By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)
Iowa Democrats will have a chance to make the case to national party leaders that the Iowa Democratic Party’s Caucuses should move back to a lead-off position in the next presidential election.
A panel of national Democrats met today and agreed Iowa and 11 other states will be competing for up to five early voting slots in 2028. Minyon Moore, chair of the group that will make the decision, opened said they are looking for one thing. “The calendar that produces the strongest possible Democratic nominee for president,” she said.
Iowa will be competing against Illinois and Michigan to host one of the four regional voting events that will kick-off the 2028 presidential election. Some committee members like David McDonald of Washington state raised concerns about having large states like Illinois host the opening contests for Democratic candidates in 2028.
“We make a trade off if we put one of those states up front,” McDonald said. “It is both more expensive and it is less retail campaigning and historically we have tried to emphasize person-to-person contact as much as possible by using small states up front to get a read on the candidates.”
Two other members of the panel that will consider Iowa’s pitch say Iowa Democrats must make clear in their presentation how they plan to conduct the 2028 Caucuses rather than present a menu with early voting options alongside Caucus night voting. The Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee is scheduled to meet again in April, but there’s no date set yet for Iowa and other states to make their presentations about hosting early primaries — or the Iowa Caucuses — in 2028.
For decades, the Iowa Democratic Party’s Caucuses had been the lead-off event in presidential elections, but a smartphone app failure delayed results of the 2020 Iowa Caucuses. President Biden recommended changing the traditional order of lead-off primaries and caucuses in 2024 and the Iowa Caucuses were not on his list — or on the list sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee. Some Iowa Democrats have welcomed the change, arguing the intensity of the national presidential campaigns siphons away attention and resources that should be focused on winning local elections in Iowa.
Iowa Republicans retained the lead-off position for their 2024 Caucuses and appear poised to host the first state voting contest when the GOP selects its 2028 presidential nominee.
