Dem
51
GOP
49
Idaho used to have caucuses to determine who gets the delegates to the national conventions. Starting in 2016, Republicans dropped the caucuses and switched to primaries. Democrats made the switch to primaries in 2020. Caucuses require voters to show up at specific location at a specific time to vote to pick delegates to the national conventions. In some cases, they go on for hours, with supporters for the various candidates giving speeches and in some cases, multiple rounds of voting, often in public. The most recent caucuses in Idaho drew fewer than 45,000 voters. The 2020 primaries, in contrast, brought out 220,000 Republicans and over 100,000 Democrats.
Nevertheless, Idaho is going back to the caucus system in 2024. To some extent, the decision was simply a mistake due to sloppy legislation. A bill to eliminate the March presidential primary was supposed to move it to May, but they left that out and now there is no primary. The legislature is part time in Idaho, and there wasn't enough interest in a special session, so the fallback is to go back to the caucus system. Caucuses are run by the parties, not the state, and now the Idaho parties are trying to figure out how to organize them. It appears that the Idaho caucuses may be held March 2, but that is not certain. If they are held on March 2, that is just before Super Tuesday and they would get a huge amount of attention.
In Missouri, the presidential primaries were also canceled, but that was intentional. It was part of a bill requiring photo ID to vote. Both of the state parties testified against canceling the primaries, but the legislature did it anyway. In Missouri, primary polling places were always open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Now primary voters have to show up at 10 a.m. and be prepared to stay for a while. It is far less convenient and attendance is expected to plummet. Some people have jobs that make it impossible to go to the voting place at 10 a.m. and stay for hours, even if the caucus is held on a Saturday. For example, nurses and first responders who are on duty can't just call in and say they are busy voting.
While Idaho and Missouri are moving from primaries to caucuses, Kansas is going the other way. A new law sets March 19 for a new presidential primary, moving away from the old caucus system.
Both parties allow people in U.S. territories to elect delegates to their national conventions. The Democrats actually have 57 "states" represented at their convention. These are the 50 states you learned about in fourth grade (unless you were in fourth grade before 1959), plus D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Democrats Abroad. The number of Americans from the 50 states living abroad is estimated to be about the same as the population of Virginia and those who are Democrats can take part in the Democrats Abroad primary. Republicans include the territories, but not Republicans Abroad, which exists but is a private organization and not part of the Republican Party. This means it can take unlimited foreign donations, which Democrats Abroad, which is part of the Democratic Party, cannot. This has the strange consequence that when Democrats Abroad holds an event and charges admission to raise money, someone at the door asks every person if they are an American citizen. If so, the money they pay for a ticket goes to the Democratic Party. If they are not, it goes into a separate pot and is donated to a local charity.
That said, you now know that people in the U.S. Virgin Islands, who by law are American citizens, get to have a voice in the national parties' conventions. Specifically, Republicans on the U.S. Virgin Islands are holding a caucus on Feb. 8, 2024, the same day as Nevada and before South Carolina. This puts the Virgin Islands in a tie for going third, after Iowa and New Hampshire. As such it will get a lot of attention.
What is slightly unusual about the V.I. caucus is that it will use ranked-choice voting. That means that even if Donald Trump gets more votes than anyone else on round 1, if that number is under 40%, there will be a round two, and maybe more. If all the non-Trump voters pick other non-Trump candidates for their second, third, and later choices, Trump could end up losing the vote. If that happens, headlines the next day are likely to be "[X] beats Trump in the U.S. Virgin Islands."
However, a Trump loss there is far from a sure thing. Trump's opponents do best with college-educated voters. In the U.S.V.I., only 22% of adults over 25 have a college degree. Even West Virginia, the least college-educated state at 24%, beats that. (V)