From Reporting Delay to Conspiracy Theory: An Analysis of the 2020 Iowa Democratic Caucuses

In 2020, the Iowa caucuses became the focus of controversy due to issues with a mobile application used to report precinct-level results. This caused significant reporting delays, raised concerns about electoral integrity, and ultimately led the Iowa Democratic Party to abandon the traditional caucus system in 2024. Using survey data from a nationally representative sample of 10,300 U.S. adults collected shortly after the 2020 caucuses, we show that predispositions toward conspiratorial thinking and low levels of political knowledge strongly predict conspiratorial beliefs about the incident, while political orientations play a relatively minor role. These findings highlight the critical role of political information in shaping interpretations of electoral controversies.