"Should Iowa Democrats go 'rogue' and go first with 2028 caucuses? Survey seeks party input"

Brianne Pfannenstiel at The Des Moines Register digs in on where Iowa Democrats are with the 2028 presidential primary calendar process at the starting line:

"As national Democrats begin gearing up for a conversation about the 2028 presidential nominating calendar, Iowa Democrats are asking themselves whether they want to obey the national party’s process or go 'rogue' with a renewed push for first-in-the-nation status.

"In a new survey set released to Iowa Democrats Thursday, Aug. 21, Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart writes that although the party’s focus is on winning elections in 2026, 'discussions about the 2028 nominating process have begun.'

“'Without an incumbent president on the ballot, we are likely to have one of the deepest and longest nominating campaigns in history,' she wrote in the survey introduction. 'Unlike 2024, the outcome of the presidential nominating process will be in doubt. As Iowa Democrats, we have choices to make about how to proceed.'”

--

Noteworthy: Chair Hart struck a pragmatic tone at the outset of the national party's calendar deliberations. While the survey teases the idea that Hawkeye state Democrats may go rogue for 2028, Hart pointed out that 1) it is still much too early and 2) there are a lot of moving parts that will affect what the state party may do with regard to the caucuses next time around, including how the party performs in state contests during the 2026 midterms. 

Others within the party were much more forceful, recently removed DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee member (and Iowa national committeeman) Scott Brennan among them. "Full speed ahead and damn the DNC," he said, striking a defiant posture. 

Of course, Iowa Democrats can be defiant without actually breaking any likely DNC rules for 2028. One should expect the state party to hold early caucuses again during the next cycle. It is, after all, state law. What those early -- January? February? -- caucuses do, however, matters. If they merely select delegates to go to the next step of the caucus/convention process as was the case for the 2024 cycle, then Iowa Democrats will not have held their "first determining step," as the DNC calls it, and will be rules-compliant. 

What matters is not that preliminary selection process. The part that will be and always has been important, not to mention determinative, is the allocation process. If the results of any caucus vote determines which candidates win how ever many delegate slots -- allocation -- then such a caucus would run afoul of DNC rules. 

And it is worth raising another reality: Now that Iowa Democrats have held a mail-in party-run presidential primary, it will be hard for the state party to make the case for returning to the in-person caucuses alone, rogue or not. That is a much more difficult argument to make before the national party and to rank-and-file Democrats in the Hawkeye state. 

--

Related at FHQ+:

Background on 2023 state law change and the implications for Iowa Democrats

--

More:

Iowa Capital Dispatch: Iowa Democrats launch survey, discussion on future of presidential caucuses

Associated Press: Iowa Democrats consider bringing back lead off caucuses, even if it means going ‘rogue’ in 2028

"Inside the Dems' fight to be 'the new Iowa' and hold the first 2028 primary"

Alex Thompson at Axios pulls back the curtain on the beginning of the Democrats' process to set the 2028 early calendar :

"Democratic Party officials are quietly battling over which state will be the first to vote in the 2028 presidential primary — a fight that's set to break into the open next week, when the officials meet in Minneapolis.

"Nevada, New Hampshire, and Michigan are currently the frontrunners to be 'the new Iowa,' and lead off the 2028 Democratic primary season, according to several people familiar with the Rules and Bylaws committee that will determine the order."

--

Noteworthy: First of all, I don't know how much "fight[ing]" or "battling" there is over the calendar at this point. As Thompson notes much further on in the story than was probably necessary, the process is at the starting line. If there are fights now, then that portends a likely ugly process. It won't be. It will be politics as it usually is. State parties will jockey for early spots, candidates will push their preferences (directly or through proxies/supporters on the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee and those members of the panel will have their own opinions as well. There will be some push and pull, and things may get heated along the way -- they probably won't (although it may be reported that way) -- but the calendar is a collective action problem the party's new (as of the 2024 cycle) process has already resolved once. 

As for "the new Iowa," well, Michigan was already the new Iowa in 2024. The Great Lakes state became the midwestern state in the early window. And, yes, South Carolina was the new first (sanctioned) state in the process as well. Would Nevada, New Hampshire and Michigan not be vying to be the new South Carolina? 

And finally, this passage from Thompson's piece merits a response:

"For decades, Iowa's caucuses and New Hampshire's primary kicked off the presidential primary season.

"But the order of contests has become a free-for-all since Iowa botched its caucuses in 2020, and then-President Biden changed the calendar in 2024 to favor his re-election bid by moving up the primary in Biden-friendly South Carolina."

I don't know that Iowa's caucus experience in 2020 triggered the reexamination of the calendar. It was a part of it, but the DNC was already moving in the direction of diversifying the early calendar and opening the process up for 2024. The party voluntarily moved toward an orderly process -- not a free-for-all -- whereby Iowa and New Hampshire (and Nevada and South Carolina) no longer received (near) automatic waivers to hold early contests. Rather, all state parties -- those that wanted to anyway -- could pitch the party on being early. 

And then as now, the early favorites to win those slots were states that were mostly already early. That's the story here: that Nevada, New Hampshire and Michigan are the states being talked about now as the possible first Democratic primary state for 2028. All were granted early spots during the last cycle.

Bottom line: there is a long way to go, folks.

--

More on the 2028 presidential primary calendar here and here.

"DNC chair says Democrats will start process of setting 2028 primary calendar this month"

Sarah Fortinsky at the The Hill summarizes DNC Chair Ken Martin's comments on the 2028 Democratic primary calendar:

"Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin said on Sunday that the party will begin deliberating the 2028 primary calendar later this month at a meeting in Minneapolis.

"'We’re going to start that conversation actually this month in August at our DNC meeting in Minneapolis,' Martin said in an interview on NewsNation’s 'The Hill Sunday,' when host Chris Stirewalt asked about the primary calendar in the next president election.

"'The Rules and Bylaws Committee, which is newly composed, will start this conversation by putting forward the rules and procedures, and start to really figure out how we’re going to engage in this,' he continued.

"Martin said the process will play out over the next year, and he expects to have a calendar set by the end of next year."

--

Noteworthy: The rough timeline here suggests that the DNC will carry over some elements of the process from the 2024 cycle. That the final calendar decisions at the national party level did not come down until not only after the 2022 midterms but in December of that year was a break from the protocol the party had utilized in most previous post-reform cycles. Usually, those early window calendar slots were settled on in the late summer/early fall of the midterm year alongside the formal final adoption of the entire rules package for the upcoming presidential nomination process. 

--

More from FHQ Plus (subscription):

DNC Chair Martin lays out early state checklist for 2028

"South Carolina Democrats will fight to keep 'first in the nation' primary status in 2028"

Alexandra Marquez weighs in at NBC News on the uncertainty of the early 2028 primary calendar for Democrats:

"Three years before 2028, the outlines of the next presidential race are already growing clearer, with large fields of potential primary candidates in both parties already making early moves.

