Iowa's caucus disaster boosts Texas, where presidential voting starts in just 2 weeks

Feb. 4--Iowa's misery could be Texas' gain.

One of the chief functions of early states in the presidential nomination process is to narrow the field. Sometimes, the narrowing happens so fast, states like Texas don't get a meaningful say in the process.

Not this year. As the hours ticked away Monday night, the Iowa Democratic Party couldn't say anything about who won how many delegates in the state's caucuses, and every one of the Democrats running for president trudged on.

There are enough questions now about how a new app may have mangled the reporting of the caucus results that no candidate will leave the race. States down the line will have more choices and more influence.

And in Texas, it starts much sooner than many realize. Our primary is part of Super Tuesday on March 3. But in reality, it starts in just two weeks, with early voting. Texans will be able to choose their candidate for days before even South Carolina, the first southern state to hold its primary, goes to the polls.

California is in a similar position. It does early voting primarily by mail, and millions of ballots are already showing up in voters' mailboxes.

Iowa isn't about delegates; there aren't enough available there to matter much in the race. It's about expectations. And with results that will forever be in question, Iowa just won't have much of an impact.

Texas having more meaning could change the trajectory of the race. The recent story in the Democratic race has been a surge by Bernie Sanders and the real chance that his hard-left politics would take hold -- a prospect that many Democrats nervously see as a huge advantage for Donald Trump.

Texas' Democrats are more likely to favor a more moderate candidate. And at a minimum, states like Texas and California having more influence will address concerns that younger voters and minority groups are shut out of the early part of the process because it's dominated by mostly white Iowa and New Hampshire.

After all, there are roughly three times as many people of Hispanic descent in Tarrant County alone than in all of Iowa, recent Census estimates show.

Another factor that will come into play is former Mayor Mike Bloomberg. The money he's pouring into TV ads is unprecedented, as is his decision to skip the first few states on the primary calendar. We simply don't know what the effect will be. What we do know is that he's rising in Texas polls, and tens of millions of dollars is a huge advantage in a lightning-quick campaign in a large state with several expensive media markets.

So, in a way, Iowa's crash and burn could make for a more accurate sense of what the overall Democratic Party wants in its presidential candidate.

And as the days tick away, Texas may reflect that better than any state.

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