The 2024 presidential primaries officially kicks off on Monday night in the frigid cold of Iowa.
Traditionally, the Iowa Caucuses have three major components. First, they are used to create the local organization of the political parties as caucus attendees elect the precinct’s representatives to the county committee. Second, they are used to choose the delegates to the county convention (which in turn will choose the congressional district/state convention delegates who will elect the national convention delegates). Third, a preference vote is taken which is used to allocate national convention delegates.
Thanks in part to Iowa’s move to the right and past problems with counting and report the preference vote, the national Democratic Party has rescinded its permission for Iowa to conduct a pre-March preference vote. Unlike their counterparts in New Hampshire, Iowa Democrats have worked with the national party (in the hopes that in the future they might get a pre-March spot back). But it is helpful to have both parties hold their precinct caucuses on the same date and holding a later event would create timing issues. So the Democrats will use their caucuses for the purposes of electing party officials and the delegates who will attend the county conventions. But to comply with national party rules, there will be no presidential preference vote on Monday. Instead, there will be a party-run primary that will conclude in March.
On the Republican side, however, there will be a preference vote. Even before this cycle’s change to the Democratic delegate selection rules, there were differences between how the Democrats and Republicans handled the preference vote. Both parties were the same in allowing local representatives of the candidates to speak before the vote. But they differed in how the vote was conducted. Due in part to the Democrat rules requiring a candidate to get 15% of the vote to win delegates to the county convention, the vote was a public vote with supporters of candidates who failed to get 15% of the delegates in the initial vote having the opportunity to either convince enough other attendees to change their vote to allow that candidate to get 15% or, if those efforts failed, to align with their second choice candidate. That, of course, is now not happening this cycle.
On the Republican side, the preference vote is separate from the selection of county convention delegates. Instead, it is simply part of a statewide vote. The vote is done by secret ballot and the raw numbers from each precinct are reported to the state party which will, based on the total vote, allocate national convention delegates proportionately . With forty national convention delegates, it will take around 2% statewide to qualify for delegates. Realistically, only four candidates have a shot at getting delegates. Theoretically, Asa Hutchinson might get a delegate or two as the only candidate left standing up for resisting the Trump takeover of the Republican Party, but the expectation is that he will not get any delegates. While Trump wannabe Vivek Ramaswamy will probably get several delegates, he is unlikely to break 10%.
The real question is the numbers of the top three candidates: Dictator-in-waiting Donald Trump, Governor Ron DeSantis, and Ambassador Nikki Haley. For Trump, he needs a massive win — something in the number of 60% or more. If he is kept below 50%, that is a loss. For Governor DeSantis, he needs a win. If he had caught on with the voters who should be his base (more on that below), Iowa would be a strong DeSantis state. Ambassador Haley needs something near 25% and a second place finish. If she finishes with a respectable number and ahead of DeSantis, she becomes the only alternative to Trump and is setup to pull off upsets in New Hampshire and South Carolina which would potentially reset the race.
The Iowa Republican Party is dominated by evangelical voters. And tomorrow night brings to mind a New Testament passage. Evangelicals cannot have two masters. While the New Testament mentions the choice between God and money, for evangelical voters, the primary choice is between God and power. If you accept the reading of the Bible that evangelicals claim to follow, voting for DeSantis would be a no brainer. But for years, evangelical leaders have placed political power over fidelity to the principles of their faith. And they, for reasons which are hard to understand given election results, they see Trump as the path to political power. We will see on Monday night what they will actually do. But pre-caucus polling shows DeSantis far behind Trump and even slipping behind Haley. If that turns out to be true, DeSantis is over (and probably not just for 2024).
