A complicated calendar fight could mean the date of the 2024 Iowa caucuses may not be firmly set for months — even as Republican presidential candidates have already begun competing in the state in full force.
The Democratic National Committee voted earlier this year to reorder the party’s presidential nominating process, booting Iowa from its decades-long place as the leadoff state.
Iowa Democrats say they are preparing for the calendar-setting process to drag “well into the fall” as they fight for position with New Hampshire, which also was bumped from the front of the pack in the DNC’s process.
That upheaval — far from settled — has trickle-down effects that are complicating Iowa Republicans’ ability to set the date of their 2024 caucuses.
“It looks as though we’re heading for a mid-January caucus,” Republican Party of Iowa Chair Jeff Kaufmann said in an interview. “But it’s still very unsettled. … That uncertainty prevents me from saying anything definitive.”
In previous years, Kaufmann said, the party would have identified the date of the caucuses by now, although it wouldn’t be formally approved until a summer meeting of the party’s state central committee.
Kaufmann is hoping the committee will approve a mid-January caucus date when it meets in July.
“But there’s still going to be a restlessness about it,” he said.
He’s keeping a wary eye on how Iowa Democrats proceed and, critically, how New Hampshire reacts.
Iowa and New Hampshire are at odds, creating instability
Iowa and New Hampshire have led the presidential nominating process for both Republicans and Democrats for decades.
State law says Iowa must hold first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses, and New Hampshire state law says it must hold the nation’s first primaries.
New Hampshire leaders have not taken issue with Iowa leading off the process — so long as it holds caucuses rather than primaries.
But in the aftermath of the DNC decision to strip Iowa of its first-in-the-nation status, Iowa Democrats were thrust into a difficult position.
They’ve said they intend to defy the DNC and still hold some version of a caucus first, on the same day as Iowa Republicans — clinging to their traditional place at the front of the line.
But Iowa Democrats are also hoping to placate some members of the DNC by proposing a mail-in caucus that will be more inclusive and function much more like a primary.
Though the plan might help to persuade reluctant DNC members to relent on their previous decision and give Iowa a later spot in the early voting window, it is likely to rile New Hampshire and upset the long détente between the two states.
New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan, a Republican, has said if Iowa moves forward with the mail-in proposal, he would consider it a primary and use his broad authority to set the date of New Hampshire’s primaries ahead of Iowa’s caucuses.
“I would say any mail-in or absentee balloting component to a caucus would trigger our law,” Scanlan previously told the Des Moines Register in an interview. “We are committed, and we’re focused, and we just want everybody to understand that position and how prepared we are to defend it.”
More:The death of the Iowa Democratic caucus: How 50 years of jury-rigging doomed an American tradition
New Hampshire Republicans and Democrats must hold their primary elections on the same day. So if Iowa Democrats run afoul of New Hampshire’s law, it would affect both the Democratic and Republican primary calendars.
Iowa’s legislative Republicans passed a new law this year saying that presidential caucuses must be conducted in person. They hope that will be enough to appease New Hampshire.
But Iowa Democrats have said they are not taking that law into consideration when they formulate their plans for the 2024 caucuses.
RNC chair: National party can’t defend Iowa if New Hampshire jumps in front
Kaufmann said if New Hampshire jumps ahead of Iowa on the calendar, he wouldn’t necessarily try to leapfrog New Hampshire and reclaim the leadoff spot.
Iowa Democrats will have moved to a primary system, he said, and New Hampshire gets to hold the first primary.
“I can’t tell you what I’d do,” Kaufmann said. “It looks like I’ll have a decision to make.”
Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, told the Des Moines Register the RNC cannot apply sanctions if New Hampshire moves its primaries ahead of Iowa this cycle.
“We have no ability in our rules to do anything if that happens,” she said.
That’s because the Republican carve-out system simply says that Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada are allowed to hold presidential nominating contests before the rest of the states weigh in.
It does not specify which order the states must go in, although there has long been a consensus that Iowa will go first, and New Hampshire will follow.
If some other state outside of the early four were to jump ahead of Iowa, then the RNC could slap on sanctions, McDaniel said.
McDaniel criticized Iowa Democrats for jeopardizing the Republicans’ calendar with their absentee caucus plan.
“We think it’s critical that Iowa remains the first-in-the-nation caucus and New Hampshire remains the first-in-the-nation primary,” she said. “I think it’s awful that the Democrats, who have abandoned both of these states in their process, are now trying to meddle in the Republican primary process.”
Iowa Democrats prepare for extended calendar fight
It could be late in the year before Iowa Democrats make clear how they plan to proceed.
The proposed delegate selection plan they issued earlier this month was light on key details. Party leaders said they hoped to keep all their options — and bargaining chips — on the table.
The plan is in the midst of a public comment period. The party’s state central committee is expected to vote to send it to the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee on June 3.
Scott Brennan, Iowa’s representative to the Rules and Bylaws Committee, said the committee will meet in June, but he doesn’t expect the group to consider Iowa’s proposal until its meeting in July.
“My guess is that they will find the plan noncompliant because it does not have a date for the caucuses,” he said.
After that, Iowa Democrats will have some time to try to bring the plan into compliance.
“We’ve committed to having a caucus on the same day as the Iowa Republicans,” Brennan said. “Hopefully by then they’ll maybe have talked to us about what dates they’re looking at, and we’ll see if we can have a date by the follow-up deadline.”
That means Iowa Democrats could have a tentative date by August.
But that doesn’t mean New Hampshire will agree to it.
If New Hampshire jumps to the front of the line, Iowa Republicans and Democrats will have a decision to make. And South Carolina, which the DNC has said should now go first, could find itself third in line, possibly prompting leaders there to try to reclaim their own first-in-the-nation spot.
“We’re kind of sitting back and watching and waiting to see what everyone else does,” Brennan said. “I assume that we will not have an ultimate date till sometime well into the fall. But who knows?”
Republicans are required to submit their final delegate selection plans to the RNC by Oct. 1. States will work with the RNC ahead of that date to ensure their plans are in compliance with the party’s rules.
McDaniel said the RNC’s rules say the party will not award any delegates before 2024. So any state that tries to move its contest into December 2023 would be in violation of those rules.
Republicans looking ahead to 2028
Both Kaufmann and McDaniel said that how the calendar fight plays out this year could have ramifications for the primary order in 2028.
“Every decision that I make at this particular point has significant ramifications for 2028,” Kaufmann said. “And that becomes more paramount than anything else in my mind of how I would react to (New Hampshire jumping in front of Iowa this year).”
McDaniel said the Iowa GOP’s future status as a first-in-the-nation caucus state depends on how this gets resolved.
“I do think if this doesn’t get resolved, it will put the future in jeopardy for these states,” she said. “So the better this goes, the better we can go back and say this was the right plan and this is what it should be going forward. And I know that’s really important to the people of Iowa and New Hampshire.”
Brianne Pfannenstiel is the chief politics reporter for the Register. Reach her at bpfann@dmreg.com or 515-284-8244. Follow her on Twitter at @brianneDMR.
