One of the main differences between caucuses and primaries, according to the Associate Press, is the amount of time allotted for voting to occur and the methods by which people can vote.
In a primary, people can show up at the polls throughout Election Day and cast ballots until polls close that evening. They have the option of casting an absentee ballot if they cannot make it to the polls that day, and in some states, people may vote early.
The Iowa caucuses, on the other hand, are held in the evening, and, except for a few isolated instances, participating voters must attend in person. Also, caucuses are usually run by political parties, whereas primaries are usually run by the state.
"Essentially, caucuses in the state of Iowa are party-building events," Iowa talk radio personality Jeff Stein summarizes. "They are designed so that the state party, right down to the local level, can get volunteers, can get people interested, [and] potentially recruit legislative and county office candidates."
The presidential preference, he says, has become what the world views as the most important function, but turnout is what each party values.
"The presidential attention is nice, but they need it for party-building as they move toward an important election in November," Stein reiterates.
While both the state Republican and Democratic parties will hold caucuses on Jan. 15, only the Republican event will have an immediate, binding impact on the presidential race.
The Democratic caucuses will be held only to conduct administrative party business and to start the process of choosing delegates to the national conventions. Iowa Democrats will express their preferences for their party's presidential nominee through a mail-in voting process, the results of which will not be known until March.
That is a departure from the way the party has worked in previous years, and Stein says Democrats in Iowa are not happy with the change.
"It started four years ago, when the chair of the DNC at the time, Tom Perez, made it very clear he did not like caucuses," the radio host recalls. "He wanted primaries, and he forced Iowa to report all the totals on a brand-new app that had ties to a Democratic Party donor. The app had not been tested; the app failed spectacularly, and so here was Iowa in the spotlight -- people blaming Iowa and its Democrats, when, in reality, their hands were tied."
Stein, who has 40-plus years of experience in broadcasting, also points out that "Joe Biden never performed well in the Iowa caucuses."
"Biden's campaign was derailed in the fall of 1987, when he plagiarized from a British leader's speech at a forum at the state fair," Stein relays. "He had to drop out in 2008 because he had done so poorly, and in 2020, he did not win. So, Iowa Democrats see it as a punitive move."
Meanwhile, GOP candidates not named Donald Trump hope to do well in the Iowa caucus, but Republican voters in rural areas appear to favor the former president.
"A lot of folks in agriculture put very large signs up in their now empty fields, especially ones that are adjacent to a U.S. highway or an interstate," the broadcaster accountss. "There are an awful lot of Trump signs in those yards."
Trump lost the Iowa caucus in 2008 but won the state in the general election in 2016 and again in 2020.