"But one big thing is very much unclear for Democrats: which state will vote first when the primaries start."

...

"In South Carolina, which was tapped to host the Democrats’ first sanctioned primary for the first time in 2024, state Democrats are adamant they will be first in line on the primary calendar again in 2028.

"'Oh yeah, we’re first,' South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Christale Spain told NBC News at the party’s headquarters in Columbia earlier this month. She added, 'South Carolina is first. That means the South is first. So we’re gonna continue to fight for that.'"

--

Noteworthy: Early reporting on the South Carolina angle of the 2028 primary calendar story has come to lean so heavily on comments from Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC, 6th) that they have almost become conventional wisdom:

"Clyburn told reporters at his annual fish fry he’s not concerned about South Carolina being the lead off contest, after the Democratic Party kicked off its 2024 presidential nominating process with the Palmetto State.

“'I never asked for anything more than keep us in the pre-primary window which covers a whole month before the primary starts,' Clyburn said. 'So I think it’s important to the party for that to be the case. Whether it be one, two, three or four, I don’t care.'”

But the resulting picture -- a kind of "we're just glad to be here" sentiment -- is maybe a bit too deferential to Clyburn. There are other perspectives among state Democrats on the "should South Carolina be first?" discussion as Chair Spain demonstrates. 

However, would one expect her to say anything less at this stage of the process? Of course she is going to advocate for the Palmetto state going first in 2028. But this is the first break (of sorts) from that South Carolina conventional wisdom that has developed in the reporting on the primary calendar. 

"South Carolina's early state status is far from secure. But 2028 Dems are going anyway."

Note that the title of this piece changed from when it was first released via RSS. It is now published under the headline "Democrats in South Carolina are barely pretending they're not already running for president."

--

Politico's Brakkton Booker and Elena Schneider report on prospective 2028 Democrats' travel to traditional early states (and shuffling the calendar moving forward):

"South Carolina Democrats know their grip on the top spot is tenuous, with traditional early states like Iowa and New Hampshire eager to reclaim their lead-off position, and others — like North Carolina and Georgia — seeking to emerge as new states to consider. And it comes as there’s been a major reshuffling on a powerful panel at the Democratic National Committee that has huge sway over the presidential nominating process."

...

"But moving the order of primary states is easier said than done. North Carolina is hamstrung by state law from moving its date, and Democrats would need the GOP-controlled legislature to agree to any changes. DNC members have also emphasized smaller states to allow lesser-known candidates to build followings.

“'The most powerful force in the universe is inertia, so South Carolina is probably the favorite to stay just because of that,' said an incoming member of the committee granted anonymity to discuss internal dynamics. 'Every state has a chance to be first, but I do think we have to come into this with a degree of realism.'”

--

Noteworthy: In 2022 the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) had a short checklist for states vying for one of the several early calendar slots for 2024:

• Diversity
• Competitiveness
• Feasibility

The first two, to be sure, were and are more than aspirational or symbolic. Diversity of the Democratic primary electorate in a given (prospective early) state was always important to the DNCRBC when the calendar decisions were made in 2022. General election competitiveness was less so. Both paled in comparison to the unavoidable third item on the list: feasibility. A state cannot be early if decision makers cannot get a date change made. That is all the more difficult when 1) Republicans control all of some of the levers of power in state government (whether governor, secretary of state or state legislature) and/or 2) there is no Republican buy-in at the state and/or national level. And conversations between Democrats and Republicans at the national, much less the state, level are not apparent at this time ahead of decisions on the 2028 calendar. 

It is early yet for 2028, and those conversations can happen at any time, but there is no evidence they have or are in the offing at this point. And that is food for thought as the media treatments of this topic gain steam. Feasibility matters.

"[I]t seems that New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada will remain early"

CNN's Zachary Wolf and Isaac Dovere recently chatted about the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination:

"What are the early states to watch?

"WOLF: Biden forced a lot of changes in the primary process for Democrats, including Iowa not really being an early state for them anymore. What’s the early map going to look like?

"DOVERE: Biden did push through some changes, especially making South Carolina first. But some of the other changes, particularly moving Iowa off of the early-state calendar, were very much supported by a lot of other people in the Democratic National Coalition. We’ll see what the calendar ends up looking like. The chances that Iowa gets back to a primary position seem very low. That said, the chances that New Hampshire gets back to the first-in-the-nation spot that actually is required by New Hampshire state law seem much higher.

"We won’t know the full answer on the calendar until at least sometime in 2026, and there is a lot of wrangling and back-and-forth among the states and among the DNC members. What is definitely true, though, is that no matter what arrangement will come, it seems that New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada will remain early. Where exactly they are is a little bit unclear."

--

Noteworthy: It is very early in the 2028 process, but at this juncture, FHQ agrees with Dovere's assessment. It does seem like Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina are "safe" in the early window for 2028. But again, the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee has yet to formally sit down to even begin the process of hearing pitches from state parties that want their state's primary or caucus included in the early lineup for 2028, much less actually settling on which states will fill those slots. That heavy lifting likely will not start taking place until after August and more likely toward the end of 2025/beginning of 2026. The early window for 2028 may ultimately come to look similar to 2020 (sans Iowa), but that is far from guaranteed this far out.

"‘Who’s got next?’ Democrats already lining up for 2028 presidential race in early voting states"

The AP's Steve Peoples, Meg Kinnard and Holly Ramer on early 2028 candidate travel:

"The first presidential primary votes won’t be cast for another two and a half years. And yet, over the span of 10 days in July, three Democratic presidential prospects are scheduled to campaign in South Carolina.

"Nearly a half dozen others have made recent pilgrimages to South Carolina, New Hampshire and Iowa — states that traditionally host the nation’s opening presidential nomination contests. Still other ambitious Democrats are having private conversations with officials on the ground there.

"The voters in these states are used to seeing presidential contenders months or even years before most of the country, but the political jockeying in 2025 for the 2028 presidential contest appears to be playing out earlier, with more frequency and with less pretense than ever before."

Related from The Hill:

"South Carolina becomes early hot spot for potential 2028 candidates"

--

Noteworthy: Decisions on the 2028 Democratic presidential primary calendar are far off, so the press is maybe being a bit reflexive in focusing on Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina as usual. Still, that is where the potential candidates have been popping up to this point in the cycle. Perhaps that is an indication of where the calendar will go (or where the candidates think it will go). And that is not without import.

However, left with far fewer visitors and a much lower frequency of visits are two states that, unlike the traditional three above, are locked into likely early calendar positions by state law (subject to change): Nevada, a state that has been in the early lineup on the Democratic side as long as South Carolina has, and Michigan. 

That said, Maryland Governor Wes Moore (D) was in Detroit in the days leading up to July 4.

"Iowa Democrats plot 2028 comeback for caucuses"

From Alex Thompson at Axios:

"Iowa Democrats are urging the national party to restore the state's traditional place as the first contest of the presidential primary season — and some are pushing for Iowa's caucuses to be first even if the Democratic National Committee disagrees.

