RNC Chair suggests Iowa and New Hampshire Might Not Be First Next Time
Posted: September 30, 2015 | By: Iowa Caucus Project Staff
Tagged: About the Caucuses
By David Redlawsk, Harkin Institute Mabry Fellow Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick and Director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling And so it begins. The quadrennial effort to change the status quo where Iowa leads the presidential nomination process with the caucuses, followed by New Hampshire’s primary, is underway. And like all efforts before it, this one seems unlikely to succeed. Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus recently commented that as the planning begins for 2020, the early “carve-out” states are not sacred cows, as he put it. Instead, Priebus seems to suggest that a more regional or even national approach might be considered. Since 1976, the Iowa Republican and Democratic parties have zealously guarded their leadoff slot, even to the extent of writing it into state law, which requires that Iowa be the first event. New Hampshire also requires that it be first, but since Iowa does not hold a primary, that state has been content to be the first primary state. Every four years someone, or a number of someones, threatens the status of these two states; through all of it Iowa and New Hampshire’s positions have been maintained. And for good reason. As […]