Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, Iowa Republicans, defended their state’s position to vote first in presidential nominating contests following a long delay in Democratic caucus results.
Monday night’s Democratic caucuses resulted in no clear winner due to technical glitches in an app being used for the first time. The situation compounds long-standing complaints that the caucus system is inherently undemocratic due to the limited number of people able to participate in evenings, among other reasons.
But Iowa’s senators, though from the opposite party, have a vested political interest in seeing Iowa retain its first-in-the-nation status. Losing the kickoff contest would result in the loss of hundreds of millions in revenue for the state’s hotels, car rentals, and scores of other businesses.
“Iowa’s unique role encourages a grassroots nominating process that empowers everyday Americans, not Washington insiders or powerful billionaires,” Grassley and Ernst said in a joint statement along with Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds. “The face-to-face retail politics nature of Iowa’s caucus system also encourages dialogue between candidates and voters that makes our presidential candidates accountable for the positions they take and the records they hold.”
Underdog presidential candidates in both parties have benefited from the caucus system, the group of top statewide elected lawmakers said.
“Iowa’s large population of independent voters and its practice of careful deliberation contributes greatly to the national presidential primary and makes it the ideal state to kick off the nominating process,” the statement said. “Iowa’s bipartisan first-in-the-nation status helped lead to the nomination of President Obama and has the full backing of President Trump. The process is not suffering because of a short delay in knowing the final results.”
Ernst on Tuesday told the Washington Examiner, “We believe every vote should be counted. So hopefully, we get through that soon.”
Critics of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation primary status say the state’s demographics do not represent the rest of the country and that its caucus system is outdated.
Former Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro, now a prominent supporter of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign, long criticized Iowa’s position in the primaries and told reporters as much following the caucus debacle in the state.
“Tonight, it has become clear that this Iowa caucus has been a total mess, a complete failure,” Castro said Monday night. “The fact is that we still don’t have reliable final results.”
“The people of Iowa are wonderful people; they take their role seriously,” he said. “But what everyone saw plain as day in front of their TV screen, and what we’re still seeing right now in the lack of results and the errors that have happened, is that this simply is not the way we should do this. It was a complete mess.”
However, Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat and former presidential candidate, is more supportive of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status.
“I think it’s too soon to draw conclusions. I think that Iowa still has a lot of benefits,” he told the Washington Examiner. “As a candidate who didn’t have big money or whatever, Iowa is a smaller state where you have to really go out and win in the grassroots campaigning style, and Iowa’s culture and history really supports that.”
[Related: ‘Broken system’: Iowa caucuses reporting snafu fuels calls to eliminate first-in-the-nation status]
