Democrat Catelin Drey has won a special election for an Iowa state Senate seat in a district that previously leaned Republican.

With the first primaries of the 2024 election just around the corner, Republican candidates are stuck on the past as the divided party confronts race issues of the present and a desire among its base for a sanitized version of America’s history of slavery.

Iowa Republicans say the party’s presidential nominating caucuses will be held Jan. 15, on the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. That announcement Saturday puts the first votes of the 2024 election a little more than six months away as the GOP tries to reclaim the White House.

Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images(CNN) - The Iowa Republican Party will hold caucuses in 2020, even as some state Republican parties are opting to cancel their 2020 presidential primary elections as a show of support for President Donald Trump. It is not unprecedented for state Republicans or Democrats to decide not to hold a presidential primary when an incumbent is running essentially uncontested. There's little question that Trump has a strong base of institutional support among Hawkeye State Republicans, however. "He crosses the Missouri River, and in that sanctimonious tone, talks about what he doesn't like about Donald Trump," Kaufmann said at the time. We love Donald Trump!