HILLARY CLINTON may not think much of Donald Trump, but she’s fortunate to have him running for president. If not for Trump’s steady hold on the media’s attention, the story of this presidential primary season would be an unpleasantly familiar one for Clinton: Once considered the inevitable Democratic nominee — as she also was in 2008 — her big leads in Iowa and New Hampshire have evaporated or disappeared altogether. It now appears possible that Clinton could end up losing both states to Bernie Sanders. Her sharp attacks on the Vermont senator’s gun control votes and health care plan during Sunday night’s Democratic debate in Iowa were a sign that she has belatedly awakened to this scenario.
A pair of early Clinton losses would be treated as a full-blown disaster by the Democratic establishment and set off a media frenzy that would easily rival Trump’s. But it wouldn’t necessarily be disastrous for Clinton’s chances of winning the Democratic nomination — she’s stronger than she looks. It just happens to be her misfortune that the first two states on the primary calendar are both ones that, for different reasons, seem tailor-made to thwart her best efforts.
Despite decades as the leading political couple in Democratic politics, the Clintons lack deep ties to Iowa. Bill Clinton skipped the caucuses in 1992 because Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa was running for president; in 1996 he ran unopposed. Hillary Clinton avoided visiting Iowa until late in the 2008 cycle because she didn’t want to imperil her Senate reelection in New York by appearing to already be running for president.
Iowa’s caucus system, which favors grass-roots activists, and the liberal cast of the state’s Democrats, both work against establishment candidates like Clinton and favor insurgents like Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders. Indeed, the latest Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa poll shows that 43 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers described themselves as “socialist.”
In New Hampshire, Clinton’s problem comes from a different part of the political spectrum: independents. Unlike most states, New Hampshire allows voters who have not declared a party affiliation to participate in its Feb. 9 primary. This has supplied Sanders with a decisive advantage. In the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, he leads Clinton 50 percent to 46 percent. Independents, who favor Sanders by more than two to one, account for the entirety of his lead. Clinton actually wins registered New Hampshire Democrats.
Pointing this out after twin losses would do little to assuage panicked Clinton supporters. But the fact remains, she’s a stronger candidate after Feb. 9 than before, since these early states quirks don’t extend to many others.
It’s possible that Sanders’ momentum could dramatically shift voter sentiment enough to erase Clinton’s later advantages. Senator Elizabeth Warren might finally offer the endorsement Sanders supporters have been longing for. A senior adviser to Sanders argues that Clinton’s South Carolina “firewall” on Feb. 27 would not derail his path to the nomination, since it falls on a Saturday and will be eclipsed three days later by the 10 “Super Tuesday” contests that Sanders hopes to split. Besides, the adviser adds, “She has an enthusiasm gap that we don’t” — a gap that will only widen if Sanders wins early.
But it’s more likely that Clinton would go into attack mode and gradually recover, aided by the name recognition and minority-heavy electorates that should give her a leg up in later states, where Sanders hasn’t spent time or money. In the New York Times last week, anonymous Clinton advisers fumed and vented that their candidate looked poised to botch another primary race. That’s too dire an assessment. A likelier bet is that she’ll prevail in her characteristic fashion, turning an easy win into an ugly and difficult one.
Joshua Green is national correspondent at Bloomberg Businessweek. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaGreen.