Your questions about the Iowa Caucus, answered

It’s December before the presidential election, which means Iowa is flooded with candidates and reporters for the quadrennial caucuses.

This year, however, looks different — because Democrats have shifted their primary votes to other states, and because a single candidate is so dominating the Republican field.

Here’s what you need to know.

What are the Iowa caucuses and how do they work?

Although “primaries and caucuses” are often lumped together, they are not the same. Primaries work the way most elections do: Voters cast their ballots privately through early voting or mail-in options, or at a polling place on Election Day. Caucuses, on the other hand, require voters to be present at a certain hour and publicly discuss their preferences.

At every local gathering in Iowa – in gyms, community centers and even churches – Republicans will make speeches in favor of their favored candidates. Then, caucusgoers will vote, and based on that vote, the candidates’ delegates to the provincial convention will be nominated. Remote participation, such as by mail or telephone, is not permitted.

You may have heard terms like “viability” and “realignment” in connection with the Iowa caucuses. Those refer to the Democrats’ traditional process, in which caucusgoers physically sorted themselves based on the candidate they supported. Candidates whose support was below a viability threshold were eliminated and their supporters could realign with a viable candidate. Republicans do not know these procedures, and Democrats have dropped them.

Caucuses have many critics because they are less accessible than primaries. There is no flexibility – people have to arrive on time and stay until the end – meaning those who have to work at that hour or are otherwise unavailable are out of luck. People with disabilities often have difficulty participating. This also applies to people who feel unsafe or simply uncomfortable and make their political preferences public.

Most states that once held caucuses have switched to primaries, but Iowa is an exception.

When are the caucuses?

The Republican caucuses will be held on January 15 at 7:00 PM local time.

The Democratic caucuses will be conducted by mail. The first ballots — technically “preference cards” — will be mailed out on January 12, and voters can request one until February 19. While Iowa Democrats can attend in-person meetings on Jan. 15 to conduct other party business, they will. then don’t choose a presidential candidate.

Why are the Republican and Democratic caucuses different?

The Republican Party of Iowa and the Democratic Party of Iowa control their own caucus procedures, and they have long opted for different ones. But the procedures are mainly different this cycle because the Democratic National Committee changed its primary agenda at President Biden’s insistence, while the Republican National Committee stuck with its old agenda.

Democrats’ rationale was to prioritize states that are more racially diverse than Iowa and New Hampshire, which are predominantly white. Their first two states are now South Carolina, on February 3, and Nevada, on February 6, with Iowa dropping out of the early lineup. (Under the DNC’s schedule, New Hampshire would have voted on the same day as Nevada. But it refused to give up its first-in-the-nation primary status, which is enshrined in state law, and scheduled an unsanctioned primary on January 23. .)

Why does Iowa go first (for the Republicans)?

Today the answer is, “Because it has always been that way.” A common argument is that because Iowans have shouldered the responsibility of being first for decades, they are exceptionally well informed and engaged. They know how much power they have to winnow presidential fields, the argument goes, and they take that responsibility more seriously than voters elsewhere would.

Initially, however, Iowa got its spot by historical coincidence.

After the chaos of the 1968 Democratic Convention, Democrats changed their nominating process to give voters more of a say than party insiders. Until 1968, the party held popular votes in only a handful of states, with the rest choosing a candidate at conventions; after 1968 the balance shifted sharply towards popular votes in the form of primaries or caucuses.

Iowa Democrats happened to schedule the first vote in 1972. Iowa Republicans, realizing that the timing could work to the state’s advantage, followed suit in 1976 — and on the Democratic side, Jimmy Carter benefited from the caucuses in Iowa that year to keep themselves out of the election. relative unfamiliarity with the front of the presidential pack.

The power to go first was thus clearly demonstrated: the Iowa legislature passed a law requiring the state to continue scheduling its caucuses before all others.

How do the delegates work?

Each district is assigned a number of delegates to choose from for a provincial convention based on the results of that district’s caucus voting.

In the coming months, the county and state conventions will confirm Iowa’s 40 delegates to the Republican National Convention, where the party’s presidential nominee will be officially chosen based on who wins a majority of the more than 2,000 delegates available nationwide.

When do we usually have results?

The leaders of each local Republican caucus will report the results to the state party, which will tabulate and release the results for the entire state. This usually happens quite quickly, within a few hours.

Because Democrats are voting by mail this year and Iowa is no longer first for them, their results won’t be announced until March 5.

Why were there so many delays and problems in 2020?

Iowa Democrats’ reporting process collapsed in 2020, preventing them from releasing significant results on the night of the caucuses and the full results for days.

The caucusing itself went relatively smoothly, but a new app for districts to report their results failed and backup phone lines were blocked, so the state party couldn’t obtain the numbers. When the results were finally tabulated, they were riddled with errors and inconsistencies — products of manual calculations by district officials — and the party conducted a partial reanalysis followed by a partial recount.

A complicating factor was that the Iowa Democratic Party had promised to release multiple sets of results — not only the number of state convention delegates each candidate had earned, which would determine the winner of the caucuses, but also how many supporters each candidate had in the election battle. first and second voting rounds.

That promise dated back to 2016, when Hillary Clinton defeated Bernie Sanders in the caucuses by the narrowest of margins, and Mr. Sanders fought for an audit, accusing the state party of a lack of transparency for not releasing the first and second terms. round totals.

Producing multiple counts provided a more comprehensive picture and allowed errors to be identified, but it exacerbated delays when systems failed.

What is the importance of Iowa for the rest of the race?

In Iowa, it’s all about momentum — the vague sense of who’s on the rise and who’s dead, which could influence the choices of voters in other states.

In terms of actual numbers, Iowa doesn’t matter much. It accounts for a small portion of the nationally awarded delegates. But its power to shape perceptions is so powerful that candidates often drop out after doing poorly there, unless they have reason to believe they will do significantly better in New Hampshire.