Claim Iowa voters haven't picked winning candidate in 24 years overreaches | Fact check

BrieAnna J. Frank, USA TODAY
Updated ·4 min read
8

The claim: Iowa hasn’t picked a winning presidential candidate in 24 years

A Jan. 16 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) claims Iowa's voters have had little recent success at identifying future presidents.

“Trumpers hate this simple fact: Iowa hasn’t picked a presidential candidate that won in 24 years,” reads the post.

It received more than 3,000 shares in five days. Another version of the claim spread widely on X, formerly known as Twitter.

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Our rating: Partly false

The claim doesn't specify which party or election it's referring to, and as a broad statement it's off base. Former President Barack Obama won the Democratic caucus in 2008, and both Obama and former President George W. Bush won general election contests in the state. The claim is only accurate if considering only GOP caucuses and then ignoring the 2020 caucus when former President Donald Trump won while the presumptive nominee as incumbent.

Several candidates since 2000 won Iowa en route to the White House

Iowa has selected candidates who went on to win the presidency in GOP caucuses, Democratic caucuses and the general election since 2000.

The claim starts its count in 2000, when Bush won the Iowa GOP caucus and the presidency. There was no Iowa GOP caucus in 2004, and caucus winners failed to secure a presidential win in the next three cycles: former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2008, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum in 2012 and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in 2016.

It gets trickier in 2020. There was a GOP caucus, but it featured Trump as an incumbent president facing only long-shot Republican challengers. That made it a half-hearted affair where the turnout of 32,000 was less than 20% of the contested contest in 2016 and Trump won overwhelmingly with more than 97% of the vote. Trump went on to be the Republican nominee but lost to President Joe Biden in the general election.

The post is more wrong when you factor in Democratic results.

Iowa's Democratic picks in 2000 and 2004, former Vice President Al Gore and former Secretary of State John Kerry, both lost in their respective general elections against George W. Bush.

But the Democratic losing streak ended when Obama won the 2008 Iowa caucus with more than 37% of the vote. He later described the win as the “favorite night of my entire political career." It paved the way for his eventual win in the general election that year.

There was no Democratic caucus in the state in 2012. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the Democratic caucus in 2016 but lost the general election to Trump, and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg narrowly won against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2020.

Biden clinched the Democratic nomination and went on to win the presidency against Trump that year.

Iowa also backed successful presidential candidates in several general elections since 2000: Bush in 2004, Obama in 2008 and 2012 and Trump in 2016.

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Caucus goers sign in at the front desk during the Iowa caucus on Monday, Jan. 15, 2024 at Terrance View Event Center in Sioux Center, Iowa.
Caucus goers sign in at the front desk during the Iowa caucus on Monday, Jan. 15, 2024 at Terrance View Event Center in Sioux Center, Iowa.

USA TODAY has debunked an array of false claims surrounding the Iowa caucus, including that Nikki Haley used HAARP technology to disrupt the event and that a Haley staffer was arrested in the state for giving voters $1,000 debit cards.

USA TODAY reached out to users who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Errant claim about Iowa's success in choosing candidates| Fact check