Skip to content
  • — DONATE NOW —
  • Like it? Steal it
  • IowaWatch
  • IowaWatch
  • About IowaWatch’s role with Investigate Midwest
  • Contact Us
  • Global Navigation
    • — DONATE NOW —
    • Like it? Steal it

IowaWatch - Part of The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting

IowaWatch (https://www.iowawatch.org/2017/09/18/podcast-democrats-figuring-fixes-for-next-presidential-precinct-caucuses/)

  • About IowaWatch’s role with Investigate Midwest
  • Contact Us
  • Don't Miss
  • The IowaWatch Connection radio program archives
  • News about IowaWatch 2010-2022
  • Databases
Iowa precinct caucuses

Podcast: Democrats Figuring Fixes For Next Presidential Precinct Caucuses

By Jeff Stein | September 18, 2017
LikeTweet EmailPrint More
  • More on Iowa precinct caucuses
  • Subscribe to Iowa precinct caucuses

Leziga Barikor/Northern Iowan for IowaWatch

Cedar Falls, Iowa, precinct caucus on Feb. 1. 2016.

News Quiz: See What You Know About the Impact of Iowa Caucuses on State’s Registered Voters

Iowa Democratic Party leaders are trying to fix problems party members saw in the 2016 presidential precinct caucuses, which had their fair share of overloaded rooms, missed opportunities for some registered Democrats to participate fully and coin flips to determine county convention delegate commitments.

One idea to be considered this fall when party leaders take up recommended changes in how the caucuses work is letting people who cannot attend still register their preference for president.

Whether that recommendation from a party committee led by former U.S. Rep. and party chairman David Nagle, of Waterloo, becomes the game plan for the 2020 caucuses still is to be determined. Something is needed, several Democratic Party of Iowa leaders have suggested, after a chaotic night Feb. 1, 2016, at the party’s presidential campaign precinct caucuses.

The pressure on Democrats for a cleaner spectacle than existed in 2016 is similar to what faced Republicans after 2012, when they had difficulty determining who won its straw poll — Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney were declared winners at different times. Republicans reported no such glitches in 2016.

DON’T MISS THE ANNUAL CELEBRATING A FREE PRESS AND OPEN GOVERNMENT BANQUET, OCT. 5, 2017, IN DES MOINES. REGISTER HERE.

Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats and Republicans have worked together in recent decades to preserve Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus status and New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary status. The reason: “Once you give it up, you’ll never get it back,” Nagle said in this IowaWatch Connection radio and podcast report.

“It’s great for Iowa, but that’s not why we should be first. The process, with the amount of money now that’s funneled into presidential campaigns, needs two small states where the candidates can get known more personally to the voters, and where the terrain is the level where the politics is clean, where the states are affordable, to give anyone that thinks they might want to be president of the United States an opportunity to make his or her case.”

 

LikeTweet EmailPrint More
  • More on Iowa precinct caucuses
  • Subscribe to Iowa precinct caucuses

Related Series

The IowaWatch Connection

The IowaWatch Connection, a statewide audience engagement program, is sponsored by the Iowa State Bar Association. This program involves developing a weekly, statewide news and public affairs radio program and series of community forums that reach a broader audience for the stories IowaWatch reports. Catch up with our latest developments here.

Tags
  • Reports
  • Barack Obama
  • Bernie Sanders
  • Dave Nagle
  • David Yepsen
  • Democratic Party
  • Donald Trump
  • Hillary Clinton
  • Iowa politics
  • Iowa precinct caucuses
  • Mitt Romney
  • presidential election
  • presidential politics
  • Republican Party
  • Rick Santorum
  • Ted Cruz

Read Next

  • First-Gen Americans Walk A Bridge When Explaining Their Roots

    They were born in the United States and consider themselves full-blooded Americans. But the fact that their parents immigrated to this country means first-generation Americans often have to explain their ethnicity, and citizenship.

Previous Story
Iowa's 1920s Populist Congressional Candidate Who Ran On A ‘Mind Your Business’ Platform
Next Story
Equifax, Tell Us About Burdensome Regulations
  • IowaWatch
  • Donate
  • About
  • Contact Us
  • Staff & Contributors
  • Ethics & Accuracy
  • Work With Us
  • Our Supporters

Search This Site

Browse Archives

© Copyright 2023, Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism

IowaWatch is a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News

Built with the Largo WordPress Theme from the Institute for Nonprofit News.

Back to top ↑