"Iowa returning to the lead-off spot could scramble the 2028 presidential contest, and significantly affect who becomes the Democratic nominee.

"Some Iowa Democrats are arguing for their state party to go first in primary season — no matter what the DNC does — because Republicans are set to hold their Iowa caucuses anyway. The Iowa Democrats don't want to cede the national media limelight to the GOP."

More from FHQ Plus (subscription):

Are the Iowa caucuses coming back to the early Democratic presidential nomination process?

Who ends up embarrassed if Iowa and New Hampshire go rogue in 2024?

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• In case you missed it, Idaho Republicans have a pair of proposals the state party is considering for earlier than usual delegate allocation and selection in the Gem state in 2024. All the details at FHQ Plus.

If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.

In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

...

FHQ has decreasingly little patience for clickbait that masquerades as a story about the primary calendar. And that is what this latest piece from Alex Thompson at Axios is: clickbait. The only thing new in there to most folks who do not obsessively follow the ins and outs of the calendar is that the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee is meeting Friday, June 16 to start the process of reviewing 2024 delegate selection plans submitted by the state parties. 

No, I could not even get through the headline before I got cranky about it. 

Headline: Biden could lose first two ’24 contests to RFK Jr.

I mean, Thompson ultimately points out what other reporting has revealed. That Presidential Biden will not be on the ballot in any rogue state in 2024. Yet, somehow that is the headline. 

Remember when the Denver Nuggets recently lost the first two games of the Stanley Cup Finals to the Vegas Golden Knights? Neither do I. The Nuggets were not on the ice. They were not facing off against the Knights. That may not be fair. That may not be a good analogy. But come on. Biden cannot lose a contest where he is not on the ballot. That is not to say Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cannot win those contests, but he will not have beaten Biden in so doing. 

And that leads to... "That sets up a scenario in which Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or another long-shot Democrat could win those states — and embarrass the president."

Maybe it would be embarrassing to Team Biden if some fringe candidate were to win one or two rogue contests. It would not affect the president much in the delegate count. There will not be any delegates at stake in any rogue state contests. But it would not necessarily be a good look for the president in the court of public opinion as the Republican primary season kicks off. Press accounts on this story really seem to like this angle. It promises future drama. 

But again, do you know who is going to be more embarrassed than the president and his campaign that Kennedy or Williamson or whomever wins rogue Iowa or New Hampshire? Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire. 

Here is that scenario: 

1) Your state party just defied the national party rules to stick with tradition and hold early contests. 

2) Those same state parties "embarrass" the president that the broader party network is trying to reelect for the short term benefit of going first. 

3) Someone other than the president wins Iowa and/or New Hampshire.

4) Those state parties pitch the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee -- the same one that rejected them for 2024 and whose rules those two states defied in response, leading to the 'embarrassment" of the president the whole party was trying to reelect -- on being a part of the early window of states for 2028. 

Who exactly is embarrassed in that scenario? In the long term, probably Iowa and New Hampshire. 

...should either or both go rogue. But that part of the story rarely sees the light of day in most press accounts.

But what about Iowa and/or New Hampshire? There is an important difference between those two; in how Democrats in each have reacted since the DNC adopted the calendar rules back in February.

Thompson does eventually get around to that too: "Iowa Democrats haven't been as publicly hostile over Biden's move. But in the past two months they've quietly moved to hold their contest the same day as Iowa Republicans — in January, but with a mail-in option for ballots."

So close. So very close. Yes, Iowa Democrats have behaved demonstrably differently than their peers in New Hampshire. Aside from the fact that Rules and Bylaws is meeting on Friday, that is -- or should be -- the lede here. But no, it gets buried in the piece and is followed by the overly dramatic and misleading "but they're going to caucus early anyway."

Yes, Iowa Democrats will caucus on the same night as Iowa Republicans some time next January. But we do not yet know when the vote-by-mail preference vote will occur. And by extension we do not yet know when delegates will be allocated. That is the important action that both the president and the DNC are and will be looking at. The delegate allocation. 

That is not to be confused with delegate selection which is proposed to start in Iowa at those January Democratic caucuses. Early selection is not a rogue activity in the eyes of the DNC. Perhaps this likening of delegate allocation/selection to getting and distributing Taylor Swift tickets would be helpful to Mr. Thompson (and others).

I get it. Drama gets folks to click. 

And while there is drama in the process of the 2024 presidential primary calendar coming together, it need not be overly and misleadingly amplified. That is what this story does. And it is not alone. There are others out there and they pop up in every cycle in which an incumbent is seeking reelection. The prospect of a ho-hum, incumbent renomination phase is not ideal for attention-grabbing headlines or stories. Remember those stories about all those Republican primaries and caucuses that got cancelled in 2019-20? They were built up in a similar fashion in the context of Trump's reelection efforts. It was a story, but one that only really only ultimately appealed to calendar/rules nerds like FHQ.  

At the end of the day, there just is not a lot of news in incumbents vying for renomination. Those folks tend to be pretty popular, or at least, popular enough within their own party. If they are not, it tends to draw legitimate challengers into the race. But there are no legitimate challengers in the race for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination. And that is mostly boring. Just like Joe Biden.  

...

Seth Masket is good here on Trump and his opponents taking a position on pardoning the former president.

...

From around the invisible primary...

• In the travel primary, Donald Trump has recently lined up trips to the Upstate of first-in-the-South South Carolina for July 4 weekend and another to Super Tuesday Alabama in August.
• Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will trek out to Nevada this weekend. Republicans in the Silver state will likely have early caucuses in 2024. 
• Miami Mayor Francis Suarez filed paperwork with the FEC to officially enter the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race and has a super PAC behind his effort running ads in three of the four early states on the Republican primary calendar.
• Iowa Democrats approved a caucus plan with mail-in participation. Does it violate state law? Nope.

...

On this date...

...in 2015, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush formally entered the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

--

Recent posts:

Tim Scott is making it tough for others in South Carolina

Are the Two South Carolinians Hurting DeSantis in the Palmetto State?

An Invisible Primary Round Up to Start the Week

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Post or subscribe by Email.

See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies. 

Sunday Series: Checking in on Biden and the 2024 Democratic Invisible Primary

There was a Morning Consult poll out early last week that took the pulse of the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination race, and a few things stood out. First, all of the usual caveats apply. It is early. Among the candidates, the incumbent president has the highest name recognition and a commanding lead to go along with that. However, commanding though President Biden's lead may be over candidates who are not exactly household names, it still commands support from a little less than three-quarters of the Democratic primary electorate. This poll is not the first and likely will not be the last to indicate Biden's relatively poor standing. After all, past incumbents seeking (or likely to seek) reelection have almost always been in better positions at this stage of the cycle. 

What gives? 

