BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho Democrats will meet across the state Thursday to select their candidate for the White House, giving President Joe Biden more delegates after already clinching his party’s 2024 nomination.
Caucusgoers will also choose delegates pledged to the candidate for the state convention, which will be held June 22.
The caucus will take place from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM local time – the state is divided between the Pacific and Mountain time zones – and will be structured slightly differently than previous Democratic caucuses. Instead of listening to speeches and going to different parts of the room to express their support for a candidate, voters are given ballots to fill out their choices.
Only registered Democrats and unaffiliated voters can participate in the Democratic caucus. Unaffiliated voters must first sign a pledge saying they are running as Democrats and that they have not participated in any other presidential candidate contests this year. Voters who are 17 years old are allowed to participate in the caucus, as long as they turn 18 before the general election on November 5.
That’s different from the Idaho Republican caucus, which was held earlier this year: The Republican caucus only allowed registered Republicans to vote, and they had to be at least 18 years old at the time of the caucus. Former President Donald Trump won all 32 GOP delegates in Idaho at the March 2 event.
Regardless of how the Democratic presidential caucus turns out, the winner will have a steep hill to climb before the general election. The Republican presidential candidate has won deep-red Idaho in every election since 1968.
Idaho Democrats used caucuses for years, but turned the 2020 presidential election into a primary. Biden won with about 49% of the vote, compared to about 42% that went to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
However, both the Republican and Democratic parties were forced to meet this year after state lawmakers accidentally canceled the state’s primaries during the 2023 legislative session. The error occurred when lawmakers tried to change the date of the state’s primary elections from March to May, but the new date was not included in the bill.
Next year, Idaho’s closed presidential election could be a thing of the past. A voter initiative that would open state primaries and switch the state to a ranked-choice voting system is expected to come up in the general election this fall.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2024 elections at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
