Iowa Democratic caucuses, 2004

Iowa Democratic caucuses, 2004

← 2000 January 19, 2004 (2004-01-19) 2008 →
Candidate John Kerry John Edwards Home state Massachusetts North Carolina Popular vote 1,128 954 Percentage 37.64% 31.83%   Candidate Howard Dean Dick Gephardt Home state Vermont Missouri Popular vote 540 318 Percentage 18.02% 10.6%
Iowa results by county   John Kerry   John Edwards   Howard Dean   Tie

In the United States, the 2004 Iowa Democratic caucuses (held January 19) were the first major test of some of the leading contenders for the Democratic Party's nomination as its candidate for the 2004 presidential election.

The first contenders for the nomination arrived in Iowa almost two years before the caucuses were held. The first to arrive were Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean, who began to make occasional speeches there and started to build an organization. In 2003, John Kerry, John Edwards, Carol Moseley Braun, and Dennis Kucinich all began to campaign heavily in the state.

Gephardt went into the campaign with high expectations. He was from a neighboring state, Missouri, had strong union backing, and he had won the state in 1988. During 2003, however, Howard Dean began to grow in popularity across the country on a strong anti-war message that appealed to the party base. Gephardt continued to do well, but Kerry and Edwards both sank to single-digit levels of support. Kucinich and Moseley Braun were never considered strong contenders and polled poorly throughout the campaign.

Three of the Democratic candidates sat out the caucuses. Joe Lieberman and Al Sharpton did not believe they could get sufficient support in the state and concentrated their efforts on New Hampshire. Wesley Clark got into the race too late to be competitive in Iowa.

On January 10, Howard Dean got a major boost when Iowa's senior Senator Tom Harkin endorsed him. On January 15, Carol Moseley Braun withdrew from the race and also threw her support behind Dean.

During the last weeks of the campaign, however, the polls began to indicate a significant change in support. Dean and Gephardt had been hammering each other with negative advertisements, and both began losing support to revived Edwards and Kerry campaigns. Edwards received a major boost when he was endorsed by Iowa's largest newspaper.

Shortly before the caucus, Edwards and Kucinich reached an agreement in which they would ask their supporters to back the other camp in any precinct where they lacked the necessary numbers to qualify for delegates. The deal was widely seen as a blow to the Gephardt campaign, which had expected to pick up the compatibly pro-union Kucinich supporters in such circumstances.