Before answering that, let us have a look at a parallel universe. Believe it or not, upon seeing the Morning Consult poll, FHQ had a different reaction than the above, and it was not unlike Helen Lovejoy pleading for somebody to think of the children. Yes, Biden is at 70 percent, but where is everyone else? [Scans the results] No one else is above 15 percent. Even if one combines the topline numbers of Biden's announced challengers, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Marianne Williamson, they still do not sum to 15 percent. And that number is important because, to qualify for delegates in primaries and caucuses next year, candidates will have to hit 15 percent support statewide and/or within each of the several congressional districts in the 50 states. And even if Kennedy's or Williamson's support crested above that mark in a rogue state or two like, say, Iowa and/or New Hampshire, it is not at all clear that either or both could sustain that and truly threaten the president's odds of being renominated. 

But there does not have to be a parallel universe to consider both of those things. Biden, right here in this world, is in a strong position to claim most, if not all, of the delegates at stake in the Democratic presidential nomination process in 2024 and still be weak among his fellow partisans relative to past incumbent presidents up for reelection. But again, why? What gives?

There are a number of interrelated reasons. President Biden's approval numbers are low-ish for someone who is not term-limited and who is likely to mount a bid for a second term.¹ The questions about the president's age are, have been and will continue to be a drag on Biden. And it is a question he can never really answer other than to acknowledge that reality (which he has done). It will be a nagging question regardless, a lens through which opponents on both sides of the aisle, the media and the electorate will inevitably view nearly every action. And yet, one thing Biden and his reelection campaign can do to counter that is to, well, run. But, in order to do that, the president has to announce, something Biden has yet to officially do (despite having strongly signaled that he plans to run at least twice in the past week). 

Yet, those signals are not necessarily breaking through. And that is interesting because, as signals go, these are pretty clear. It is not just Biden and his administration that are indicating his likely run. Other elites within the broader Democratic Party network are also signaling it in a variety of ways. Some are offering support. Others are signaling their intent to not challenge the president. The national party is in lockstep behind Biden as well. However, collectively, those signals are not being read on the mass level among rank and file Democrats, not at as high a rate in any event. Or perhaps, the low simmering discontent at the mass level is not being picked up by those same elites. Regardless, there is something of a disconnect there -- between the political elites and the mass public -- that is worth noting at this juncture of the invisible primary on the Democratic side. 

Ultimately the invisible primary, and primary season for that matter, are simultaneously about two things for candidates: 1) winning over supporters and 2) exhausting the (viable) competition. There is a lot that goes into both of those, but Biden has seemingly done the latter. No one of significance is lining up to challenge the president. No one who has held statewide elective office, for example, or who can command the requisite resources and/or support is seemingly laying the groundwork in a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. And the president has, in the eyes of some anyway, left the door open for those sorts of candidates. Still, nothing. 

The longer this plays out -- with or without a Biden announcement -- the harder it gets for anyone to jump into the race. Very simply, a challenger needs to leave him- or herself with enough runway to actually be able to take off, to build a campaign and to actually weather a bit of the storm -- the usual scrutiny -- before voters begin to weigh in during primary season. On that latter issue, think about Tim Scott this week upon the launch of his exploratory committee and how some were trying to see him faltering on abortion. That is typical of the scrutiny candidates receive. Or, on the former, think about Democrats in 2016. Hillary Clinton announced in April 2015 and there were enough doubts about her candidacy and/or enough support for Bernie Sanders into the summer that Joe Biden's name kept coming up in conversations about possible candidates that cycle. Biden did little to deter that but dithered and did so long enough that it became too late for him to get into the race and mount a serious challenge. 

That is all instructive for 2024. It means there is a tipping point after which it is very unlikely that a candidate will be able to get in and be a serious threat to the president for the nomination. And this race may have effectively reached that point already. Yes, Kennedy and Williamson have announced bids. And yes, some folks will try to make the case about the seriousness of their respective threats, but that is a part of the regular rhythm of an invisible primary where an incumbent president is seeking renomination. The motivation to tell a story other than "the incumbent is winning" is strong and typical. But both will face challenges in the coming months that will make it hard to build the sort of campaign that can translate into delegates.

Yet, the complexion of the story of 2024 for Democrats will likely begin to change once Biden actually begins campaigning, focusing on the other half of that simultaneous, two-pronged invisible primary process. And that -- the process of winning over supporters or winning some of them back -- will start in earnest once the president officially announces a run. That will kill the "will he or won't he run" chatter, which is not nothing on the checklist, but it is not a cure-all. It will not quiet the questions about his age. It will not quell the motivation for some to pen stories that counter the conventional wisdom about (if not likely trajectory of) the race. It will, however, start the president on a track toward outwardly and actively wooing support, shifting the emphasis from governing mode exclusively to the balancing act of concurrently governing and campaigning.

And there really is no rush for Biden to make that shift with governing issues like the debt ceiling before him and no serious challenge to the nomination. 

--

¹ It is interesting how the early 2018 notion of a Biden presidential run in 2020 premised as a one-term bridge to a younger generation never really left the public (or press) consciousness. It has morphed and lingered in combination with the age questions throughout the president's term. 

--

Recent posts:

From FHQ Plus: The Blurred Lines Between State and Party on the Caucuses in Iowa

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Friday Quick Hits

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Primary Creep in Iowa and "Similar Elections"

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Post or subscribe by Email.

See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies. 

Democrats' 2024 Calendar Shake Up Hinges on Midterms

Of all of the things that are top of mind for those following the 2022 midterm elections set to conclude on Tuesday, November 8 -- much less those who have and will vote -- the 2024 presidential primary calendar is likely not one of them. Sure, the 2024 invisible primary has been going on since at least November 2020, but that does not mean that anyone earnestly wants to dig into the next election before the current one is even over. 

However, like a great many things, the 2024 presidential primary calendar will be affected by the outcomes of the midterm elections taking place across the United States. In a typical cycle, that would mean that gubernatorial and state legislative elections may impact where any given state may end up on subsequent presidential primary calendars. But this is not a typical cycle. In a typical cycle, FHQ would wait for the dust to settle on those state legislative elections, see where the out-party gained control and begin assessing where primary date changes are more likely. 

But again, unlike, say, the 2010 or 2014 or 2018 midterms, 2022 is not typical with respect to the formation and completion of the next presidential primary calendar. Yes, this midterm will impact state legislative control, and in turn, affect which states may or may not move as new sessions begin in 2023. But there is an added wrinkle in 2022 that has not been there in past cycles during the post-reform era. Unlike the half century of presidential nomination cycles before it, the 2024 cycle will push through the midterms without both major parties having completed their guidance for states to finalize their delegate selection processes. 

And the place where that guidance is lacking at the moment is on the Democratic side. The Republican National Committee long ago signaled that it would make no significant changes to its rules for 2024 and subsequently carried the bulk of their rules over to the current cycle when the September 30 (2022) deadline for making changes to the national rules came and went with little fanfare. And likewise, the Democratic National Committee -- through its Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC -- completed the bulk of its work on the party's 2024 nomination rules.

