Democratic chair: Primaries should replace caucuses by 2024

[left-of-center2012]

Source: AP

Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez said Monday that this year’s handful of presidential caucuses should be the last the party ever holds. “I think by 2024 we ought to have everyone being a primary state,” Perez told The Associated Press in an interview on the opening day of the Democratic National Convention.

The chairman didn’t specifically name Iowa, which for decades has led off the nominating calendar, but his position could represent a seismic shift in the party’s traditions, and it underscores the pressure on the caucus structure that has intensified since Iowa’s count dragged out for days to open the 2020 nominating fight eventually won by Joe Biden.

While the party changes coming out of 2016 did not force states to abandon caucuses altogether, they required any state keeping its caucus to create a paper trail for the voting process. Iowa and about a half-dozen other states and territories agreed to those changes, while another group of states retired their caucuses and moved to primaries. But Iowa’s choice proved chaotic when state party leaders and the national party had to spend days counting and recounting.

Perez wouldn’t comment on whether he thinks Iowa or New Hampshire should give up or share their lead spots, saying the party must focus energy on helping Biden and other Democrats win in November. But Perez said the effort to further reshape the nominating process “will hopefully begin … before I leave” after the November election, even though it will have to be finished “by my successors.” And the matter of demographics in both individual states and the larger Democratic electorate, he said, “undoubtedly will come up.”

Read more: https://apnews.com/e888a8c7620d5ed51110f9b8838f52b1

[OAITW r.2.0]

1. I agree...caucus seems to facilitate factionalism in the Party.

Good rhetoric and organizing skills can overstate one's political clout.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. I agree. We used to have them, and they were kind of fun if you're a politics junkie,

but they exclude a lot of people and have outlived what once was useful.

[Gothmog]

3. I agree

[NCjack]

4. Yea!

[IronLionZion]

5. It's a great time to implement instant runoff voting

since that's the major appeal of caucuses.

[jorgevlorgan]

7. how does that work?

Is that the same as ranked choice voting?

[IronLionZion]

8. Yes, this flow chart should explain how it works

[jorgevlorgan]

9. Yeah that's fantastic.

I am definitely on board. Thanks!

[jorgevlorgan]

6. Great step towards making our Democratic primaries more democratic.

[PSPS]

10. It's high time. But they should have primaries on the same day nationwide.

The way it is now, a primary candidate has to "appeal" to voters in just two or three small, sparsely-populated, overly-conservative, overly-white states because, if they fail, their donors disappear. I think that's why we always have both parties nominating candidates that are to the right on the political spectrum.

[TomCADem]

11. i agree. Only Exception Might Be For the 10 Smallest States Or So...

...but otherwise caucuses just excludes too many people. If the Democrats are pushing for voting rights, then we need to make the primaries accessible to more people.