Iowa Democrats plan to caucus same night as Republicans

DES MOINES — Iowa Democrats will caucus the same night as their Republican counterparts in early 2024, before any other state holds a presidential primary election or caucus, according to a new plan released Wednesday by the Iowa Democratic Party.

What remains far less clear is exactly when the party will publish the results of Democrats’ presidential preferences — a pending decision that will be a significant factor in whether its new process runs afoul of national party rules or upsets other early-voting states.

The plan published Wednesday is the latest development in Iowa Democrats’ overhaul of their quadrennial presidential precinct caucuses.

The national Democratic Party determined after the 2020 presidential election to change its presidential primary election calendar, and many national party leaders expressed a preference for primary elections over party-run caucuses, citing some of the challenges to participating in a caucus.

In an effort to preserve the envied first-in-the-nation status they held for half a century, Iowa Democrats proposed a plan designed to make the caucuses more accessible, the centerpiece of which is Democrats casting their presidential preference by mail.

Despite that dramatic change to Iowa Democrats’ caucus system, the state was not selected by the national party to be among early voting states on the new presidential primary calendar. Iowa Democrats decided nonetheless to move forward with their new plan, and on Wednesday announced some more details — while still leaving critical elements to be determined.

Iowa Democrats will caucus on the same night as Iowa Republicans, and at least eight days before any other state’s presidential nominating contest, as has historically been the case and as prescribed in Iowa law.

Iowa Democrats’ plan continues to involve the casting of presidential preference via the mail prior to caucus night, with an exact timeline still to be determined. But there will be no expression of presidential preferences during the precinct caucuses themselves.

The state party will, at a date yet to be determined, calculate the results of the mail-in presidential preferences, which will determine the number of unbound delegates that are allocated to each presidential candidate to the county, congressional district and state conventions. A candidate must be selected by at least 15 percent of the preferences stated at the county level in order to earn any delegates, the plan says.

What remains unknown is when the state party will calculate and release those results.

So far, the announced 2024 Democratic White House candidates are President Joe Biden, self-help guru Marianne Williamson and anti-vaccination activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Iowa Democrats’ updated plan calls for those yet-undefined details to be finalized at a later date, no later than 90 days before the yet-unscheduled caucuses, along with further details like when Democrats will be able to cast their preference by mail.

This is intentional, party leaders say, to provide flexibility and an ability to adapt to uncertainty surrounding the Democratic presidential nominating calendar.

While the national party has announced a new slate of five early-voting states — in order, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Georgia and Michigan — that was proposed by President Joe Biden, there have been issues with the implementation of that schedule as states wrestle with their own laws, including New Hampshire’s that declares it shall hold the nation’s first presidential primary election every four years.

“We’ve got a plan here that says that we may open this window for the mail-in, and that may happen before the caucuses, or we can open this window and we can announce the results after the caucuses, (or) on the day of the caucuses,” Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart told reporters Wednesday. “It just gives us a tremendous amount of flexibility there to make that decision once we know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

Iowa Democrats’ latest plan, in the form of a 62-page draft document, after a 30-day public comment period will be delivered to the Democratic National Committee’s rules and bylaws committee for its consideration.

Iowa Democratic Party officials said they plan to work with a vendor to assist with the mail-in presidential preference cards. Hart said the goal is to create a process that is secure, transparent and logical. Part of the reason Iowa Democrats find themselves overhauling their caucus system is that in the 2020 Democratic caucuses, a new app developed to report the results failed on caucus night. Because of that, official results were not known for weeks, well after the process had rolled on to other states.

Iowa Republicans continue to express their displeasure with Iowa Democrats’ plan, which they believe will threaten the first-in-the-nation status that the Iowa Republicans caucuses have maintained. They point to New Hampshire, which has viewed any mail-in balloting as a primary election and has threatened to move ahead of Iowa.

“If it is the goal of the Iowa Democratic Party to carry out the will of Iowans and preserve our first-in-the-nation status, they cannot move forward with their mail-in ballot plan that supersedes the New Hampshire primary,” Republican Party of Iowa Chair Jeff Kaufmann said in a statement. “It is becoming clear to me that keeping Iowa first is not the goal of the Iowa Democrats. The fact that they continue to keep pushing their primary-in-all-but-name proposal gives the appearance that the Iowa Democrats are hellbent on tanking the entire caucus. They’ve turned what used to be a process that we did together into all out political warfare.”

It was not immediately clear how Iowa Democrats’ latest update would align with a proposed change to state law, moving through the Republican-controlled Iowa Legislature, which would require in-person participation for the statement of presidential preference in the Iowa caucuses. Republicans conduct an in-person straw poll for their presidential precinct caucuses.

Hart said the proposed state law change is not among her concerns.

“As far as the legislation is concerned, I’m not going to worry about that until we see, you know, maybe I won’t worry about that at all,” Hart said. “I’m the Democratic Party chair. It is not my concern what the Republicans think we ought to do with our caucuses. So they’re going to pass their legislation, they’re going to do what they’re going to do. We did not have input into that, and that’s disappointing. But we’re going to continue on this path to make sure that we have an accessible process that allows Iowa Democrats to participate in a caucus process that is going to give them the voice that they deserve.”

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