This blog was published on 5 February 2016, before the New Hampshire primary which saw victories for Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders.
The Iowa caucus is a fine example of grassroots democracy in the USA. The search for the Presidential nomination of each party begins with registered Democrats and Republicans “caucusing” (discussing) over the policy positions of their respective party contenders, in the 1,681 precincts of the Midwestern state of Iowa. It has become the tradition for Iowa to host the first major electoral event in the lead up to the Presidential election which takes place in November, every four years.
The outcome at the just concluded Iowa caucus has been stunning for both, the Democratic and the Republican frontrunners. Donald Trump who had led in every preceding opinion poll trailed with 24.3% of votes behind Ted Cruz who led the Republican pack with 27.6% of votes. Senator Marco Rubio whose campaign had been flagging, came in a close third with 23.1% of votes.
Trump’s defeat by Cruz with a margin of 3% has effectively shattered his bombastic confidence in himself. Rubio coming in third will have come as a relief to a Republican establishment which despises both Trump and Cruz. But Jeb Bush, managed less than 3% of votes in Iowa. While Cruz, the Son of a pastor, won in the predominantly white Midwestern state of Iowa, where 28% of the population self identifies as evangelical Christians, he will not have an easy run in the liberal northwestern state of New Hampshire which holds its primaries on February 9.
But Hillary Clinton won the Iowa democratic nomination by the smallest margin ever – only 0.29% of the vote. This really amounts to a win for the self declared “socialist”, Bernie Sanders, who also happens to be Jewish, in predominantly white and Christian Iowa. As Sanders said he had ‘no money and no name recognition’ when he started his campaign in Iowa, but he was able to energise young people by vowing to revolutionise the inherently “rigged” system that prevails in the U.S.
The race for the Democratic nomination has become a two way fight between Hillary and Sanders. The conventional wisdom is that a Bernie Sanders candidacy could jeopardise the Democratic Party’s chance to win the Presidency. But that reasoning does not take into account the resonance that the issue of ‘inequality’ has gathered with young people and minorities in America.
Hillary Clinton who is the candidate of the Democratic establishment carries a massive trust deficit arising from numerous scandals such as her use of a private server for official emails, accepting speaking fees from Wall Street firms running into hundreds of thousands of dollars, allegations regarding the Clinton Foundation soliciting funds from dubious foreign governments such as Kazakhstan. However she does win kudos for her experience in dealing with foreign policy issues – something Sanders has not said much on, except for his aversion to foreign military interventions.
On the foreign policy front, while Donald Trump has been aggressive to the point of ridicule, other Republican candidates have addressed these issues only within the frame of immigration policy or the deployment of troops in Syria to crush the Islamic State (ISIS). But foreign policy never has and nor will it in this election, take precedence over the current economic insecurities confronting young Americans.
All eyes are now turned to the New Hampshire primaries, where Bernie Sanders leads the Democratic polls by twenty points. This is where Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama in 2008 but went on to lose the Democratic nomination.
Neelam Deo is Co-founder and Director, Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations; She has been the Indian Ambassador to Denmark and Ivory Coast; and former Consul General in New York.
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