Competitive races for governor and Congress add intrigue to typically quiet midterm Iowa caucuses

It’s caucus time again.

Iowa Democrats and Republicans will hold precinct caucuses across the state on Feb. 5, bringing together activists for the same community-level party meetings that in presidential election years attract national candidates and media hordes and set the course for each party’s presidential nomination.

But 2018 is a midterm election, which means the Feb. 5 caucuses will be much smaller and less influential than the political circus seen in 2016 or the one likely coming in 2020.

That doesn’t mean they’re not important.

Large and competitive fields in races for governor and Congress will make these the most significant midterm caucuses in more than a decade, kicking off a caucus-to-convention process that could determine the nominees in certain contests and provide valuable insight into candidates’ campaign organizations.

That’s all especially true for Democrats, who have fielded seven candidates for governor, another seven candidates in the 3rd Congressional District and four more in the 4th District.

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If none of the candidates in one of those races wins at least 35 percent of the vote in the June primary, the nominee will be chosen at a special convention made up of party activists who were initially elected at the caucuses.

With that possibility looming, some Democratic candidates are already plotting how to take advantage of the caucus process.

Gubernatorial candidate John Norris outlined a strategy in which his campaign will encourage not only his supporters to attend the caucuses and seek election to the county conventions that follow, but also undecided activists who can be courted and persuaded to back him further along in the process.

“We are really moving forward with the presumption this is likely to be decided at convention,” Norris said of the nomination.

The key takeaway for a campaign like Norris’, then, will be who is elected from the caucuses to attend county party conventions in March, and then who is chosen from those conventions to attend the district and state conventions in April and June. State convention delegates would choose a gubernatorial nominee should the primary election be inconclusive.

“After the caucuses, there’s a more definitive pool of delegates and alternates that will probably get an increased level of attention,” he said.

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The seven Democratic candidates in Iowa’s 3rd District are preparing for a nomination at convention as well, and planning caucus strategies accordingly.

“We’ve been preparing for something like this for a while because with so many people in the field, you just don’t know,” candidate Cindy Axne said. “If you run the numbers, probability shows this will go to convention.”

Axne said her campaign is encouraging supporters to attend the caucus and run as delegates to the county conventions.

“We’re reaching out to as many people as possible who are supporting of the campaign, making sure that they’ve got all the information and asking them to step up and be part of the process,” she said.

Like the far-better-attended presidential-year caucuses, the Democratic meetings on Feb. 5 will bring together party activists at nearly 1,700 precincts across the state to discuss party business and the platform, elect grassroots leaders and choose those county-meeting delegates.

But there are important differences.

Unlike presidential caucuses, the midterm meeting has no direct influence on the nomination of candidates. There is no requirement for attendees to divide up based on their candidate preferences. Delegates elected to the county convention are not “bound” to support a specific candidate, and there will be no declared winner.

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“It’ll be nearly impossible for us on caucus night to declare a winner of the Iowa caucus in 2018 — which is why we’re not going to do it,” said Iowa Democratic Party Executive Director Kevin Geiken.

Rather, attendees at individual caucus sites will have the option to engage in the preference process — and to choose what they express a preference about.

Attendees in a Democratic precinct could choose to divide up based on their support for gubernatorial candidates, or congressional candidates or key issues like, say, health care or tax policy. Or they could choose not to divide up at all.

That process allows plenty of room for tactical plays and gamesmanship. One candidate could, for example, push for preference grouping at precincts around the state to demonstrate his or her organizational power. Another candidate’s supporters could try to block that, in turn, by asking to divide up based on issues instead.

The results of these maneuvers are functionally meaningless, but will be reported to the Iowa Democratic Party and, ultimately, released publicly, Geiken said. The value to a campaign, he said, is demonstrating success on an organizational goal.

“Individual candidates may come out and try to make a case for victory, but I think it’s internal,” he said. “If there’s a candidate out there who’s running some kind of internal turnout process and they hit that goal, that is a victory for them. It shows their organizational strength.”

For Democratic gubernatorial candidate Cathy Glasson, the caucuses will test a central goal of her campaign: to reach Iowans who aren’t typically dialed into midterm primary politics.

“We look at Feb. 5 as a way to test our ability to engage thousands of people who wouldn’t usually engage in a Democratic Party caucus in off year,” Glasson campaign manager Brian Shepherd said.

Shepherd predicted Glasson would do well in precincts that divide into gubernatorial preference groups, but stressed that a caucus-to-convention strategy was secondary to building support that could clinch the nomination at the ballot box.

“We can get above 35 percent. I think that’s our goal,” he said, adding, “We’re viewing the convention strategy as a way to strengthen and grow our volunteer base. It’s not our Plan A. Our Plan A is to win by building a grassroots organizing base.”

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andy McGuire downplayed any specific benefit for her campaign, and emphasized the wider benefit to the party as a whole.

“We certainly don’t have a benchmark that we’re looking for,” she said. “We feel like it’s party-building. We’ll have our supporters there, but mostly because we want our supporters to build the party and build onto a victory in November.”

However the campaigns play it, turnout on Feb. 5 is likely to be a fraction of that seen during presidential years. More than 171,000 Democrats attended the 2016 caucuses, and an estimated 240,000 showed up in 2008. For 2018, Geiken said only that he expects to exceed the turn out from the 2014 midterm caucuses.

(Past coverage suggests the high-water mark for Democratic midterm caucuses over the last 20 years was 2006, the last time the party had a competitive gubernatorial primary, and 15,000 attended across the state.)

The Republican caucuses promise to be far less meaningful to the various campaigns now underway in the state. Gov. Kim Reynolds does face a primary challenge from two fellow Republicans, but a three-way contest is seen as much less likely to end up with no candidate reaching 35 percent of the overall vote.

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In any case, the GOP does not divide into preference groups, and it will not hold a straw poll vote as it does for candidates in presidential election years. Republicans' agenda will be limited instead to platform discussions and elections for precinct committees and county convention delegates, Republican Party of Iowa Executive Director Chad Olsen said.

“It’s true party business,” Olsen said. “No bells and whistles this time.”

There will be a little bit of politicking for 2020, however: President Donald Trump's re-election campaign will hand out booklets to all caucus attendees touting the administration's accomplishments during its first year in office. 

The glossy, 16-page "Year One of Making America Great Again" pamphlet notes 85 actions and developments that have occurred since Trump took office, ranging from stock market gains to a Supreme Court nomination to American air strikes in Syria.