Yet, the DNCRBC punted on one facet of those rules, a part that has typically been in place before the midterms: the guidelines for which states are granted exemptions in order to go early on the presidential primary calendar.  Now, in typical cycles, the party would entertain discussions of changes to the early states, but would in the face of institutional challenges stick with Iowa and New Hampshire at the front of the queue. In some cycles those discussions are more rigorous than others, but the Iowa/New Hampshire question always comes up. 

The cycles that stand in contrast to that pattern are 2008 and 2024. During the aftermath of the 2004 election, the Price Commission took up the question of Iowa's and New Hampshire's positioning in the Democratic process, ultimately opting to recommend keeping the traditionally early pair among the early states but adding to the early window line up. The DNCRBC acting on those recommendations, then, heard pitches from a handful of states to fill those additional slots alongside Iowa and New Hampshire. Nevada and South Carolina emerged as those two states. 

And there was wisdom to the selection of those two. South Carolina was already positioned as an early state in the Republican process, the first-in-the-South contest that occurred third in the order on the heels of Iowa and New Hampshire. Nevada, on the other hand, was not a fixture in the early Republican calendar, but was a caucus state where the scheduling of the caucuses was not determined by state law. In other words, the two state parties did not have to conduct their caucuses on the same date. Even though Nevada Republicans ultimately forced the issue and joined the early calendar Republican states for 2008 and became normalized thereafter, DNC rules changes did not directly impact that outcome (not in the way that it would if the caucus dates for both parties were set by state law and on the same date).

Now fast forward to the 2024 cycle. Again, the Iowa and New Hampshire question was raised on the Democratic side. The same undercurrent was there -- questioning the wisdom in the same two states leading off the process and what impact that would have on the identity of the eventual nominee. But those typical questions were raised in the context of an error-laden 2020 caucus process in the Hawkeye state, a shrinking of the number of and preference for caucuses in the Democratic process and in the wake of the national conversation stemming from the murder of George Floyd. Basically...

1. Operational: If Iowa Democrats cannot even conduct seamless caucuses, then why should they continue to be first on the primary calendar? AND
2. Representational: If the Democratic coalition is as diverse as it is, then why are two overwhelmingly white states kicking off the process to determine the party's presidential nominee?

In that context, the DNCRBC -- and not a separate commission as in 2005-06 -- began to tackle the Iowa/New Hampshire question for the 2024 cycle. That the DNCRNC and not a separate commission led that charge was not the only difference between the 2024 cycle and its forebear from 2008. Unlike during the 2008 cycle, the DNCRBC did not grant a pass to Iowa and New Hampshire and entertain pitches from other would-be early states. Instead, the committee invited Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and any other willing state party to make their case for an early window exemption. Those 20 states would vie for up to five exempt slots on the early calendar with no guarantees for any of the four traditional carve-out states. 

And the handicapping had gone on for months leading up to the August window in which Democrats tend to finalize their delegate selection rules for the upcoming cycle. Obituaries were written for the Iowa caucuses, and possible replacements and/or early state additions -- Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota and Nevada -- emerged. But the same institutional questions that have dogged past efforts to rearrange the calendar came to the fore in the summer of 2022. That left the DNCRBC to finalize the 2024 rules the panel could finish and leave the calendar questions until after the midterms. 

But why? 

On the one hand, delaying the decision on which states receive early window exemptions cuts into planning time those states will need to prepare not only for 2024 primaries and caucuses but for submission of draft plans to the DNCRBC by next spring. Yes, it helps some that the DNC finalized all of its other rules, minimizing the uncertainty to the dates of contests and potentially moving them. 

But on the other hand, the DNCRBC also wants to finalize a set of rules that stand some chance to be fully implemented and implemented as seamlessly as possible while also reducing the potential for snags. And here, FHQ means institutional problems when it uses the word snags. 

Now, to this point I have vaguely used the term institutional roadblocks, but specifically, the DNCRBC wants to get through the midterms in order to have some certainty as to exactly who their state-level partners will be in bringing any idealized version of a new early calendar line up to fruition. 

The political climate in 2022 favors the Republican Party based on the typical fundamentals of presidential approval and various measures of the economy. And that, in turn, means that some of those partners may be Republicans who are unwilling or unable to aid Democrats in their pursuit of an altered early calendar. 

Take Michigan. Yes, newly commission-drawn state legislative lines may give Democrats a fighting chance to win one or both chambers in the legislature in the Great Lakes state. But the climate may completely or to some degree negate any gains state Democrats would have taken from redistricting. But even if Republicans retain control of the legislature, there may be some who are willing jump at the chance of holding an earlier primary. In theory, yes, but in practice, those Republican state legislators in control would run into RNC rules setting Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada first and a super penalty that would strip the Michigan delegation of more than three-quarters of its delegates. Perhaps those legislators gamble or perhaps they opt to exploit a loophole in RNC rules. It would not get Michigan to first, replacing Iowa, but it could get the state into the early calendar mix. 

Or how about Minnesota? In the Land of 10,000 Lakes the bar is set a bit differently. The state parties can bypass the legislature under state law. That circumvents the Michigan problem in a way. The date of the Minnesota primary is set for the first Tuesday in March, but the date can be changed if the two state parties can agree on an alternative. That alternative could be first, replacing neighboring Iowa atop the calendar. But again, the same super penalty that would stand in the way of a change in Michigan would also be a roadblock to Minnesota becoming an early state. And the Republican state party chair would have a slightly more difficult time in pleading ignorance of the RNC rules considering state party chairs are RNC members. 

Maybe Georgia could easily fit into one of those early slots? The process for setting the date of the presidential primary is different than the two states described immediately above. But again, the reliability of partners matters. The secretary of state and not the state legislature schedules the presidential primary in the Peach state. 

If Democrat, Bee Nguyen upends incumbent Brad Raffensperger in the Georgia secretary of state race, then national Democrats may have a path to adding the Peach state to the early calendar. Of course, adding a state neighboring another early state, South Carolina, would be unconventional. Georgia is a more competitive state in general elections than South Carolina, but the Palmetto state was instrumental to President Biden's road to the 2020 Democratic nomination and some of his South Carolina surrogates may take umbrage to the first-in-the-South state either sharing the spotlight in the early window or being outright replaced. 

And those are roadblocks with a Democrat as Georgia secretary of state. With Secretary Raffensperger back in Atlanta enforcing state election law, he and the Georgia Republican Party would run into the very same RNC rules that Republican actors in Michigan and Minnesota would face. In other words, there is not necessarily a reliable partner for national Democrats to lean on in Georgia either. 

