When did Democrats start caring about Iowa? And when will they stop? Welcome to the first edition of the Maclean's Politics Insider: America 2020, launched today for readers who crave U.S. political news during primary season. If you want to receive this new newsletter, take no action, it will arrive in your inbox every weekday at noon. If you'd rather not receive it, please unsubscribe here. The end of Iowa? If you care about the Democratic presidential nomination, you are eagerly awaiting the Iowa caucuses on Monday. But according to a report in Politico, the state's first-in-the-nation status may change in 2024. There have already been calls to strip Iowa of its standing—the argument being that Democrats shouldn't spend so much energy on a state that is much whiter than the party as a whole. Iowa party officials fear these arguments will gain traction if Democrats lose to Donald Trump, or if the Iowa caucus results turn out to be unrepresentative of Democrats in the rest of the country. Iowa can still point to Barack Obama 's 2008 victory as proof that it doesn't have a problem, but Elizabeth Warren's campaign co-chair, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, has heard that argument too many times: "You know what, people use Obama for everything." After Iowa: Wealth and fame may not buy Michael Bloomberg the Democratic nomination, but they might be enough for a third-place finish: the latest Hill-HarisX national poll has the former New York City Mayor passing Elizabeth Warren for third place behind Biden and Sanders, while an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (where Biden and Sanders are statistically tied) has him in fourth, behind Warren and ahead of that other small-town mayor, Pete Buttigieg. If only we were in Iowa: Senator Warren and Senator Sanders are mostly stuck in Washington D.C. during the Trump impeachment trial, unable to do as much campaigning as they otherwise would. It's also tricky for Senators to get attention during this trial because they are not allowed to ask questions directly; they have to submit them to Chief Justice John Roberts, who reads them aloud. Here's the question Warren submitted to Roberts: “At a time when large majorities of Americans have lost faith in government, does the fact that the Chief Justice is presiding over an impeachment trial in which Republican senators have thus far refused to allow witnesses or evidence contribute to the loss of legitimacy of the Chief Justice, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution?” Roberts was visibly uncomfortable as he read Warren's question, but he did read it, unlike the question from Senator Rand Paul, which would have required him to name an alleged whistleblower. An Iowa obsession: Why are candidates so obsessed with Iowa, anyway? In an article that parses the last 48 years of Democratic caucuses in the state, NBC's Steve Kornacki traces the state's bellwether status to 1972, when a left-wing Senator named George McGovern did well enough in Iowa that people stopped dismissing him as a fringe candidate. Since then, media and political insiders have looked to Iowa for signs that a candidate has momentum or can be taken seriously. The exception was 1992, when Iowa Senator Tom Harkin was running, so Bill Clinton and other candidates didn't bother campaigning in Iowa: "Besides Harkin, there was no campaign activity, no ads and almost no media coverage." —Jaime Weinman | 
