Results mixed on where to have first votes
Poll asks whether Iowa, NH should start race
Iowa and New Hampshire are great places to hold the opening presidential caucuses and primary, most Americans agree. Also, terrible ones.
That was the decidedly mixed message from a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll exploring whether the two small states, both overwhelmingly white, should continue to hold the outsized influence on presidential politics that they have for nearly a half-century.
The Democratic debate Thursday in Los Angeles has stoked that controversy because the candidates who qualified to be on stage at Loyola Marymount
University lack the diversity that characterizes the party’s political base. Six of the seven contenders are white; one is Asian American. None of them is black or Hispanic.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who are African American, and former Housing secretary Julian Castro, who is Latino, didn’t meet the thresholds in fundraising and poll standing required to participate.
For decades, looking strong in the early states has been crucial for candidates in raising money and gaining credibility. This time, it’s a factor in which candidates get on the debate stage: The Democratic National Committee rules allow surveys from the states with the first four contests – Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina – to be used in meeting the standards to quality. Winning them provides crucial momentum into later contests.
The debate, sponsored by the PBS NewsHour and Politico, begins at 8 p.m. EST.
In the USA TODAY poll:
❚ A 57% majority agreed that holding the opening contests in Iowa and New Hampshire was a good system “because it forces candidates to talk directly to voters.”
❚ A 52% majority also agreed that holding the opening contests in Iowa and New Hampshire wasn’t a good system “because the two states don’t reflect the nation’s diversity.”
Given those answers to the two questions, perhaps it’s not surprising that there was little consensus on whether Iowa and New Hampshire should continue to go first: 38% said yes; 33% said no. Another 28% were undecided.
The survey of 1,000 registered voters, taken Dec. 10-14, has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.