Iowa claims two more Texan hopefuls
Castro and O’Rourke join list of candidates who didn’t catch on
Texas has an Iowa problem when it comes to presidential politics.
Democrats Julián Castro and Beto O’Rourke have joined a long list of Texans who have seen their presidential ambitions wither in the cornfields of Iowa. While both campaigned hard in the Hawkeye State, neither was able to turn that effort into big poll numbers numbers in advance of the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses.
“They just didn’t translate,” said Tim Hagle, a University of Iowa political science professor.
With so many other candidates running this year, Hagle said, it was even harder for candidates without strong name identification to break through.
Castro, lagging in fundraising and struggling in the polls despite frequent visits to Iowa, announced Thursday he was suspending his campaign for president.
“With only a month until the Iowa caucuses, and given the circumstances of this campaign season, I have determined that it simply isn’t our time,” the former San Antonio mayor told supporters.
He’s hardly the first Texan to have Iowa pour a bucket of cold water on his presidential dreams. Since the 1970s, Iowa has effectively ended the presidential bids of 10 Texans — a mix of both Democrats and Republicans.
Although some were long shots to start, others such as O’Rourke, former Gov. Rick Perry and former U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen were considered top contenders before poor showings in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation nominating contest essentially ended their campaigns.
Hagle said it’s somewhat surprising because both states have strong rural and agriculture traditions that seemingly would help Texas candidates in Iowa. But he said one challenge is adjusting to what it means to run statewide in Iowa.
It’s not like Texas, where there are multiple major media markets and candidates can reach large numbers of voters with TV advertising. In Iowa, voters expect more hands-on, face-to-face campaigning.
There are exceptions of course. In 2016, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz beat then-candidate Donald Trump in the Iowa Republican caucuses, which made him
Trump’s top competitor for months afterward.
And in 2000, then-Gov. George W. Bush’s victory in the Iowa caucuses staked him to a lead in the Republican primary season that he never would relinquish.
But for so many others, Iowa has been almost a campaign ender.
In 1975, Bentsen looked like a top presidential candidate with big fundraising that made him an early front-runner for the Democratic nomination. But Iowa broke big for Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter, and Bentsen’s campaign never got back on track.
In 1980, former Gov. John Connally, a Democrat turned Republican, finished a distant fourth in Iowa to seal the fate of his presidential candidacy.
Even then-Vice President George H.W. Bush couldn’t win the Iowa caucuses in 1988. He won Iowa in 1980, before Ronald Reagan steamrolled to the GOP nomination. But when Bush ran again in 1988, he finished third behind Bob Dole and Pat Robertson.
Last March, O’Rourke looked to be positioned to break through. He hired top Iowa field staffers, visited the state frequently and drew big crowds to his early events in the state, but none of it translated into big poll numbers. On Nov. 1, O’Rourke pulled the plug on his campaign just as he arrived in Iowa for another string of appearances.
“We have to clearly see at this point that we do not have the means to pursue this campaign successfully,” O’Rourke said from Des Moines, where he announced the end of his presidential bid.
Castro has publicly shared his frustrations about Iowa’s outsize importance as the nation’s first nominating contest. Although he campaigned there more than almost any of the other contenders, Castro could not break through the way candidates such as Pete Buttigieg and Andrew Yang have.
“We do need to change the order of the states, because I don’t believe that we’re the same country we were in 1972,” he said in Iowa in November. “That’s when Iowa first held its caucus first. And by the time we have the next presidential election in 2024, it would have been more than 50 years since 1972. Our country has changed a lot in those 50 years. The Democratic Party has changed a lot.”
Texas Democrats and Republicans long have expressed their frustration over Iowa as a roadblock for the presidential nomination for Texans.
In each of the last two regular legislative sessions, state Rep. Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, has pushed for legislation to move the Texas presidential primary ahead of early voting states including Iowa and New Hampshire.
Larson argued that it would help Texas candidates get a better start in the presidential cycle and give Texas a bigger voice in the primary process. By the time Texas has voted, the party nominations have rarely been in doubt.
It’s an idea that has enjoyed support from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican who leads the Texas Senate. In 2013, Patrick proposed a bill that would have moved the state’s primary elections to the first Tuesday in February. That bill, like Larson’s, has not become law.