DES MOINES, Iowa — The Iowa Democratic Party announced over the weekend that their caucus will be taking place on January 15, 2024.
However, the date becoming official provides more questions than answers. Back in February, the Democratic National Committee gave the boot to Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus status by removing them from the proposed schedule of the first five states to hold the election.
The Iowa Democratic Party submitted a plan in February as well that includes mail-in ballots for the caucus. The DNC will only accept that plan if the state party agrees to have the postmark date deadline on March 5, 2024, which is ‘Super Tuesday’. If the state party does not follow along with the DNC’s plan, the party risks losing delegates at the national party convention. But if the state does not caucus first in the nation, state law will be violated.
The state party also needs to deal with a new state law that says if a party intends to do a first in the nation caucus, participation must be in-person.
Linh Ta, a local reporter with Axios Des Moines shared her analysis of several difficult decisions the IDP will have to make in the coming months.
“So for the democrats if they can’t be first, you know, I think trying to protect the delegates, whether that means just trying to go with what the DNC wants and not having that penalization. If we also lost our delegates then we kind of lost all of our power there,” said Ta. “But some people would also argue that our power is more in our clout and being able to show the nation, hey we are first and these are our issues right now.”
The IDP has a Rules & Bylaws Committee meeting coming up in October where some of these questions could be answered for voters in the state.
