Iowa: Primaries in Middle America

On February 1st in Iowa, the first primaries will be held before the presidential elections, which will take place on November 8th, 2016. Until then, during the primary elections in various states, people will have to decide between candidates from the two major parties - the Democrat and Republican. Primaries in Iowa are always given special attention. They are the first elections of this kind, which set the tone for the rest of the campaign. This means that the election results in Iowa will have a decisive influence on the minds of voters in other states. The main value of the vote, in this context, will be in influencing the conformist-minded electorate, for whom it is easier to identify with strong candidates, having the highest percentage of support.

It is noteworthy that in connection with the elections in the primaries in Iowa, there is a strong opinion that if a candidate loses in Iowa, his campaign will end after shortly thereafter. In fact  in the last 15 years, this is true only for the Democrats. Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008 - they won the primaries in Iowa. But among Republicans this trend is not observed. Mike Huckabee in 2008 and in 2012 Rick Santorum won in Iowa, but were unable to secure the same results in other states and came out of the presidential race.

One reason for this trend is that in the Presidential election itself, Iowa is considered both a 'swing state', meaning either a Democrat or Republican can win this state, and also a weathervane. Why Iowa is more predictive, recently, of the Democrat party winner is two-fold. For one, it tends to pick winners. Out of ten elections going back to 1976, Iowa voted seven times for the winning candidate, four Democrats and three Republicans. Secondly, it is Democrats that must demonstrate their capacity to win 'Middle America', which generally tends, by a slight but nevertheless unmoving margin, to vote Republican. Therefore, in light of the fact that in the general election, Iowa's winner is only awarded six electoral votes out of 270 needed to win, it shows the electorate across the country several important things about the viability of the candidate.

Important here are demographic facts about Iowa, which is very much culturally  'Middle America', reflecting a distinct variation of America's white Anglo-Saxon Protestant political culture with a purely centrist orientation. Out of seven Presidential elections going back to 1988, only once in 2004 did Iowa vote for the Republican candidate (Bush), who also won the election.  

The Challengers

For the first time in the primaries, from both parties, are candidates who challenge the existing political establishment. In the Republican camp he is a billionaire Donald Trump, who propels a populist program of limited migration, protection of the gun rights and non-expansionist foreign policy and rapprochement with Russia. In the ranks of the Democrats, populist social rhetoric is used by Senator Bernie Sanders. While Trump uses the electoral potential of the conservative right white population, disappointed in the Republican mainstream, there is also Sanders, the first openly socialist candidate, who enjoys strong support.
According to opinion polls conducted on the eve of the primaries, Trump leads overall in Iowa. For Trump, 30.5% of Republicans are ready to vote for him. For his nearest rival Ted Cruz - 24%. For Hillary Clinton 48% of Democrats are prepared to vote for her. For Bernie Sanders - 42%.

Trump and "the revolt of the elites"

Trump's program combines elements of the traditional American paleo-conservative foreign policy and populism in the country's heartland, or 'Middle America'. Barack Obama has even accused Trump of exploiting the fears of America's "blue collar", the 'working' middle-class.  According to experts of the analytical center of the conservative Real Clear Politics, David Brady and Douglas Rivers, the social stratum from which Trump enjoys most of his support is a white Americans over 45 years old with an income lower than the average of the Republican electorate.

Opinion polls show 58% support Trump ready to vote for him, even if he would run as an independent candidate. This indicates that these people do not generally trust the Republican Party and are choosing Trump as an alternative to other Republicans.
Trump's success is linked to a number of several factors: fears in some electorates of immigration from Latin American countries (which they believe threatens to undermine the traditional Anglo-Saxon identity of the United States, and distort labor markets, even while Obama deported more undocumented migrants than Bush did,  and while migration from Mexico is at an historic low , the failure of a number of Democrat initiated social projects, in particular this applies to health insurance (the so-called "Obamacare") which is criticized for both protecting the profit margins of the big insurance companies, while nevertheless introducing layers of cost-rising tedium and bureaucracy associated with publicly financed healthcare, the fatigue of the majority over the permanent wars that accompany the painful process of self-awareness that American hegemony is in decline.

But the main factor is the popularity of Trump - the social and cultural alienation of Western elites from the masses. Economic factors of global capital aside, the social and political program of the globalized elite, in the eyes of an increasingly large portion of the electorate, has nothing to do with the interests of the population of the countries they control. This is most clearly manifested in the development and promotion of gender ideology and the homosexual lifestyle in the United States, and the fight against the Democrats push for a comprehensive limitation on the right to bear arms.

This process is well-known to American sociologist Christopher Lasch, who described this as "the revolt of the elites." The masses who were previously the bearers of revolutionary tendencies become a conservative force that clings to natural human affection and values, such as family, patriotism, religion, traditional culture, while the upper strata of the population become carriers of socially destructive trends, denying traditional values and foundations.

