IDAHO – The Idaho Republican Party (aka Idaho GOP) has set the wheels in motion for an early March Presidential Caucus. On Saturday, March 2, 2024, affiliated Republican voters all across Idaho will meet simultaneously at local caucus venues to cast their votes. The Idaho Republican Presidential Caucus results will determine which candidate(s) receive Idaho’s delegate votes at the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) Convention in July where the party’s nominee for President will be formally selected.
Idaho voters are most familiar with a Presidential Primary, which is administered by the State of Idaho via our 44 county clerk offices. Due to House Bill 138, which was passed and signed into law by Governor Little during the 2023 Legislative Session, all political parties in Idaho had their presidential primary eliminated from the state’s election calendar. This means the election apparatus overseen by the Secretary of State’s (SOS) office will not provide for the administration of a Presidential Primary for any of Idaho’s four recognized political parties (Republican, Democratic, Constitution, and Libertarian). Idaho’s May primary, in which votes are cast on separate party ballots to select nominees to represent the parties in the November General Election, is completely separate from any Presidential Primary and therefore not affected by HB138.
The canceled Presidential Primary sent the Idaho GOP into motion to create a way in which their affiliated members could exercise their right to vote in the selection process of the Republican Presidential Nominee. During their summer meeting in Challis, the Idaho GOP decided to utilize a caucus system, which allows for the broadest participation.
The Idaho Republican Presidential Caucus will be administered by the ID GOP via the party’s 44 central committees. In our case this means the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee (KCRCC) will be conducting the functions of the Presidential Caucus for all Republican affiliated voters registered in Kootenai County. The rules set in Challis require voters to affiliate by December 31, 2023 to be an eligible participant in the March 2, 2024 caucus.
The structure of the Presidential Caucus will keep participants as close to their precinct locations as possible. Multiple precincts will meet together in one caucus venue designated just for them. These venues will be replicated across Kootenai and throughout the state of Idaho, resulting in votes being cast, collected, and tallied all at once across the entire state. There will be no early voting, no absentee ballots, and no proxy votes. Affiliated Republican voters must show up in person to the caucus venue their precinct was assigned to with photo identification to participate.
Idaho’s Presidential Caucus is shaping up to be a dynamic event, engaging party officials, voters, and the local community in ways primaries never can. Because this caucus is a private event and not publicly administered, electioneering laws are not applicable. Businesses and candidates for political office will be able to advertise at caucus venues. With your local KCRCC Precinct Committeemen (PC) and Legislative District Chairmen organizing and running the Presidential Caucus, voters will get face-to-face interaction with party officials closest to them. PCs are the mostly unknown faces of the party infrastructure, but they are critical components to the functions of the party, and voters are better off knowing who they are and how they advance the party platform into policies that in turn govern our communities.
It is unclear at this time what Idaho’s Democratic, Constitution, and Libertarian parties will do to engage their affiliated voters in a process of selection for their presidential nominee in 2024.
