Invisible Primary: Visible -- Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...
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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
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Iowa Public Radio's Clay Masters was on NPR's Morning Edition this morning updating the state of the Republican race in the first-in-the-nation caucus state. And he closed with a comment on how the DNC primary calendar change has thrown a kink into business as usual at this time in a presidential nomination cycle in the Hawkeye state:
"Now, the DNC voted to boot Iowa out of the early window, but their calendar is currently in chaos. Governor Kim Reynolds, a Republican, has until the end of the week to sign a bill that could deny Iowa Democrats their kind of like last Hail Mary to try and stay in the early window."
Folks, this, very simply, is a fundamental misreading of the current situation in Iowa. And it is not a new development. The combination of amendments to the bill Masters cited and the draft Iowa Democratic Party delegate selection plan means that the bill no longer hampers Democrats in the Hawkeye state or nationally. Under the plan, Iowa Democrats will caucus in person on the same night as Republicans in the state. But those proceedings will not have a presidential preference vote component. That will occur in a separate vote-by-mail process that is completely unaffected by the bill currently under consideration in Des Moines.
The only thing that might hold the Iowa Democratic Party back from implementing such a plan is the Democratic National Committee, and the national party will only step in if Iowa Democrats opt to conclude that all-mail preference vote before February 3 -- the date of South Carolina's Democratic primary -- of before March 5 without a waiver.
A possible waiver is the key factor in the Iowa 2024 calendar story right now. It is the main reason Iowa Democrats did not include a specific date for the all-mail presidential preference vote in the draft plan. The state party is not angling for first. It is pushing for a spot in the early window when Georgia and New Hampshire are unable or unwilling to comply with the DNC's waiver requests when their deadline to act comes on Saturday, June 3. That is the Hail Mary and the bill has nothing to do with it.
And as for calendar chaos? Please. There is some drama in the 2024 calendar coming together, but this is not chaos. Everyone outside of Iowa and New Hampshire is behaving as if Iowa and New Hampshire will be first and second in the Republican order. And most folks in those states are doing the same. Is there an issue between Iowa and New Hampshire set off by the DNC calendar change? Sure, but odds are that will get ironed out with minimal trouble. Most of the pressure on that front is self-imposed anyway.
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There are a number of things that one could tease out of this interview with New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley. Some have already tried to stir the pot some in an effort to make stories where there just is no there there. The one thing that goes unsaid in that NH Journal piece is that Buckley is against the proposed constitutional amendment to protect the first-in-the-nation status of the presidential primary in the Granite state. If the amendment were to fall short of the two-thirds necessary for ratification in a public vote, then that failure could be used against New Hampshire in future cycles.
That is not wrong.
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Seth Masket is good here on how the number of candidates may or may not affect Trump's chances at claiming the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. A couple of things...
- He notes that Trump 2023 is in a position not dissimilar to Hillary Clinton's in 2007-08 in her Democratic nomination fight. The former president is in a good spot, but not an unbeatable one. Still, he also is not far off from where Clinton was in 2016 either. Ultimately, there was a unified opposition to Clinton in 2015-16, but it was not a large enough bloc to prevent a Clinton nomination. There is not a unified Trump opposition at this point. At this point.
- This really should be repeated and repeated and repeated: "Yes, it matters if a lot of candidates each have 5 to 10 percent of the vote, but that doesn’t tend to be how these things play out. You tend to see three or four candidates with the bulk of the vote, and the rest hovering just above zero. (At the beginning of January 2016, only four of the 17-ish Republican presidential candidates had above 5 percent. At the beginning of January 2020, only four of the 20-ish Democratic presidential candidates had above 5 percent.)" Maybe 2023-24 will be different, but there has been a very distinct tendency in how this has worked in recent cycles.
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Invisible Primary quick hits:
- Chris Christie has his own super PAC now. [It is funny. A day after FHQ said there would not be too many RNC member endorsements in the 2024 race, one -- William Palatucci -- from New Jersey pops up as the head of this super PAC. Count that as one for Christie in the endorsement primary. In an open race, the expectation remains that these types of endorsements will be fewer and farther between.]
- On the travel primary side, DeSantis descends on Iowa today.
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On this date...
...in 2015, former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley announced his intentions to seek the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.
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