The 2020 Democratic presidential nomination process is far enough into the invisible primary now that contested convention stories are popping up at a pretty brisk pace. FHQ is not quite to the point of saying another day, another contested convention story, but we may not be that far off either.
But rather than take the latest one from Cameron Joseph over at Vice News and poke holes in it, I will take a different approach and ask a different question: How much longer should we the politically attentive public expect to deal with the quadrennial rite of contested convention speculation?
There are a variety of ways to look at this, but FHQ will take something of an indirect approach. Both events in primary season and media reactions to those events help to drive attention toward the possibility of a contested convention. So let's turn to the Google Trends data from the last three presidential election cycles, the three for which full data is available.1 Rather than squeeze the full time series into one figure FHQ will break it into cycles, covering the trendlines for "contested convention," "brokered convention," and "open convention" from January 1 in the year prior to the presidential election year to January 1 of the year after the presidential election has occurred.
One thing is obvious from the figures below right off the bat: The term brokered convention remains the most used term for an unresolved nomination race at the convention stage.
2016
During the 2016 cycle, brokered conventions reached its search height during the first week in March, the week on which Super Tuesday fell during that cycle, and then trailed off thereafter. There was a surge in contested convention searches two weeks later during the mini-Super Tuesday that formed right as the proportionality window in the Republican nomination process closed, allowing state parties to allocate their delegates in a winner-take-all manner if they so chose. But again, that was the peak and it dropped off after that point. Certainly questions lingered as to whether either party's nomination race would remain unresolved for a prolonged period after Super Tuesday, but the searches petered out for the most part.
2012
There is a fairly similar pattern that developed during 2012 as well. The primary calendar was a bit more elongated in 2012 relative to 2016. Florida again jumped into January and forced three-quarters of the carve-out states to follow suit. But that left a significant lull in activity through the bulk of February. But the peak in brokered convention searches falls in a window that includes Super Tuesday (the first Tuesday in March) and extends to and through the following week. That second Tuesday in March featured a couple of competitive southern contests in Alabama and Mississippi that seemed like openings for Santorum and/or Gingrich to challenge Romney, but those opportunities were largely missed (in the delegate count).
2008
Finally, in 2008 a familiar pattern is again observed. Sure, Super Tuesday was a month earlier during that cycle compared to either 2012 or 2016, but it still represented the point of peak brokered convention searches.
That repeated pattern -- a Super Tuesday peak -- suggests a few things. First, this seems to have more to do with the calendar -- the collection of contests on Super Tuesday -- than say the number of delegates allocated by a certain point on the calendar. I say that because there was wide variation in the number of delegates allocated on or before Super Tuesday. It ranged from a high of 83 percent of the delegates allocated by the time Super Tuesday was over in 2008 in the Democratic process to a low of a little more than 25 percent once Super Tuesday was completed in the Democratic process of 2016.
Second, just because searches for brokered or contested or open conventions drop off after Super Tuesday, does not mean they (nor the stories and/or events that drive them) cease altogether. But the bulk of this is yet to come for 2020. The occasional contested convention story may come up as the Vice News story did yesterday, but they largely fall on deaf ears. Most just are not paying attention yet. There may be a mini surge of searches during particular junctures in the invisible primary, but those tend to pale in comparison to the peak of searches that seemingly tend to fall at or around Super Tuesday each cycle.
That finally appears to suggest that if 2020 follows the same pattern, the Democratic nominee may not yet be known, but that the process will be on the way to an answer by around Super Tuesday. And if a multi-way race persists to and through that point on the calendar, then we may not reach the height of 2020 brokered convention searches until later in the calendar.
But FHQ is not willing to make that bet just yet.
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1 Google Trends stretches back into 2004, but not far enough to encompass the Democratic presidential primaries.
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Showing posts with label Democratic nomination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Democratic nomination. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Monday, January 21, 2019
#InvisiblePrimary: Visible -- How the 2020 Endorsement Primary Will Be Different
Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the movements during the days that recently were...
It is not going too far out on a limb to say that any one aspect of a presidential nomination cycle is or will be different than it was in previous cycles. That is and has been the nature of the process in the post-reform era. Rules change. Candidates change. Conditions change.
2020, then, is not exactly like 2016 in the same way that 2016 was not a carbon copy, at least on the Democratic side, of 2008.