How about Nevada? The Silver state is already an early state and switched from a caucus to a primary since 2020. Moving Nevada would not necessarily change the early states, but could shake up the order of those early states. It is possible. But again, even that hinges on the midterms. Nevada is currently a state where Democrats have unified control of state government. Should the party retain control of the governor's mansion and the state legislature, then the same Democrats that pushed for the switch to a primary after 2020 and scheduled it for the Tuesday in February immediately after where Iowa has ended up on the calendar in the last two cycles, may make changes to suit the DNCRBC directives (if necessary). 

But Nevada is competitive and while that is an attractive quality to the DNC in terms of the states to slot into the early window, it may also mean that Republicans sweeping to victory in the midterms could spoil any of those plans. Silver state Republicans were not exactly supportive of the switch to a primary and the early February date could run afoul of RNC rules by pushing Iowa and New Hampshire into January. Republicans in power in Nevada after 2022 may reschedule the newly established presidential primary or they could revert the state to a caucus system and leave Democrats there and nationally in the lurch. Regardless, Republicans winning control in Nevada in any way shape or form means that national Democrats will not have partners that could assist them arriving at a calendar that best or better meets the goals set out by the DNCRBC.

But that is how this process goes. If the calendar was so easy to change then it maybe would have been over the course of the last half century. It is not for lack of trying. It is a function of the multitude of roadblocks that stand in the way of change. Big changes to the nomination system come when 1) both parties can agree on them (to some extent) or 2) when one party controls the vast majority of state governments across the country. Look at the 2008 calendar changes as an example of the former and the McGovern-Fraser reforms that ushered in the current system at a time when Democrats lost the presidency but controlled vast swaths of the country on the state level as the major example of the latter.

Look, FHQ is not saying that the status quo will carry over to 2024. It will on the Republican side. But the Democrats' chances of altering the beginning of their calendar depend almost entirely on what happens in the midterm elections. If Republicans sweep the states above, then look for the front of the 2024 primary calendar to look a lot like 2020. Any deviation from that scenario may open the door to some type of change even if it is not the idealized one envisioned by the Democratic Party coalition. Otherwise, the party may get a change, but it may amount to a fifth state being added to the end of the early window in a creative way that state Republicans can stomach (ie: exploiting loopholes in Republican rules).

--

Recent posts:

2024 Democratic Party Rules Changes: May versus Shall in Rule 21

A Loophole in Republican Rules That May Help Democrats in Their Calendar Shuffle

Let's Talk About Iowa

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook or subscribe by Email.

See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies.

#InvisiblePrimary: Visible -- Running for 2024, but Running in 2024?

For years now, FHQ has trotted out a fairly simple question during the candidate emergence phase of the invisible primary. Increasingly that emergence occurs -- or more accurately can be seen occurring -- earlier and earlier. But then as now the parsimony of the question creates a powerful lens through which to view (prospective) presidential candidate activity long before primary voters begin to weigh in on just who each party's nominee will be.

Back in 2009, FHQ asked if anyone thought that Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) was not running for the 2012 Republican nomination and followed that up with another distinction. The former Minnesota governor could run for the 2012 nomination in 2009 but the question at that point was whether Pawlenty would actually be running in 2012.

As it turned out Pawlenty did formally announce a bid. But there was more: trips to Iowa, the formation of an exploratory committee, early biographical ads from aligned political action committees. And outside of the candidate's and his campaign's (direct) control there was early polling and general chatter in Republican circles about a Pawlenty bid.

But for all of that activity, Tim Pawlenty never made it to any of the primaries and caucuses in 2012. Instead, his run was derailed by a third place showing in the August 2011 Ames Straw Poll, an event made all the more important because the Pawlenty team had made the Hawkeye state make or break for the former governor. 

Now, why the reminiscence about Tim Pawlenty?

Well, aside from the origin story for the running for but not necessarily in maxim, it speaks to how one should observe the action of (prospective) candidates in the increasing visible but still invisible primary. Candidates run all of the time and many do not get as far or do as much as Tim Pawlenty once did from 2009-2011. Furthermore, candidates need not formally announce as Pawlenty did to have been considered a candidate running for a party's nomination. Take the journey of Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in 2018-2019. There was never any announcement that he was going to seek the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. But there was PAC activity, hiring and trips to the usual nomination haunts. There no doubt was other activity that happened more quietly, signals that Brown got from other elites (donors, DNC members, etc.) that did not see the light of day in any reporting. But Brown ran for the 2020 Democratic nomination before ultimately passing.

And there are already signs that this is happening already in the 2024 presidential nomination cycle. There has been no lack of questions about whether both President Biden and former President Trump will run in 2024. In fact, Dave Hopkins had a wonderful piece up just yesterday in response to a Washington Post article about Biden advisors "working under the assumption that he [Biden] will once again top the Democratic ticket in 2024."

As Hopkins said, of course he is. 

And that decision, formal or not, has implications for how other prospective candidates will behave. That is true on the Republican side with respect to what Trump might do. It is not, for example, a secret that former South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley, is running for the 2024 Republican nomination. It just is not. And while Haley may give speeches this and next year and work through her PAC toward electing Republicans across the country in the midterm elections in 2022, none of that guarantees that she will be running in 2024. And that may or may not be because Trump throws his hat back in the ring. 

Yet just because a candidate does not run in any contests does not mean that they did not run for the nomination in that cycle. It just means that roadblocks appeared in any number of forms during the invisible primary instead of voters directly rejecting that candidate in Iowa or New Hampshire or in some other state on down the line on the primary calendar. 

But yes, there are candidates who are running for 2024 even now, three years out.

Recent posts:

If It Was So Easy to Change Then It Would Have Changed By Now

 

The Week the Calendar Wars Heated Up

Early Signs: Nebraska Electoral Vote Allocation Likely to Stay the Same

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook or subscribe by Email.

See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies.    

If It Was So Easy to Change Then It Would Have Changed By Now

FHQ read with some interest the latest editorial from Michelle Cottle at The New York Times before the weekend hit. It was one of a genre the vintage of which one sees in the seemingly lazy days between presidential nomination cycles. One can call those of that ilk the "it's time for a change (to the presidential nomination process)." Sure, they are around every cycle, but they tend to most often arise in the midst of (or perhaps just before) a new round of presidential primaries and caucuses. 

In other words, they often come too late. So in Cottle's defense, at least her call for reform is coming at a time in which it may actually matter: before the national parties set their rules for the upcoming cycle. Granted, FHQ's defense of the piece only goes about that far. Much of it leans on a sort of Green Lantern theory of presidential nomination reform. If only the interested players tried a bit harder, then all the ills of the process would be gone. But that theory and this piece ignore the realities of reform. 

If it was as easy to change the process as it is made out there, then certainly things would have changed by now, nearly half a century into the post-reform era. But those rules do not change with ease. They are and the presidential nomination process is a tremendous collective action problem for the parties. And while consensus may (or may not) exist to make changes, agreeing to what those tweaks will be is a much more difficult enterprise when considering the mix of interests involved: the national parties, the state parties, the state governments, the candidates and their proxies on rules-making bodies. Getting enough of those groups on the same page is tough enough in the abstract, but the climb is steeper still when the politics of any given moment intersect with the process. 

