IOWA, USA — Don't hold your breath waiting for Iowa Democrats to release caucus results Monday night: the official totals won't come out until March.
While Iowa Democrats will still hold caucuses on Jan. 15, those meetings will be strictly for party business. The presidential nominating part of the caucuses will be done via a mail-in presidential preference card, with results expected to be released on March 5 — Super Tuesday.
Mail-in presidential preference cards must be requested from the Iowa Democratic Party by Feb. 19, 2024.
This two-stage system is new for Iowa Democrats, who were forced to find an alternative way to maintain their first-in-the-nation status after the Democratic National Committee replaced Iowa with South Carolina as the lead-off state.
Prior to the DNC decision, Iowa held its position at the start of the presidential nominating calendar for more than four decades. However, the Iowa caucuses experienced a fall from grace in 2020, when technical issues caused a delay in results. The Associated Press deemed the race too close to call and never declared a winner.
Joe Biden is the presumed nominee after announcing his reelection campaign in April, but Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson are also registered as candidates.
Beyond the 2020 caucuses, the decision to remove Iowa's first-in-the-nation status also coincided with a push by party leaders to better reflect the nation's diversity. The U.S. Census Bureau reports Iowa is 83.7% white as of July 2022. In comparison, the United States population as a whole is only 58.9% white.