Caucus

Caucus, meeting of members of a political party at which the party conducts its business, discusses policies, and begins the process of nominating candidates for public office. The caucus method of choosing candidates is usually contrasted with the primary election. In most primary elections, voters select the party’s candidates directly at polling places.

The word caucus is of uncertain origin. Its first significant usage was in connection with an 18th-century political organization in Boston, the Caucus Club, which was influential in local elections. From 1800 to 1824 candidates for the presidency of the United States were regularly chosen by members of Congress in meetings, or caucuses, of their respective political parties. Subsequently these candidates were selected by national political conventions. However, congressional caucuses have continued to function for the purpose of deciding the official party position on matters of importance before the legislature. Similar political caucuses meet in most state and local legislative bodies, although their function of selecting candidates has been superseded in most states by primary elections.

For the most part, the major party candidates for political office in the United States are selected by voters in primary elections rather than by party leaders and activists meeting in caucuses. There are, however, a handful of exceptions. The most notable of these are the caucuses used by Iowa’s Democratic Party to select the state’s delegates to the Democratic national presidential convention. These Iowa caucuses begin with precinct-level meetings open to all party members in a “precinct,” the smallest electoral district within a county. Caucus participants select delegates to political conventions at the county level where, in turn, state convention delegates are chosen. The state convention selects Iowa’s national convention delegates. This procedure seems to allow considerable latitude for popular involvement in Iowa politics but is often criticized for encouraging participation by committed activists rather than the public at large. The Iowa caucus attracts considerable media attention, in part because it occurs in January of a presidential election year and is the first event in the Democratic Party’s selection process. Candidates who do well in the Iowa caucus often get a boost toward the eventual nomination.