Are U.S. Elections "Front Loaded?"

December 13, 2007 — -- It really is the early bird that gets the worm, at least in politics. New research out of Brown University shows that the American political process through which we choose the President is "front loaded," with voters in the early primaries having much more clout than voters in later primaries.

The researchers used a technique called statistical modeling to determine the effect of early primaries during the 2004 national election, and their results suggest that any candidate who ignores the relatively small state of Iowa does so at considerable political peril. The Iowa results, followed quickly by the New Hampshire primary, have an enormous impact on what the political pundits, and the researchers, call "momentum."

"Momentum effects will be generated when candidate performance in the actual primaries exceeds voter expectation," Brian Knight, associate professor of economics and public policy at Brown University, said in an interview.

That won't come as much of a surprise to pundits who have seen the fate of many a political candidate set in stone in the early primaries. But the research, carried out by Knight and a graduate student, Nathan Schiff, is a rare effort to study scientifically how momentum shifts as the sequence of primaries moves along.

Knight and Schiff came up with some surprising numbers. Voters in Iowa and New Hampshire have six to 20 times the influence of voters in later states in the selection of candidates.

Is it a bad thing? Not necessarily.

It may fly in the face of the democratic ideal of "one person, one vote," Knight said, but voters in Iowa and New Hampshire have a better chance of getting up close and personal with the candidates than voters in mega-states like California and New York. So the early voting record contributes to "social learning," an academic term that means we lean heavily on the judgment of those who came before us.

National primaries are usually spread out over several months, giving momentum more time to grow, or diminish. Thus it is quite likely that the winning candidates for both parties will emerge long before the last primaries are held.

At least that's the way it has usually been in the past. But maybe not this year.