Iowa law requires candidates in party primaries to win with at least 35% of the vote. If that threshold is not met, the winner is to be chosen at a nominating convention.
Doug Gross, the Iowa GOP’s nominee for governor 24 years ago, narrowly cleared that 35% hurdle. “I had the feeling as we entered the primary day that we were all close,” Gross said. “To refresh the memories of your listeners — many of whom have probably forgotten this, hopefully, you had Steve Sukup and Bob Vander Plaats and me all running in that Republican Primary at that point in 2002 and they were on an upward trajectory at that point.”
Vander Plaats, who is now CEO of The Family Leader, finished third with 31.66%. Sukup, a businessman from Sheffield who’d been a state legislator, got 32.37%. Gross won with 35.88%.
“I spent most of the night examining numbers to make sure that we could get over the 35 and, you know, it took us until one in the morning to determine that was even going to occur,” Gross said. “I still recall being the hallway near my bedroom, getting a call from Steve Sukup conceding, it took that long.”
There was another tight race in 2022. Republican Steve King finished first in a four-way Primary, but with just 31% of the vote. In a district nominating convention, King narrowly secured the nomination with 51% compared to 47% for competitor Brent Seigrist, who had been Speaker of the Iowa House.
If none of the five candidates running for the Republican Party’s nomination for governor wins 35% today, the party’s nominee will be chosen by delegates at the GOP’s state convention June 13.
Back in 2014, State Senator Brad Zaun of Urbandale finished ahead of five other Republican candidate for a seat in congress, but since Zaun won just under 25% in the Primary, a nominating convention was held and delegates picked the Primary’s fifth place finisher. Two years later, as a member of the Iowa Senate, Zaun proposed run-off elections if a candidate failed to reach that 35% level in the Primary. “You know I have people that come to me on a daily basis that tell me: ‘Zaun, you got the short end of the stick,'”: Zaun said during senate debate in 2016. “…We don’t want this to happen again. This lets the people speak.”
Zaun’s bill unanimously cleared the Iowa Senate. The House didn’t vote on it.