Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said Monday he expects a “robust” turnout at the 2024 Iowa Caucuses, despite the first blast of winter bearing down on the state a week before the event.
However, Kaufmann said the weather could get in the way of breaking the 2016 record of 186,000 caucus participants. “Weather could prevent a record-breaking turnout …” but Iowa could still have a “great turnout,” he said.
Kaufmann spoke to reporters after the Republican Party of Iowa’s legislative breakfast at the Hilton hotel in Des Moines.
The Jan. 15 Iowa Republican caucuses are the nation’s first presidential nominating event for the 2024 election. Eligible voters must attend in person to participate.
In 2016, Kaufmann said, he began to suspect a record turnout was likely on the morning of the caucuses, when the party received a huge volume of calls from first-time caucusgoers asking for instructions on how to participate. “This feels, I mean, the passion, the anecdotal emotion, it feels a little bit like 2016,” he said.
Caucusgoers must be registered as Republicans to participate but they can register to vote at their caucus and Democrats and independents can change their registration on caucus night in order to qualify. The Iowa Democratic Party will also hold caucuses on Jan. 15, but presidential preference will be registered only by mail-in ballot.
Usually, both parties hold their caucuses on the same night. That changed this year when the Democratic National Committee stripped Iowa of its first-in-the-nation status.
Kaufmann threatened Democrats with prosecution if they attempt to vote in both the Republican and Democratic caucuses. He noted that Iowa now has a Republican attorney general, Brenna Bird.
“It is against the law, and she will prosecute, I believe,” if someone participates in the GOP caucus and also mails in a Democratic ballot, he said. “… If a Democrat attempts to do that, and participate in both, that’s against the law, and we’re going to be monitoring that very, very carefully.”
He said there has been talk in the past about Democrats attempting to influence the GOP caucus, but he has not heard of any significant, organized effort to do that this cycle.
“I don’t see anything — and I think I would — any effort that has dollars behind it has massive people calling that,” he said.
Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter.