vote,” Bobo said, but “you lose all that congregating and coming together and discussing issues.”
Bobo, an early supporter of then-Senator Barack Obama’s campaign, recounted the record-breaking caucus on Jan. 3, 2008, when so many people gathered at a high school that they were forced to move from the auditorium to the gymnasium.
As a caucus chair for Obama, Bobo was responsible for wooing her peers, especially those who supported candidates that didn’t attract 15% of the room, the Democrats’ threshold for candidates to be considered viable.
“The excitement in the air was like nothing I’d ever experienced,” Bobo said of the 2008 caucus.
