How the Iowa caucuses became the first major challenge of US presidential campaigns

• The first and most visible test of Republican candidate support in the 2024 presidential election is the Iowa caucuses, which take place on Jan. 15, 2024.
• While Iowa does not control who becomes the candidate of each party, Iowans’ choices almost always end up matching the rest of the nation.
• One of the architects of the modern Iowa caucuses, which began in 1972, wrote that the significance of the caucus was unanticipated.
• Seagrave said that it wasn’t political calculation that led to the choice to run the caucuses early in the election year.

Why a caucus?

Before the modern system for choosing presidential candidates was invented, the mechanism since 1832 for nominating presidential candidates had been a national political convention of each party. Voters in each state convention elected delegates to the national convention. A caucus is one way state party leaders picked whom to send and whom those delegates should support.

• Bosses offered aid – housing, medical care, food, clothing – to people before government services became common.
• The 1968 Democratic National Convention took place in Chicago, a city tightly controlled by Daley.
• Daley then bullied delegates to nominate his favored candidate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, even though Humphrey didn’t win a single primary election.

1968 provokes reforms

• The Democratic Party created the McGovern–Fraser Commission in 1968 in response to the events in Chicago.
• It was these reforms that launched Iowa’s caucuses in 1972.
• In 1976, the Iowa Republican Party followed the Democrats and began holding caucuses on the same early date.
• That increased the visibility of the Iowa caucuses out of proportion to their actual numeric influence in the nominating convention.

How they do it

• In 2020, Democrats also had satellite caucuses, with some even held overseas.
• Once the viable groups have been declared, a complex mathematical calculation determines how many delegates are allocated to each surviving candidate.

The Iowa caucuses become a tradition

• The Iowa caucuses have become a political tradition because the media devotes so much attention to the candidates’ activities in Iowa and then to how they perform on caucus night.
• There is also a concern that caucuses are difficult events to participate in because voters must attend personally and at night.
• Caucuses are now generally in disfavor, with many states moving to primaries.

Steffen W. Schmidt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.