With Iowa No Longer First, Campaigns Will Have To Evolve

The NPR Politics Podcast

NPR

Politics, Daily News, News

4.5 • 24.9K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2022

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As Democrats plan for a presidential campaign season without Iowa at the top of the calendar, we look at the impact the decision could have on the state — and how the act of running for president itself may never be the same going forward.

This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, senior political editor & correspondent Ron Elving, and Iowa Public Radio's lead political reporter Clay Masters.

This episode was produced and edited by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Katherine Swartz.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Kathy in Seattle and I just got home from my daughter's school band concert.
0:05.0	It had a rock and roll theme and let me tell you, you haven't lived until you've heard a middle
0:09.4	school band play a surprisingly good rendition of Enter Sandman followed by never going to give you up.
0:15.9	This podcast was recorded at 1.13 pm on Monday the 5th of December.
0:21.8	Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I will most likely still be humming
0:26.6	Butter by BTS, the middle school band version, of course. Enjoy the show!
0:34.4	Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamer Keith. I cover the White House.
0:38.8	And I'm Ron Noving at Enter Correspondent.
0:41.2	There's a sign that we have in our part of the NPR newsroom that says, quote,
0:45.6	Iowa, for some reason, you have to come here to be president. It was made by the very funny,
0:50.9	demoined, based shop called Ray Gunn, but it may not be so true anymore, at least not for Democrats.
0:58.7	For many, many years, the Iowa caucuses have kicked off the nominating contests and then the
1:04.5	New Hampshire primaries followed right after that. But with that likely changing, there will be
1:11.4	big repercussions for the way campaigns operate. Not to mention what happens in both Iowa and
1:18.3	New Hampshire. Our friend Clay Masters from Iowa Public Radio is here with us. Hey Clay.
1:23.8	Hey. And you are totally, completely unbiased about Iowa going first, right?
1:29.0	Oh, completely unbiased. No pride. So Ron, I do want to start with you,
1:35.7	assuming this goes through that the Democratic Party changes its calendar, this would scramble
1:41.1	the way people campaign for president. Democrats want to start things off with South Carolina,
1:46.5	then move to New Hampshire, Nevada, sharing a day, cross country sharing. And those are three
1:53.2	very different states. They are indeed, and they would emphasize different constituencies. They
1:58.4	would be not only different places on the map, but different places in terms of their
	...

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