State Republicans Move Caucus Date to February

The executive committee of the Minnesota Republican Party on Tuesday moved up the party’s caucus date to Feb. 5 from March, joining more than a dozen states that leapfrogged to the so-called “monster Tuesday.”

The move comes weeks after the state Legislature failed to pass a bill that would have formally moved the state’s caucus date to Feb. 5. Despite bipartisan support, the legislation stalled in the last- minute rush to pass other important bills.

DFL lawmakers who sponsored the bill blamed Republicans for the failure of the legislation. In an earlier interview, Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-St. Louis Park, told Minnesota Monitor that his Republican counterparts “talked, talked and talked until they ran out of the clock.”

State Republican Party spokesman Mark Drake didn’t return our call immediately, but he was quoted by the Associated Press as saying: “We’re a battleground state and we think it’s important that Minnesotans – Democrats and Republicans alike – have their voices heard early in the process.”

Indeed, the national phenomenon to move primaries, or caucuses, to an earlier date is an attempt by states that feel increasingly irrelevant in picking the next president to have a say in that process.

With the Republican Party’s move, Minnesota is poised to join the hype on Feb. 5.

The executive committee of the DFL party had already recommended a caucus date change, but no formal decision is expected to be taken before the party’s meeting in September.