Now may be one of those times when the moment is right for change. Iowa Democrats bungled their caucuses in 2020. Neither primary or caucus electorate in Iowa nor New Hampshire matches well with the current constituency of the broader Democratic Party coalition of the moment. And there seems to be a willing candidate to fill their void on the primary calendar. Maybe the stars will align. However, missteps may scuttle any potential for change. Nevada Democrats may be at some risk of overplaying their hand. The conditions are right, but the provocative nature of their January primary bill may complicate its efforts, riling up not only New Hampshire as Cottle points out, but also the national party.

And that is what often gets lost in these primary reform prescriptions that pop up every four years. They can raise the ills of any given process, but often fail in considering the process for bringing about such a change. 

Take Cottle's consideration of caucuses in 2020. Caucuses are not new, nor are the problems associated with them. She notes that "caucuses are a convoluted, vaguely anti-democratic way to pick a nominee," and that "the Democratic National Committee urged the state parties to shift to primaries." The DNC did and as Cottle mentioned, most states responded. This was quietly a big deal for the DNC. It was a rules change that worked and worked really well. It was not a new directive from the national party to hold primaries because some states -- Kansas, for example -- are controlled by the Republican Party on the state level and were not open to establishing a primary. In fact, after years of caucusing in the face of unfunded (and ultimately cancelled) primaries, Republicans in the Sunflower states eliminated the primary option once and for all in 2015.

But even most states in that bind adapted. Most adopted party-run primary systems that had early and mail-in options for those seeking to participate in the process. Sure, the national party would prefer state government-run primaries, but lacking that alternative in some states produced something of a laboratory for innovative party-run primary plans. Best practices derived from those states may serve as a call to action in states like Iowa where there, for now, continue to be caucuses. But Iowa is also a state where the Republican Party is calling the shots in state government. There is the delicate balance to tread with New Hampshire, but there are some success stories from the 2020 cycle that should be celebrated rather than barely mentioned. Often it is those incremental changes that prove the most consequential. 

 

In the end, however, other changes -- like those to the beginning of calendar -- are tougher. Not impossible, but difficult. And it will take more than "the national party seiz[ing] the opportunity to shake even harder, reforming a system that’s increasingly out of touch with voters." It will take the national party working with interests on the ground in the states to make it happen. And as the last fifty years have shown, that is easier said than done. 

Recent posts: 

The Week the Calendar Wars Heated Up

Early Signs: Nebraska Electoral Vote Allocation Likely to Stay the Same

Why Can't Nevada Just Replicate New Hampshire's Calendar Strategy?

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook or subscribe by Email.

See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies.    

#InvisiblePrimary: Visible -- Biden Running for Re-election

Four years after President Trump immediately upon being inaugurated filed to run for re-election in 2020, surrogates of President Biden took a verbal although not formal step in the same direction. 

Senator Chris Coons (D), the newly inaugurated president's fellow Delawarean, let Politico know very simply that, "He is planning to run again."

Now, part or perhaps all of this feels obligatory. No president wants to kick off his or her term as a lame duck. That gives both Congress and the bureaucracy license to dig in over time and resist or obstruct changes both big and small. This move, then, heads that off, albeit likely only temporarily. 

It also holds at bay other prospective Democrats waiting in the wings. That group, including the newly installed vice president, now has to take an even more wait-and-see approach to any possible 2024 run for the Democratic nomination. But unlike Congress and the bureaucratic end of the executive branch, those potential candidates still have time. And while there may be a flurry of early activity on the rules side for 2024 among Democrats, the majority of visible invisible primary activity is going to continue to occur among the Republicans who are likely to seek the party's nomination in likely just two years time. 

So candidate emergence, to the extent it is going to continue happening as 2024 slowly approaches is going to be a mostly Republican action. 

Recent posts: 

A Few Notes on the 2024 Presidential Primary Calendar

One of Biden's Magic Numbers is Now a Little Different

No, not among pledged delegates.

Former Vice President Joe Biden clinched the Democratic presidential nomination over the weekend, surpassing the 1991 pledged delegates necessary to reach a majority. But with nearly one-fifth of all delegates yet to be allocated in the remaining contests, it remains to be seen whether Biden will earn enough pledged delegates and open the door to superdelegate participation in the presidential nomination roll call vote during the national convention.

To do that the presumptive Democratic nominee would have to be allocated a majority of all delegates (in pledged delegates). That way superdelegates would be unable to overturn a tight pledged delegate majority -- one that does not exist in 2020 -- if the group voted as a bloc. But again, that will not be necessary in 2020. Biden has a wide enough pledged delegate lead to have clinched the nomination by the pledged delegate method. The only question left outstanding is whether he will win enough delegates to allow superdelegate participation on the first ballot.

Biden is on pace to do that, but that number -- the majority of all delegates -- has changed during primary season. Appendix B to the Call for the Convention had the number of superdelegates at 771 at the end of 2019. For the 2020 cycle, however, the secretary of the Democratic National Committee had to certify the number of superdelegates to each state party by March 6, 2020 under Rule 9 of the 2020 delegate selection rules.

That subsequent certification adjusted the number of superdelegates in 23 states and territories. And those changes ranged from an addition of four (4) superdelegates in New York to a loss of two (2) superdelegates in three jurisdictions (District of Columbia, Illinois and Oregon).


Although, in the aggregate, the changes across all 23 states and territories largely cancelled each other out. There ended up being three more delegates added from states than subtracted. And that increases not only the number of superdelegates to 774, but slightly raises the magic number of all delegates Biden would have to win in order to allow superdelegates into the roll call voting at the convention.

So, instead of that number being 2376 delegates, Biden will have to get to 2378 pledged delegates to trigger the superdelegate voting privileges. No, that is unlikely to be too high a bar for the former vice president to clear. But it is a change.

When Will Biden Clinch? It Depends.

Any guess on what date he pushes it over the finish line, @FHQ? My guess is Georgia and West Virginia on June 9th.

— Matt Cypher (@MLCypher) May 15, 2020

There is certainly an argument out there that Biden wrapped up the Democratic presidential nomination back on April 8 -- the day after the Wisconsin primary -- when Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign. The former vice president shifted from being the presumptive presumptive nominee to the presumptive nominee then.

And an argument can be made that the trajectory of Biden's delegate math made that obvious on many of the Tuesdays throughout March. But trajectory is one thing as is the fact that all of the remaining viable candidates other than Biden pulled out of the race for the Democratic nomination. However, crossing over the requisite 1991 pledged delegates to become the nominee is another thing altogether. As of now, Biden is just shy of 1500 delegates and needs around 38 percent of the delegates available in the remaining states with contests to surpass that threshold. Given how the primaries and caucuses have gone since Sanders dropped out of the race and endorsed Biden, that will not prove to be too heavy a lift.

