Four Democrats recently ended their presidential bids, after it became clear they would not qualify for tonight’s televised debate from Houston.

But more than half a dozen candidates who weren’t on stage tonight continue to actively campaign in Iowa. Several prominent Iowa Democrats are encouraging them to stay in the race and not let the Democratic National Committee narrow the field by default.

The stories linked below weren’t the most popular pieces to appear on this site during 2018. Some of them weren’t as newsworthy as the work I’m proudest of from last year. But of the 355 posts I wrote for this website in 2018, these ones fueled the fondest memories.

Theresa Greenfield’s failure to qualify for the Democratic primary ballot in Iowa’s third Congressional district was one of the strangest plot twists in our state’s recent political history. With influential endorsers and the funds to compete on television, Greenfield would have been a strong contender to either win the nomination or prevent any candidate from clearing the 35 percent threshold on June 5. EMILY’s List might have stayed out of a race with two pro-choice women in a field of four candidates, rather than spending heavily to help Cindy Axne in the final weeks.

Greenfield’s unsuccessful mad dash to collect a new set of petitions on the last day of the filing period reminded tipster Darrell Hanson of a last-minute scramble to salvage another well-known candidate’s Congressional bid.

Iowa hasn’t been the most friendly state for women in politics, to put it mildly. We didn’t elect a woman to Congress until 2014. We have not elected a woman governor. Just 22.7 percent of our state lawmakers are women, below the pitiful national average of 25.3 percent. Only two women have ever been Iowa Supreme Court justices, and we are currently the only state in the country to have no women serving on our highest court.

But Iowa has not escaped the national trend of more women becoming politically involved in the wake of the 2016 election. Not only will a record number of female candidates appear on Iowa ballots in 2018, more women than ever before are leading campaigns for high-level offices.

State Senator Nate Boulton and Fred Hubbell have locked up more support among state lawmakers than the five other Democrats running for governor combined.

Whether legislative endorsements will matter in the 2018 gubernatorial race is an open question. The overwhelming majority of state lawmakers backed Mike Blouin before the 2006 gubernatorial primary, which Chet Culver won. Last year, former Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge won the nomination for U.S. Senate, even though about 60 current and 30 former Democratic lawmakers had endorsed State Senator Rob Hogg.

Nevertheless, prominent supporters can provide a clue to activists or journalists about which primary contenders are well-positioned. Where things stand:

Kent R. Kroeger is a writer and statistical consultant who has measured and analyzed public opinion for public and private sector clients for more than 30 years. -promoted by desmoinesdem

The American Heartland is not as conservative as some Republicans want you to believe, nor is it as liberal as some Democrats would prefer.

Like the nation writ large, the American Heartland is dominated by centrists who make up nearly half of the vote-eligible population.

That conclusion is based on my analysis of the recently released 2016-17 American National Election Study (ANES), which is a nationally-representative election study fielded every two years by Stanford University and The University of Michigan and is available here.

Across a wide-array of issues, most Heartland vote-eligible adults do not consistently agree with liberals or conservatives. They are, as their group’s label suggests, smack dab in the middle of the electorate.

However, on the issues most important to national voters in 2016 — the economy, jobs, national security, and immigration — there is a conservative skew in the opinions of the Heartland. The Iowa Democratic Party, as well as the national party, must recognize this reality as they try to translate the energy of the “resistance” into favorable and durable election outcomes in 2018.

As this guest author shows, Bernie Sanders supporters aren’t the only Iowa Democrats who support major reforms to the caucus system. -promoted by desmoinesdem

There has been a lot of discussion across the state of Iowa over the past six months about the future of the caucus process. The Iowa Caucus Review Committee appears to be in willful denial about the problems of the caucus process. Last week, Jeff Cox wrote an article that said the process was rigged. This article will examine the popular vote numbers from a few different sources and simply ask for clarity from the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) on how many people were for each candidate. In a society where items can be purchased from a smartphone, there is no reason to keep the results convoluted and hidden from the general public.

The complex caucus math, while relished by Chairman Dave Nagle, is no way for the state to represent itself as “First in the Nation.” The quirky math has no place when selecting nominees for the next leader of the United States. The confusion of the process led to incorrect conclusions of the process being rigged or fraudulent in favor of one candidate. I ask the Iowa Democratic Party to release the popular vote to eliminate doubt of the process being rigged in favor of one candidate.

Although the chair of the Iowa Democratic Party’s Caucus Review Committee continues to downplay the need to rethink how the Iowa caucuses work, some committee members are unwilling to let big questions be taken off the table.

The Iowa Democratic Party’s Caucus Review Committee will hold its first meeting “for purposes of organization” on Saturday, May 7. Members of the public may attend the event, which begins at 10 am at the Airport Holiday Inn (Iowa Conference Rooms B & C) at 6111 Fleur Drive in Des Moines. The meeting will likely run well into the afternoon as the 26 committee members hear from speakers including Republican Party of Iowa officials, who will share what they learned from their review of the 2012 caucuses.

Whether Iowa will ever be able to hold meaningful caucuses again is an open question. Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has allies in national circles who share her belief that the party should require “simpler” and “more democratic” primaries for the purposes of presidential selection. If forced to abandon caucuses, Iowa would probably be relegated to the end of the nominating process in June, unless our state’s leaders manage to lobby for an earlier primary date.

Assuming the caucuses continue as an important event in presidential campaigns, the Iowa Democratic Party should address some of the current system’s major shortcomings. Based on what I’ve heard (and not heard) from various Caucus Review Committee members, the exercise seems destined to produce minor improvements in how the caucuses are managed, as opposed to big changes to address the caucuses’ disenfranchising and unrepresentative features.

