The Iowa Caucuses have officially been scheduled for January 3rd according to a tweet from AP reporter Phil Elliott. It’s the same date that had previously been eyed by the Iowa State Republican Committee.
Update: The Gazette, a newspaper in eastern Iowa, has the statement of Matt Strawn, the Chairman of the Iowa GOP. Strawn made mention of the ongoing scheduling clash in the national GOP primary process:
“Strawn also expressed solidarity with his counterparts in New Hampshire, ‘I will do everything in my power on the RNC to hold Florida accountable for creating this mess, but the culpability for creating a compressed January calendar does not end there. The actions of early state newcomer Nevada have also exacerbated this problem and unnecessarily crowded the January calendar. Time remains for Nevada to respect the process, honor tradition and rectify the problem in a way that will restore order to the nomination calendar.’”
Nevada has scheduled its caucuses for January 14th, not leaving enough time for the first primary in New Hampshire, which is required by state statute to be seven days before any similar contest. Consequently, the NH Secretary of State has threatened to move up the state’s primary to December.
