Thursday, February 8^th might be a historical date for many reasons in American politics.  Certainly not as high on the radar, but worth mentioning, is that the U.S. Virgin Islands held their Republican caucuses that day in addition to the Nevada Republican caucuses (see Nevada entry earlier this week). In keeping with the national trends favoring former President Donald Trump, the caucuses broke 3 to 1 for Trump over the only other major candidate in the race, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Just over 250 participated in the voting, which is just over a quarter of the 900 plus registered Republican voters in the territory. Campaigning was either done virtually by some of the candidates themselves or by sending in campaign officials to provide representation on the ground.

The caucuses caused a bit of a stir with the RNC given that they had both moved up their caucuses from the May 30^th, (4 years ago), and adopted ranked choice voting. (In the years prior to 2020 the U.S. Virgin Islands Republican Caucuses were usually held around March/April.) Ranked choice voting is a method generally held in low esteem by many Republican officials, a prime example being Alaska’s Congressional seat flipping to the Democrats under this method. Practically speaking for the primary with only two major candidates, ranked choice voting did not really move the needle as the other four candidates on the ballot had already withdrawn from their race, and there were a minimum of votes to be redistributed as a result. It should also be noted that as a U.S. territory, the U.S. Virgin Islands is not eligible to participate directly in November’s general election.

The caucuses themselves were more similar to a primary, in the sense that partisans did not have to attend a party meeting at a set time but could show up and cast their vote as they would in any other election. There were polling locations on all three main islands, La Reine Chicken Shack on St. Croix, the Lovango Rum Bar on St. John and Bluebeard’s Castle on St. Thomas and an election night party held later on at the Morningstar Buoy Haus Beach Resort on St. Thomas.

Judging by various reports on the caucuses, it was not initially clear how many delegates would be up for grabs, and what provisions might govern the allocation of delegates, but ultimately what ended up being a total of four were entirely allotted to former President Trump. The RNC rules (16(c)(3)(ii) p.22) do provide that if a candidate does receive over 50% of the vote, that a given jurisdiction does not need adhere to strict proportionality but can award all the delegates to the top vote recipient, with the vote totals in this case rendering proportional allocation a moot point. Some political analysts believe that ranked choice voting results in less polarizing government and is more reflective of the voters’ wishes, while others felt it was harder to understand and thus risked further undermining public confidence in elections.

Historically the Virgin Island Caucuses do not necessarily follow national trends, and many might discount the influence an upset result in one of the outlying U.S. territories would have on the overall race, although the timing of this race makes it more interesting. On the Democratic side four years ago, for example, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg won American Samoa on Super Tuesday but dropped out one day later as his showings elsewhere were less than impressive. Four years prior to that, Donald Trump managed a fifth-place finish in the popular vote in the Virgin Islands Republican Caucuses, although by the time of the convention, where he became the nominee, he had secured those delegates’ support.

For those not overly familiar with this locale – the U.S. Virgin Islands is a territory of the United States, consisting of a group of some 50 Caribbean islands and cays (very small, sandy islands) populated by close to 90,000. The diverse population is over seventy percent Black and nearly a fifth Hispanic or Latino. The United States acquired the islands from Denmark in 1917 through the Treaty of the Danish West Indies. At the time the United States was concerned about the possible encroachment of the German military in the area looking for a location to establish a submarine base, while Danish authorities felt they could no longer economically justify their continued possession of the islands. Tourism and government are the largest economic sectors in the territory, The U.S. Virgin Islands overall has a Democratic lean – governed in the capital Charlotte Amalie by a 15-seat legislature comprised of 11 Democrats and 4 Independents, a Democratic Governor, Albert Bryan, and a non-voting U.S. House Delegate, Democrat Stacey Plaskett.

Correction: It was initially reported that RNC rules provided for proportional delegate representation for contests held before a certain date, and by inference that Ambassador Haley might have qualified, at least mathematically, for one delegate, however there is a provision within RNC that does in fact allow for jurisdictions to award all delegates to a candidate receiving over 50% of the vote.