But when will Biden hit and pass 1991?

It depends.

One thing that can be said is that it will not be in May. There are just two more contests -- Oregon and Hawaii next week -- and just 95 delegates to be allocated before the end of the month. June 2 offers both more contests and 479 more delegates. But even then, it would be a bit of a stretch for Biden to get to 1991 by then.

Again, it depends. If one looks at the contests that there are results for since April 8 when Sanders suspended his campaign -- Alaska, Wyoming, Ohio, Kansas and Nebraska -- they paint a certain picture, one where Biden gets almost 74 percent of the qualified vote on average. And if Biden receives around three-quarters of the delegates in future primaries and caucuses, then he will just barely eclipse the 1991 delegate barrier on June 9 when Georgia and West Virginia hold primaries.

Yet, that is something of a rough estimate. It assumes that congressional district delegate allocation will mirror statewide delegate allocation and that may or may not be the case. But that potential variation across congressional districts may end up pushing Biden's magic number clinching point deeper into the delayed primary calendar.

Another variable that may influence when that point occurs is the nature of the small sample of contests that have happened since Sanders's exit from the race. Three of those five contests were in party-run primary or caucus states (Alaska, Wyoming and Kansas). No, that party-run part does not matter to the math going forward, but that all three used ranked-choice voting does. The redistribution of votes in those contests inflates the qualified share of support that both Biden and Sanders received. As a result, the average qualified share used in arriving at the June 9 target date for clinching cited above may be a bit more generous to Sanders than to Biden. After all, much of the voting in the April 10 Alaska party-run primary took place by mail before Sanders dropped out on April 8. The 45 percent Sanders received may not exactly be representative of the share he has gotten and will get in future contests.

If one looks at the other two contests -- Ohio and Nebraska -- then it is clear that Sanders is very much flirting with the threshold to qualify for delegates. And if Nebraska is the new normal -- a state where Sanders failed to qualify for delegates either statewide or in any of the three congressional districts -- then that would speed up Biden's journey to 1991. Were Biden to receive all of the delegates available -- assuming he is the only candidate qualifying for delegates -- then he would easily surpass 1991 on Super Junesday, June 2.

But how the allocation goes between now and the end of primary season will likely be something in between those two extremes: 1) Sanders receiving about a quarter of the qualified vote and 2) Biden being the only qualifying candidate. Of course, there are not that many contests nor delegates at stake between June 2 and June 9. The caucuses in the Virgin Islands fall on June 6, but there are just seven delegates on the line there.

Look, the bottom line is the one where this discussion started: Biden will be the nominee. The question is when he more officially becomes the presumptive nominee in the delegate count. The above is a rough guide. One thing that can be said is that even if one follows the Sanders-generous extreme above -- the one where the Vermont senator receives about a quarter of the delegates -- then Biden will by the end of primary season have enough pledged delegates in his column to allow superdelegates participate on the first ballot roll call vote at the national convention. That is, of course, assuming the current rules remain the same when the convention Rules Committee adopts rules for the convention.

What's to Know About the Statewide Delegate Reallocation Process So Far? There's not much to go on, but...

Earlier on Thursday, April 30, both the Biden campaign and the suspended Sanders campaign jointly announced that both had struck a deal to allow Sanders to keep his statewide delegates. Under the Democratic National Committee delegate selection rules, any candidate no longer running for the nomination is to lose any statewide delegates -- at-large and PLEO delegates allocated based on statewide results -- to any candidates who are still in the race and originally received at least 15 percent of the vote statewide.

The agreement made between the two campaigns would continue to follow the letter of the rule. Delegates will still be allocated -- or reallocated as the case may be -- to Biden after a primary's or caucus's results come in. However, at the time of selection statewide delegate slots in a proportion corresponding to any qualified share of the vote Sanders received (presumably over 15 percent) would be filled by Sanders-aligned delegate candidates. That has the effect of keeping the overarching reallocation rule intact for this and future cycles, but places the onus on state parties to select delegates in accordance with the statewide results in their states' contests.

--
FHQ will have more on this in a later post, but for now wanted to more closely examine the reallocation process that has occurred so far. Admittedly, it does not amount to much and the coronavirus has decreased the activity even further. Under the original state-level delegate selection plans, nine states would have selected statewide delegates by the end of April. Those nine states would have made up just under 13 percent of the total statewide delegates. But again, the coronavirus pandemic has intervened, disrupting the plans state parties laid out and had approved by the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee. Of those nine states, five state parties in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Oklahoma and Tennessee shifted their statewide delegate selection to later dates in May and June.

That leaves just four states that have actually conducted delegate selection through the end of April.¹ And those four states -- Colorado (April 18 virtual state convention), New Hampshire (April 25 virtual state convention), North Dakota (March 21 virtual state convention) and Utah (April 25 virtual state convention) -- comprise just more than 3 percent of the total number of statewide delegates allocated and selected.

That is not much of a sample and it certainly is not all that representative of how the overall reallocation process will work in other states. North Dakota, for example, held its party-run primary after the race had winnowed to just Biden and Sanders, and then selected statewide delegates before Sanders suspended his campaign on April 8. That meant that Sanders was allocated delegates and had those slots filled with Sanders-aligned supporters before the Vermont senator was out of the race. Those delegates cannot be reallocated.

Moreover, in New Hampshire where statewide delegates were selected this past weekend, there were no candidates still in the race who got more than 15 percent in the February 11 primary and thus no one to whom to reallocate any delegates. Those eight delegates were split among the candidates who originally cleared the 15 percent threshold but who are no longer in the race (Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Sanders). In other words, there was no explicit reallocation of delegates among Granite state Democrats either. It was impossible.

That leaves just Colorado and Utah where only 33 statewide delegates (roughly 2 percent of the total) were at stake. Both also saw multiple candidates clear 15 percent on Super Tuesday. Bloomberg and Warren joined Biden and Sanders over 15 percent in both contests. Colorado Democrats throughout the primary season winnowing process have provided a real-time reallocation tally of its statewide delegates. The party shows Biden as the sole qualifier for statewide delegates, but has yet to release a list of statewide delegates selected ("coming soon" according to this site).

Similarly, in Utah, Democrats there have yet to release a list of statewide delegates selected on April 25. Biden delegate candidates dominated the list of candidates, but it is unclear what the results were in the Beehive state and what the reallocation and selection there looks like.

The take home message here is that there has not been a lot of actual statewide delegate reallocation and/or selection yet. This deal between the Biden and Sanders campaigns, then, comes at a good time. Statewide delegate slots will be reallocated to Biden, but will be filled Sanders delegate candidates where the Vermont senator receives more than 15 percent statewide. And selection has yet to take place for nearly 97 percent of statewide delegates.

That process has yet to really get off the ground yet.


--
¹ This excludes American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands which selected territory-wide delegates in March in conjunction with their caucuses. Between them, both territories account for just 12 total at-large delegates.