Question Details	Asked By	Asked On
Iowa Caucasus	Ccl471	01/12/04
Do only Iowa residents vote in the Iowa Caucasus? If so, why do they have only one state vote? Shouldn't they let the entire nation decide who the Democratic candidate will be? Many thanks, C.L.
Answered By		Answered On
voiceguy2000		01/12/04
Do only Iowa residents vote in the Iowa Caucasus? Yes, only Iowa residents. See this page published by the Iowa Democratic Party. If so, why do they have only one state vote? Shouldn' they let the entire nation decide who the Democratic candidate will be? The Iowa caucuses are held in election precincts to select delegates to county conventions of that political party in Iowa. They represent only Iowa's point of view on who should be nominated, and do not bind any other state not that state's delegates to the national party convention. The political parties themselves set the rules for nomination of candidates, subject to various state laws (Iowa law, for example, specifies that the Iowa caucuses are to be held on a Monday at least eight days before any other state's nominating activity). Each state provides a means of selecting delegates to the national party convention, and party rules (again with some state law influence) determine the degree to which those delegates are committed to vote for a particular nominee on arrival at the convention. In recent elections, the rules have been such that regular delegates are bound to vote to nominate the candidate with which they were identified in the state's primary elections, at least on the first round of voting. This largely removes any real mystery as to who will be nominated long before the convention takes place -- unless the primary votes themselves are fragmented. Winner-take-all primaries are generally banned; the delegates are sent in proportion to the state's vote for various candidates. There are also some "super-delegates," party insiders who arrive uncommitted at the national convention. Wholesale brokering of delegate votes is far more difficult than in the past. But to get back to your original question: the Iowa caucuses are a local Iowa event. Their only real claim to fame is that they are held first, for historical reasons. They have influence to the degree that certain candidates are seen as winners and others as losers in this forum, and that can influence the degree to which further fundraising and endorsement-gathering activity will progress for those candidates, which in turn can influence such candidates' success in the next rounds of primaries. However, doing well in Iowa is by no means any assurance of doing well nationally, and doing poorly in Iowa does not necessarily mean a candidate is doomed nationally.

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