A caucus is a meeting of a legislative body who are members of a particular political party, to select candidates or decide policy.  I got that sentence from the Google definition of caucus. It is important to know the difference between states with a caucus to select their candidates for office and those that use primary elections for that purpose.  Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, North Dakota, Wyoming and Iowa are the states that use caucuses to decide who will represent the parties in elections.  The territories of American Samoa, Guam and the Virgin Islands also use a caucus to determine their nominations from each party.  Puerto Rico uses primary elections.  There are two kinds of primary elections.  In an open primary, all registered voters can vote for any candidate.  In a closed primary, voters may vote only for candidates of the party to which they are registered.

We must settle in for a long period of campaigning for the job of President of the United States.  The November election this year will also be a time when other people are elected to local, state and national offices. I’m still trying to get my thoughts together for a BLOG piece on caucus and primary strategies for selecting the person who is sent to a state convention by each party.  

The Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act, which took effect January 1, 2011, in California created "voter-nominated" offices. The Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act does not apply to candidates running for U.S. President, county central committees, or local offices.

Most of the offices that were previously known as "partisan" are now known as "voter-nominated" offices. Voter-nominated offices are state constitutional offices, state legislative offices, and U.S. congressional offices. The only "partisan offices" now are the offices of U.S. President and county central committee.