The most important business at yesterday’s Iowa Democratic and Republican county conventions was electing delegates to each party’s district conventions in April and state convention in June. Iowa Democratic rules do not bind county convention delegates to the candidates they supported at their precinct caucuses, and not all delegates chosen at precinct caucuses show up for the county conventions. Those factors helped Barack Obama make big gains in March 2008, from a lead of “16 state delegates to Clinton’s 15 on caucus night […] to a 25-14 lead after the county conventions.” John Deeth explained the 2008 county convention happenings at the time and on Friday provided a detailed look at what goes on behind the scenes to organize these events.

Yesterday’s conventions didn’t change Clinton’s expected lead over Bernie Sanders in state delegates. After the Iowa caucuses, the Iowa Democratic Party calculated Clinton had 700.47 state delegate equivalents, Sanders had 696.92 state delegate equivalents, and Martin O’Malley 7.63. The Iowa Democratic Party reported last night that the 99 county conventions elected 704 state delegates for Clinton, 700 for Sanders, one for O’Malley, and one uncommitted. Scroll to the end of this post to see the numbers for each candidate from all 99 counties. The projected national delegate count from Iowa remains 23 for Clinton and 21 for Sanders.

While most counties saw little change after yesterday’s conventions, the balance of power did shift slightly in some counties. For example, Johnson County elected 54 delegates for Sanders yesterday and 38 for Clinton. Those numbers represented a net gain of one delegate for Clinton compared to what was expected following the precinct caucuses.

Sanders improved his standing most in Polk County. He won only about 46 percent of the county delegates here on February 1 to 53 percent for Clinton. But at the end of a very long day in West Des Moines, the Polk County convention elected 115 delegates for Clinton and 113 for Sanders, a net gain of about six state delegates for Sanders.

That could have been big news, except for one problem. Hours before Polk County delegates ratified their slates, social media exploded as thousands of people, eventually including Sanders himself through his campaign Twitter account, alleged that Clinton allies had tried to “steal” the convention.

I wasn’t at Valley High School, but I followed postings yesterday by dozens of delegates for each candidate. Since the convention, I have spoken to or received direct messages from multiple delegates on both sides, including leaders of the Clinton and Sanders groups and members of the Polk County Credentials Committee. My best effort to piece together what happened is after the jump.

Short version: evidence points not to “stealing,” but to mismanagement by convention leaders, especially Rules Committee Chair Jeff Goetz. Unusual procedures implemented without transparency fueled suspicions among people who may have gone into the convention expecting dirty tricks from party establishment types supporting Clinton.

The Iowa Democratic Party announced today that former U.S. Representative Dave Nagle will lead the committee to be formed to review Iowa caucus procedures. I enclose below the full statement. Nagle promised to help the caucuses “advance and grow while maintaining their important role in the presidential and party-building process,” saying the committee will seek input “from Iowans in all corners of our state” and “will welcome all suggestions.” Comments from other insiders suggest that Iowa Democratic Party leaders are mainly interested in improving how the caucuses are administered, rather than dramatically changing the current system for reporting results and allocating delegates.

I continue to collect stories from Democrats about what happened at their neighborhood caucuses. The process ran smoothly in many precincts, although features of caucus math led to disappointing outcomes for some acquaintances. I described some of those examples here.

Today I heard a remarkable story about precinct chair incompetence in Norwalk 3 (Warren County). Whether because of inadequate training or a deliberate choice to disregard rules, the temporary chair never held elections for a permanent chair and secretary. More troubling, he did not allow attendees to divide into preference groups by going to different areas of the room. Instead, he told everyone to stay seated in the bleachers of the school gymnasium, asked supporters of Martin O’Malley to raise their hands, counted them himself, and declared O’Malley not viable.

Ignoring objections from many who wanted to form separate groups and count themselves by sounding out loud, the precinct chair insisted on counting the Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters the same way, asking for a show of hands and counting people in the crowded bleachers. My friend thought it likely this method produced an inaccurate count. However, she perceived that the delegates probably were allocated correctly. Roughly equal numbers of caucus-goers in Norwalk 3 supported Clinton and Sanders, and the precinct had an even number of delegates, so each candidate got the same number. In a precinct with an odd number of delegates, it would have been crucial to get the exact numbers for each supporter group, because an advantage of even one person would send an extra county delegate to that candidate.

If Nagle’s committee is open to all kinds of feedback, I suspect its members will hear from many Iowa Democrats who are not satisfied with the current system, especially the way converting large numbers of people into a few delegates can skew the results.

Fun for Iowa political history buffs: Before being elected to Congress, Nagle chaired the state party during an epic scheduling fight with the Democratic National Committee. The Des Moines Register’s Jason Noble interviewed Nagle about that controversy for episode 3 of his “Three Tickets” podcast series, starting around the 38:30 mark. Cliff’s Notes version: Iowa and New Hampshire stuck together to maintain an eight-day gap between the first caucuses and the first state primary. After some brinksmanship and arguments within Iowa Democratic circles, the caucuses went ahead a week before the DNC-sanctioned date. The DNC later backed down on threats not to seat our state’s delegates at the 1984 national convention.

Today’s state party leadership is more inclined to tell Iowans what the DNC or the New Hampshire secretary of state won’t let us do than to fight for something better. Here’s hoping the committee Nagle chairs will not be afraid to consider real change to make the caucuses more inclusive and representative.