Jimmy Carter Put Iowa on the National Political Map

For Awhile

With the death of Jimmy Carter at age 100 this past Sunday, we find ourselves presented with assessments of his presidency and his long, rich, post-presidential life.

It’s important, though, also to recall the impact of his candidacy on the Iowa caucuses themselves. We can say that there was a reciprocal impact: just as Iowa put Jimmy Carter on the national political map in 1976, Jimmy Carter put Iowa on the national political map. If he had not come out of nowhere to exceed expectations in the caucuses and then go on to win the presidency, none of this likely would have happened.

To appreciate this latter accomplishment, we need to recall that prior to 1972 the caucuses had always been pretty much of a local, Iowa-specific event. The Iowa caucuses have been around since statehood in the mid-19^th century. If you are interested in that history, see Winebrenner and Goldford, The Iowa Precinct Caucuses: The Making of a Media Event (3^rd ed.).

What is important to note for our purposes here is that the caucuses—“precinct caucuses,” officially—were the first step in a tiered process that culminated in the awarding of Iowa’s delegates to each party’s national convention. This method of choosing delegates was an alternative to a presidential-primary system. Significantly, the caucuses themselves did not directly pick national convention delegates; they picked delegates to the Iowa county conventions and had no direct connection to presidential politics.

The Iowa-specific steps, then, were precinct caucuses, county conventions, Congressional-district conventions, and then the state conventions. Frankly, outside of Iowa no political observers or activists cared about the post-caucus steps. For all intents and purposes, the day after the caucuses Iowa always fell off the face of the earth.

(I always joked that if we went out to the Des Moines airport the morning after, we’d see the hotel, restaurant, and car-rental owners sobbing as they waved goodbye to the campaigns and the media people.)

The precinct caucuses had two principal functions: to select delegates to Iowa county conventions taking place about a month later, and to give political activists in each party a chance to express their preferences as to what planks should go into the state party platform. The presidential-preference rating—for the Democrats, “state-delegate equivalents”—was simply an add-on to this basic party business.

The modern caucus era began in 1972, when Senator George McGovern unexpectedly came in (a distant) second to the Democratic frontrunner, Senator Edmund Muskie. McGovern, of course, went on to win the Democratic presidential nomination even though he then lost in a landslide to President Richard Nixon in 1972.

This evidently put a bee in the bonnet of Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia, for when Carter left the governor’s mansion at the end of 1974 he came to Iowa and essentially camped out in the state during 1975, staying in the homes of friends and supporters and greeting small groups of Iowans in coffee shops, on street corners, and everywhere he could.

Now, the fundamental fact is that every presidential candidate in the Iowa precinct caucuses had the same opponent: expectations. The question was always, did you do better than expected or worse than expected?

A candidate didn’t have to finish first among delegate preferences; he or she simply had to exceed expectations, which is why candidates always “low-balled” expectations a week or so prior to the caucuses (“We just hope to do well.”) to increase the chances of exceeding those expectations. Indeed, if a candidate was expected to finish first and did finish first, the political and media reaction could easily be, “Ho-hum.”

Thus, as noted, McGovern seemed to come out of nowhere in 1972, finishing behind both “Uncommitted” and Senator Edmund Muskie, and Jimmy Carter really came out of nowhere in 1976. Strictly speaking, Carter didn’t “win” the 1976 caucuses—he came in second to “Uncommitted” (28% behind 37%) but finished ahead of all the other actual candidates (see this). And failing to meet, let alone exceed, expectations could lead other candidates to depart the race (see this).

Who set expectations? Political activists, observers, and reporters. Appearing to exceed expectations, then, gave a reason to these folks to say, “Hey, maybe we should pay attention to this guy,” who likely hadn’t even been on their political radar at that point.

Carter made Iowa a necessary stop for any aspiring presidential candidate hoping to surprise the political world by exceeding expectations. Doing so would increase national visibility—the state was always overrun by national and even international media—and, candidates hoped, encourage potential donors to begin or increase campaign contributions.

It was never about Iowa’s electoral votes—out of a national total of 538, Iowa had 8 electoral votes (1.5%) in the 1970s and 1980s, dropping to 7 (1.3%) in the 1990s and 2000s, and 6 (1.1%) ever since the 2012 presidential election. The caucuses simply provided a first reading, however approximate or even flawed, of the relative standing of presidential candidates among party activists, giving even lesser-known and poorly funded candidates a chance to break out.

With no disrespect to the Iowa political activists in both major parties, then, my claim is that the effect of the unexpectedly successful Carter candidacy was to enable the caucuses, an inherently meaningless event in national terms, to take on tremendous national political importance for almost 50 years. As of the end of 2023 the national Democratic Party effectively ended this role for the caucuses, but at least Iowa can say that it had a good run.

Whatever your assessment of his presidency, you must thank Jimmy Carter for that.