Iowa Republicans took a victory lap after avoiding a repeat of Democrats’ ill-fated 2020 caucus performance in which technical problems delayed the reporting of a winner.
Monday’s Iowa caucuses went off largely without a hitch as former President Donald Trump walked away with a commanding win in the Hawkeye State. There were risks of problems going into the evening, especially as freezing temperatures made travel difficult or outright unsafe for many.
“Early results indicate that we are on track to have around 100,000 Iowans participating in the 2024 First-in-the-Nation Iowa Caucus,” Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said in a statement. “Iowans braved record-low temperatures after a blizzard blanketed their state just days earlier to deliberate with members of their community about the future of our country and participate in true, grassroots democracy.”
Nonetheless, the media’s rush to declare a winner barely half an hour after the caucuses began attracted controversy. Kaufmann condemned the quick race call for Trump in a separate statement as “highly disappointing and concerning,” though he maintained that the evening was a success.
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“One of the key differences between the Iowa Caucus and a standard primary election is that Iowans have the chance to listen to presidential candidates or their surrogates and deliberate to make an informed decision,” the state GOP chairman explained. “There was no need to rush one of the most transparent, grassroots democratic processes in the country.”
In addition to the weather concerns, Republicans also faced the risk of tech problems upending the caucuses like they did for Democrats in 2020.
An app commissioned by the Iowa Democratic Party in 2020 to streamline the process of recording results broke down on the night of voting, leaving precinct captains unable to report vote counts in a timely fashion.
The situation sparked days of uncertainty about who won the first contest of the 2020 cycle, with then-candidates Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) eventually demanding recounts in critical precincts that decided the winner. Buttigieg was ultimately deemed the winner, while President Joe Biden’s surprising fourth place prompted questions about his path to the nomination.
Iowa Republicans similarly used a new app this cycle developed to report results to state headquarters.
The 2020 controversy also turned out to be a public relations disaster for state Democrats, with the organization’s chairman resigning over the turmoil despite his status at the time as a rising star in the party.
Biden instructed the Democratic National Committee in late 2022 to replace Iowa with South Carolina as the first-in-the-nation contest for the 2024 cycle. It was Biden’s strong performance in the 2020 South Carolina primary that revived his candidacy and catapulted him back to front-runner status following dismal showings in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The 46th president has argued that Iowa and New Hampshire lack the diversity necessary to play such a significant role in determining the Democratic Party’s nominee and regularly cites South Carolina’s large minority populations. Still, the botched 2020 performance loomed large over the decision.
Republicans left the order of their nominating calendar unchanged.
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State Democrats proposed a slew of changes to its caucus system in a bid to keep its first-in-the-nation caucus status, though the DNC rejected that effort. New Hampshire political leaders have been defiant in fighting the change, however, arguing it violates the state’s constitutional requirement that it hold the first primary in the nation.
The state’s attorney general is currently engaged in a legal battle with the DNC over the matter, which has yet to be resolved.