Middle America

In the United States the highest concentration of this postmodern layer of managers and those subservient to global capital is observed in large cities east and west coasts of the country. The stronghold of the traditional values is Middle America, which includes Iowa as well. It is to the "Middle American" to whom Trump par excellence refers, and to whom Bernie Sanders appeals in the predominantly "white" Iowa.

The Midwest of the United States is sometimes also called the "American Heartland." It is the most distant from the coast part of the United States, which is characteristic of most continentalist (as much as possible for the US) conservative mentality.
A specific feature of Iowa is that the State is not a miniature copy of the Americas as a whole. Iowa's population is mainly white (92%) and is engaged in agriculture. Also, the average age of state residents is higher than in the whole of America. Iowans tend to adhere to religious and conservative values and highly sensitive to family issues such as that of abortion. At the same time, anti-migrant rhetoric is not a pressing issue because of the small number of foreign workers.

The latter may cause some difficulties for Donald Trump. At the same time, he pursues a certain strategy: his appearance in various places in the state, both sharp and contradictory statements that attract everyone's attention, harsh criticism of the other candidates, and that he has been somewhat allowed by dominant political forces come out on top in the rankings of Iowa. However, Trump could not manage to channel this popularity into support in the primaries?

Features of the vote in Iowa

A feature of the primaries in Iowa is that they pass through the process of caucuses - party meetings in the field, the results of which will determine the winner. The phenomenon of "caucus" is a purely American, and the word according to one of the most common etymologies comes from the Algonquian,  North American Indians, and means “meeting”.

From a technical point of view, the primaries in Iowa, are organized in a very complicated way. First of all, they lack the usual anonymous ballot system. Meetings are held after 19.00 in public buildings: schools, churches, etc. The representatives of the candidates appear to the audience, after which people write the names of their favorite candidates on pieces of papers. Votes are counted immediately and the winners are announced. The results are then sent to the county and to the state capital and are totaled up. For Republicans, votes for losing candidates are distributed proportionally, so there may be cases of multiple winners.
At the Democrat caucuses, following statements by the representatives of the Democrat candidates, people are physically divided into groups according candidates they choose. The groups that represent less than 15% of those present, are dissolved and their members become free agents and are encouraged to join the other groups. These elections usually turn into a noisy and chaotic skirmish, and the atmosphere at the meeting is reminiscent of the Brownian motion of molecules. Votes of the losers are also distributed proportionally.

Why Trump failed

Despite the gap of a few percentage point in the polls, the position of Donald Trump in Iowa is the most precarious. He has the highest negative rating among the Republican candidates - 47%. His previous positive views on abortion, divorces, a scandalous private life, all reduce the chances for support among conservative evangelicals, who make up the majority of Republicans in the electorate across the country, and in the state as well. Meanwhile, Ted Cruz, who opposes abortion, enjoys their unequivocal support.

An important role in party caucuses is played by representatives of the candidates. Ted Cruz can rely on the disciplined network of Pro-Life movement activists who are well known and generally seen in a positive light by everyone in every small town. Trump is a new candidate; he cannot rely on a network of non-governmental organizations or the structures associated with the Republican establishment. His anti-mainstream views attract people from political and social fringe, which can be represented by himself alone. These people usually do not go to meetings, and those that will come may not inspire a positive reaction from the rest of the audience.

At the same time, Trump may surprise some in Iowa, precisely because it is a swing state. The general dynamics of the Iowa caucus are based in self-awareness: to remain a swing state (which offers them not only media attention, but also special attention in DC politics at the level of special programs, protection of the state's industries, and the congressional budget) and also to remain a weathervane, they must pick candidates which have a better than even chance of winning. In that sense, this dynamic forces them to be very pragmatic. Therefore, the grass-roots Republican activists committed to certain social issues (e.g. abortion) will change their behavior at the Iowa caucus and in the second round, support a candidate with more moderate views that will attract other swing state voters.

Therefore, Trump's formerly positive attitude toward abortion may paint him in a better light for swing state voters. Additionally, Trump appeals to the so-called Reagan Democrats, who are not evangelical Christians but rather in fact secular 'blue collar' Americans (remember 'Joe the Plumber' from McCain's campaign); and Iowan Republicans aware of this, who want to see a Republican in the White House and naturally aware of Iowa's status as a swing state, can support him for those reasons. 

Conclusion

Despite the fact that Bernie Sanders does have some significance, it is the charismatic Donald Trump who symbolizes, for Americans and for people from other countries, the possibility of changing America. A failure in Iowa due to the specificities of the state will not stop Trump as he tries to get the upper hand in February 9th primary in New Hampshire.
The victory of Cruz in Iowa does not guarantee him anything, since winning the votes of religious voters in small states, as in the cases of Huckabee and Santorum, he may lose the votes of "Middle Americans" from less  religious areas, which are more concerned with the problems of the which Trump speaks.