WASHINGTON — After months of campaigning, the Republican candidates vying to unseat President Joe Biden in November will face their first formal test at the ballot box in the Iowa caucuses on Monday.
The Hawkeye state once again kicks off the presidential primary season, at least on the Republican side, where former president Donald Trump seeks his first win in a contested Iowa caucus against an ever-shrinking field of candidates that includes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, among others.
At stake in the caucuses are Iowa’s 40 delegates to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this summer, and perhaps more importantly, bragging rights and momentum heading into the New Hampshire primary the following week.
What time is the Iowa caucus?
The Iowa Republican caucuses will be held on Monday, January 15. The caucuses begin at 7:00 p.m. local time, which is 8:00 p.m. ET. Iowa Democrats will also hold caucuses that day, but they will meet only to conduct party business and will not hold a presidential preference vote.
When will a winner of the Iowa caucus be declared?
The Associated Press does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined no scenario would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap.
The AP will declare a winner in the Republican caucuses based on its analysis of tabulated vote data, aided by an analysis of AP VoteCast, which will survey Iowa caucus-goers in the days leading up to and through caucus day, and other available vote and demographic data.
If the race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions, declarations of victory or announcements from caucus organizers. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.
AP will also explain when it has determined who will place second in Iowa, as the order of finish might have an impact on the shape of the race.
Trump received 24% of the 2016 caucus vote against a historically large field of candidates. He carried 37 of the state’s 99 counties, compared to 57 for caucus-winner Cruz and five for Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. Polling suggests the former president enjoys a far broader and deeper base of support heading into the 2024 caucuses.
If the 2016 results offer any clues, it may be in the state’s metropolitan areas, where Trump fared the worst eight years ago. Trump placed third in the state’s most populous counties, including Polk, Linn, Story, Dallas, Johnson and Black Hawk. Strong wins by Trump in those counties on Monday would be an indication that he has since won over Republicans who didn’t support him in 2016, just as he’s consolidated his support among the party establishment throughout the country.
In traditional primaries, AP does not declare a winner in any race before the last polls are scheduled to close in the contest. It’s sometimes possible to declare a winner in those races immediately after polls close, before any vote results are released. AP does so only when its VoteCast survey of voters and other evidence, including the history of a state’s elections, details about ballots cast before Election Day and pre-election polling, provide overwhelming evidence of who has won.
The Iowa caucuses are different. There are no polls to close. Instead, there is an 8 p.m. ET deadline for voters taking part to arrive at their caucus site, at which point deliberations among caucus-goers begin behind closed doors. Some caucus sites might complete their business in a few minutes, while others can take some time to determine the outcome.
While AP and other media organizations treat the hour that caucusing begins as the equivalent of a “poll closing” time, there’s an important difference. In a primary, that’s the moment all voting is complete. At the Iowa caucuses, that’s the moment it begins.
For that reason, following past practice, AP will not make a “poll close” declaration of the winner of Iowa’s GOP caucus on Monday night. Instead, AP will review returns from caucus sites across Iowa and declare a winner only after those results, along with VoteCast and other evidence, make it unquestionably clear who has won.
Severe weather and its impact on voter turnout may be a wildcard in the race. There is no recount or challenge provision for Iowa’s Republican caucuses.
When will Iowa caucus results be in?
The length of the caucus meetings will vary from location to location, with most lasting about one hour to 90 minutes. Caucuses in some precincts have lasted up to three hours. However, voting for presidential candidates will be one of the first items of business at every caucus site, with votes counted and announced at each precinct immediately afterward.
In the 2016 GOP caucuses, the AP first reported results at 8:32 p.m. ET, or 32 minutes after the caucuses convened. The caucus night tabulation ended at 12:50 a.m. ET with 99.9% of total votes counted.