Iowa Republican leaders: Iowans sticking to Trump despite not canceling caucus

The Daily Iowan ^ | September 12, 2019 | Caleb McCullough, Politics Reporter

[2ndDivisionVet]

The Iowa Republican Party is holding onto plans to have its traditional straw poll at the caucus in February to decide the Republican nominee in the bid for the White House. Still, local party leaders maintain that the party firmly supports President Trump.

Muscatine County Republican chair Fred Grunder said the party is behind Trump, but there is likely to be a small number of protest votes at the caucus in 2020.

“There are some people that I think they’re just trying to make a statement more than anything else,” he said. “If there’s 500 people that are at our caucus, there will be 10 votes for the other guys.”

Four statewide Republican parties — South Carolina, Kansas, Nevada, and Arizona — have decided to forego a 2020 primary and commit their delegates to incumbent Trump. However, Republicans in Iowa have always planned on holding their straw poll, said the Iowa Republican Party’s communications director Aaron Britt.

“Since last November when people started first turning away from the midterms and looking toward the caucuses, we had said that we plan on holding a caucus,” he said. “And nothing has changed since then. It’s always been in our plans.”

During presidential election years, caucusgoers express candidate preference in the Republican caucus with a straw poll. Britt said since some Republican challengers have announced, Republicans decided to hold the straw poll at the caucus.

[jjotto]

Regular party business goes on at these caucuses. Party officials elected, fund-raising plans, etc. The presidential preference vote is an add-on.

In primary states, do ordinary voters have no say about who is in charge of their local and state party?

[lodi90]

I don’t have a good feeling about the GOPe cancelling primaries. That precedent could come back to bite us in the future.