Democratic Incumbent President Joe Biden took the crown in Tuesday’s Iowa Democratic caucuses, according to unofficial results. The current president took more than 90 percent of the vote at 11,083 total votes among the 12,193 Iowans who cast mail-in presidential ballots in the state Democrats’ new caucus system.
Uncommitted voters came in second in Iowa behind Biden with 480 votes. Dean Phillips came in third place in Iowa with 362 votes, in unofficial results tabulated by the state party as ballots came in up until Tuesday. Marianne Williamson gained 268 votes.
Johnson County voters overwhelmingly chose Biden with 1,238 votes out of 1,379 total votes, according to unofficial results.
The results rolled in early Tuesday evening, without the national media frenzy, watch parties, and fanfare that usually follows the Iowa caucuses. While this was true for the Republicans’ contest in January, the state’s Democratic party was booted from their coveted first-in-the-nation spot last year after national democrats expressed displeasure with a disastrous technical failure in 2020 and accessibility issues with the caucus format.
Iowa Democrats no longer hold the coveted spot and instead, caucus results roll in with 15 other states who take part in Super Tuesday a barrage of primaries held on the first Tuesday of March.
Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart said the state party’s staff has worked diligently to ensure that today’s results were seamless after the disaster in 2020.
“IDP’s staff has worked hard over this past year to make sure that this year’s presidential caucus was as accessible as possible,” Hart said in a news release. “Not only have we reached the turnout numbers that we experienced in 2012 — we’ve exceeded them.”
Hart added that Iowans have benefited from President Biden’s investments in infrastructure that were baked into COVID-era relief packages like the Inflation Reduction Act.
“Iowans recognize that President Biden has made great investments in communities across Iowa including in our child care centers, roads and bridges, and by expanding broadband access in our most rural areas,” Hart said in a news release.
After being kicked from the early calendar, Democrats were worried that they would break state law by not being in the early calendar, however, they later found a loophole.
Thus Iowa Democrats’ new system was born. Democrats held in-person party organizing meetings on Jan. 15, the same day as Republican caucuses, to comply with state law. Democrats opted for mail-in presidential preference cards for their method of choosing who to elect state delegates to with results announced on Tuesday.
Democrats could start requesting ballots on Nov. 1, 2023, and Democrats started sending out ballots on Jan. 12 and Democrats will still accept any ballot postmarked March 5, allowing late ballots to come in until three days after the nominating contest ends.
The result is Tuesday’s results are unofficial with an official count to be released Friday.
In total, 19,609 Iowans requested presidential preference cards for this year’s caucus. Up from 12,000 that participated in Iowa’s 2012 Democratic caucuses, the last time an incumbent ran in the Democrats caucus.
