How presidential candidates win state nomination contests: Explaining and predicting the Iowa Caucus

• Main Author: Hull, Christopher C
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2005
• Subjects: American history; American studies; Political science
• ISBN: 0542852675; 9780542852671

This study investigated how presidential candidates win state nomination contests. Specifically, it explains and predicts the result of the Iowa Caucus. Iowa presents a unique problem because its ultimate impact on the nomination is hard to gauge; because difficult-to-quantify "retail politics" may play a critical role there; and because momentum's role is difficult to measure there with no contest preceding it. The study includes three sets of statistical models based on data spanning nearly three decades of presidential candidates in Iowa. First, it provides an empirical assessment of the degree to which Iowa affects the ultimate nomination, to determine the stakes of understanding its machinery. Unlike prior research in the literature, the models factor in new data from 2004 as well as from the 1976 cycle to help settle the score on whether Iowa matters. It concludes that especially factoring in the impact of technology on momentum ("e-mentum"), Iowa is a significant factor in candidates' nomination performance. Next, the study attempts to explain the results of the Caucus, focused first on tactics such as grassroots organization, television spending, and generating press coverage; and then on candidates' viability, electability, ideology. It finds that candidates' time in Iowa is the most powerful tactic, and that though ideology is the major driver of the results, electability weighs heavily in Iowa outcomes as well. In addition, the study explores technological factors that might be modifying traditional Caucus organizing, including estimating the impact of campaign email contact, driving supporters to Internet websites, and signing up as supporters online. Finally, the study includes an investigation into predicting the final order of the candidates' finishes in the state, the result of which are a set of models that outperform the literature's current estimates of candidate chances in Iowa. The study concludes that Iowa is in fact playing the role it is intended to: Given the significant impact of going first in the process, it forces candidates to focus on healthy retail politics rather than television, and selects electable candidates not just ideological ones.