Hunter
01/09/23
Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Ross Wilburn is asking the chairs of the national Rules and Bylaws Committee to rethink removing the state from the top of the primary/caucus list.
In a letter dated January 6th, Wilburn points out that Iowa has been put in a position that makes it impossible to comply with state law, which he says “has exactly no chance of being changed” by the Republican-controlled legislature. He also noted that no state situated in the Central or Mountain Time Zones is represented in the pre-window.
Wilburn’s letter says Democrats cannot forget about entire groups of voters in the heart of the Midwest without doing significant damage to the party for a generation.
Wilburn believes Iowa is being punished for sticking with the caucus format instead of a traditional primary, and for the difficulties suffered in the 2020 caucus. He says the party has responded by re-imagining the Iowa Caucuses as a vote-by-mail state-party run contest.
Iowa Republicans still plan to hold the first-in-the-nation caucus, and have said that Democrats are turning their back on Iowa. Wilburn is asking for a conditional waiver to have a pre-window contest.
Last month, the Democratic National Committee recommended South Carolina replace Iowa, followed by New Hampshire, Nevada, Georgia, and Michigan.
Iowa Democrats say they have to follow state law requiring them to hold their caucus first; however, the DNC says if they go against the proposed running order, it will lose half of its delegates to the national convention and will punish Democratic candidates who campaign in Iowa instead of the early-window states.