Utah Democrats will caucus tomorrow night to choose state delegates and divide national delegates among presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.
Last year, the state legislature opted not to fund 2016 presidential primaries for either of the major parties. So Democrats will caucus on Tuesday and vote for either Clinton or Sanders. Peter Corroon chairs the Utah Democratic Party.
“Utah is traditionally a fly-over state because we have our primary in June and usually the race is over by then. By having the caucuses in March we’re now a player and we’re seeing candidates come,” says Corroon.
Democratic caucus meetings are open to both registered party members and unaffiliated voters. At those meeting participants will do two things: choose their delegates to the state party convention taking place in April – and – vote in a presidential preference poll. Corroon says it’s that poll that will divide the delegates who will go to the national party convention and nominate a presidential candidate.
“So out of the 37 delegates, four are super delegate votes. They can vote any way they want. The other 33 are apportioned by the percentage of votes that each of the candidates gets in each of the four congressional districts. So, basically by percentage vote, but it’s done by congressional district,” says Corroon.
Democratic caucus meetings will begin at 6:00 p.m. Tuesday night all across the state. Visit vote.utah.gov for meeting locations. Corroon says that seventeen year-olds who will be 18 by general election day are allowed to participate in caucuses.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that caucus meetings begin at 7. That is NOT correct. Democratic caucus meetings begin at 6 p.m. and end at 8:30 p.m.