Caucuses spark lively interest

Republicans in Washington and Idaho will find themselves in an unusual position over the next 10 days. They’ll say who they’d like as president when it actually matters.

Both states will hold caucuses – Washington on Saturday and Idaho on March 6 – to begin the process of picking the delegates who will choose the GOP nominee later this year.

For most Idaho Republicans, this is a completely new process, said Jonathan Parker, the state party executive director. Since 1976 they’ve voted in a presidential primary that was part of the state primary in May, usually long after the contest for the nominee was decided. Last year party officials decided to switch to county caucuses, which Idaho Democrats have used for years, and move it to the earliest date possible under national party rules.

That’s the first Tuesday in March, also known as Super Tuesday because it features contests in 10 states. But party officials didn’t know last year the nomination fight would still be going on.

Because it is, all four presidential candidates have visited Idaho in recent weeks, an unprecedented amount of attention for the state that was previously an afterthought.

Republican voters have become caught up in the excitement, Parker said: “Our phones have been busier the last two weeks than they’ve ever been.”

Washington Republicans have used caucuses to award some or all of their presidential delegates since at least the 1930s. After voters pushed for a presidential primary in 1989, the system got confusing, with Republicans sometimes awarding as many as half their delegates from the primary results while Democrats awarded all theirs from the caucuses.

Faced with a budget crisis this year, Washington canceled its presidential primary and Republicans scheduled their caucuses for the weekend ahead of Super Tuesday. But they added a new wrinkle, a nonbinding straw poll that will measure the candidates’ support among people who show up for the caucus.

Under national party rules, any contest Washington wanted to schedule ahead of March 6 had to be nonbinding or the state party faced losing some delegates. Holding the caucuses on March 3 wasn’t a problem because they really don’t bind delegates to a candidate; they merely give supporters a chance to move on to the county and then the state convention, where the final selection of presidential delegates for the national convention is made.

But Kirby Wilbur, Washington GOP chairman, said the advantage of the nonbinding straw poll was the prospect of attracting candidates looking for something they could try to win. It also gives the news media something to report to the public the day of the caucuses.

“It is the straw poll on the Saturday before the big Super Tuesday events,” he said. “We’ve never had this many candidates out in Washington before.”

Wilbur went to his first caucus at age 20, in 1974, and has been a regular attendee ever since. Some years they are packed, like in 1980 when the campaign among Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and John Anderson was still going strong by the time the state held its caucuses.

But other years they’ve drawn scant attention, even from the party faithful. This year, Wilbur expects record attendance, with as many as 50,000 Republican voters attending meetings in schools, church basements, community centers and even some living rooms around the state.

There are some significant differences between the states’ caucuses:

• Washington Republicans caucus by precinct, the smallest political division available. Many of those meetings take place in “pooled” locations, with multiple precincts in adjoining rooms or different parts of an auditorium. A few will take place in individual homes. Because Spokane County has more than 200 precincts, there are scores of locations.

Idaho Republicans caucus by county, and many counties have a single location for everyone to gather.

Ada County Republicans will all meet in the Taco Bell Arena. Others have multiple locations because of the crowds expected; Kootenai County has 10 locations.

To find your caucus location, you can check the state party websites or call the local county GOP headquarters.

• All Washington caucuses start at 10 a.m. Saturday. All Idaho caucuses start at 7 p.m. local time, March 6, which means Panhandle caucuses will start an hour later than those in the Mountain Time Zone.

• Caucuses are only open to Republicans. In Washington, voters don’t register by party, but caucus attendees must state that they consider themselves Republicans and will not attend Democratic caucuses, which take place in April. In Idaho, an attendee must be a registered Republican but can register that evening at the caucus site.

• Washington caucus attendees cast a vote in the straw poll when they arrive. They can switch candidates during the caucus – trying to sway other attendees to support your candidate is part of the process – but they can’t change their vote in the straw poll.

Strength of the candidates in a particular precinct determines the number of delegates and alternates for each candidate sent to the county convention in April, but the number of delegates and alternates varies by precinct, and there are thresholds of support before a candidate can get delegates. (Don’t worry, the rules will be explained before all of this starts.)

Idaho caucus attendees don’t have a straw poll, but they cast secret ballots during the caucus for the candidate of their choice. If no candidate gets a majority on the first ballot, the last-place candidate, and anyone else who didn’t get at least 15 percent of the vote, is eliminated and the remaining candidates go on the next ballot. The process continues until one candidate gets a simple majority. The county results will be compiled statewide, and if one presidential candidate gets more than 50 percent of the votes, he gets all 32 of the state’s national convention delegates. If no candidate has a majority, the national convention delegates are split based on the results.

First-time attendees can find the caucuses intimidating at first. Some people who attend one swear they will never go again. Others find they love talking politics with friends, neighbors and perfect strangers, and get more involved in the party.

Some years they are sedate affairs with the outcome known long before the first person shows up. This isn’t one of those years.