Welcome to the Investors Trading Academy talking glossary of financial terms and events.
Our word of the day is “Caucus”
A caucus is a local meeting where registered members of a political party in a city, town or county gather to vote for their preferred party candidate and conduct other party business. Caucuses typically are used in combination with a state convention to elect delegates to the national nominating convention for presidential elections.
A caucus essentially function like traditional party primaries because residents cast ballots, and the candidate with the most ballots wins. However, residents simply don’t walk into a polling site to cast their ballot, then exit.
Caucus night is more time-consuming because it includes discussing candidates, picking convention delegates and dealing with state party business. And the parties, which run the caucuses, have uniquely different processes amid some similarities.
At the Republican caucuses, unlike a GOP primary, candidate supporters are allowed to campaign at Republican caucus sites and make a quick speech before the paper balloting.
Democratic caucus nights also take care of delegate assignments and state-level politics but are more complicated and dramatic.
After arriving at a Democratic caucus site, participants essentially divide into groups based on their preferred candidate.
Groups that don’t have enough members to make their candidate “viable” are disbanded. And the members then join another candidate group, at the persuasion of others, until groups have sufficient members to make a candidate viable enough to get delegates.
The top finishers often continue with their campaigns deep into the election cycle while those who finish at or near the bottom sometimes drop out soon, though that’s not always the case.

By Barry Norman, Investors Trading Academy - ITA

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