One area where 2020 will differ from 2016 is in how candidates running for 2020 accrue endorsements along the way. Much has been made of the rules changes the Democratic National Committee made with respect to superdelegates. That group of unplugged delegates was not eliminated, but their collective voting power at the national convention was curbed to some degree. However, left untouched by the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee was the ability of individual superdelegates to endorse candidates vying for the 2020 nomination.
In that way, superdelegates could play much the same role in 2020 that they have in previous cycles.
But the conditions of 2020 may augur against that. For one thing, there are far more candidates who are seemingly running this time around than four years ago. And there is also no clear frontrunner at this point in 2020 as there was in 2016. The clarity of Clinton's status was buttressed by the endorsements she had. At a similar point in 2015, the former secretary of state had 62 high profile endorsements. And that was before she had announced her bid.
No one candidate for 2020, announced or not, has anything approaching that level of institutional support. Joe Biden's name has been invoked by California senior senator, Diane Feinstein, and New York governor, Andrew Cuomo. And while that may be significant given that folks from those two states -- Harris from the Golden state and Gillibrand from the Empire state -- are running, the total falls far short of Clinton's from four years ago (if one can even consider those full-throated endorsements for Biden at all).
Again, however, with a larger field of candidates and no clear frontrunner, some of that is to be expected. But there may also be other forces at work here that are worthy of further consideration.
One that has been mentioned in light of the 2016 controversy over superdelegates and resulting rules changes that stemmed from that is that some elected officials in the position to endorse may opt to wait as others have in the past until after their constituents have voted (or all of the voting is complete). In some way, superdelegate decision making on the endorsement question is like that of the calculus that big money donors are facing now: wait for the dust to settle a bit and then weigh in.
Yet, the extent to which superdelegates may be frozen out of making an endorsement goes beyond that which donors are encountering. Some may be waiting on a signal rather than more actively/forcefully giving one; a reverse of the causal relationship noted in Cohen, et al. in The Party Decides.
Another aspect of this that I have not seen picked up on to this point is the reduced potential for high profile endorsements this cycle as (unfairly?) compared to the far less wide open 2016 cycle. And what I mean by that is there are already a fair number of superdelegates who are vying for the Democratic nomination in 2020. On a basic level, then, there are just fewer superdelegates to provide endorsements. Elizabeth Warren is not going to endorse Cory Booker anymore than Kamala Harris is going to throw her support behind Jay Inslee.
...at this time.
This, too, to some hypothetical extent has a freezing effect on other high profile would-be endorsers. Why support someone now only to see them withdraw from the race in the coming months? Why endorse a colleague/ally now over another colleague/ally?
In other words, there is a timing element to layer into this decision-making framework. The confluence of everything above may -- may -- give less incentive to early endorsements, but really increase the likelihood (and impact?) of later endorsements once the field has winnowed some and some of these superdelegates are culled from the pack.
In the meantime, there may be other endorsements to fill the void: state legislators. They may not meaningful on an individual endorsement basis, but in the aggregate may give us an idea of which candidates have some institutional support on the state level. And that may, in turn, influence where some of the heavier endorsement hitters wind up in the end.
--
Elsewhere in the invisible primary...
1. Add Kamala Harris to the list. The California senator is officially in and not just exploratory committee in -- like Castro, Gillibrand or Warren -- but in in.
2. Brown's PAC continues to add staff in Iowa.
3. Recent speeches are giving the potential Larry Hogan challenge of the president for the Republican nomination some steam.
4. If his was a run *for* 2020, it was a very half-hearted run from Bob Casey that is now over. It never really got beyond the "I won't close the door on it"/"I'm thinking about it" stage.
5. Booker gets encouragement to run while in Louisiana and Georgia on his trips through the states on the way to South Carolina on the MLK holiday.
6. New Hampshire got a visit from Warren for the second consecutive weekend, and South Carolina will see her there this week.
7. Howard Schultz and his advisers floating the idea of an independent bid seemingly indicates an awful lot about how things are going for him in the Democratic invisible primary.
8. There were no endorsements, but one would rather have potentially influential Iowa Democrats at a speech during a first trip to the Hawkeye state than not. Gillibrand had the state party chair and 2018 Democratic for secretary of state stop in.
9. Both Gillibrand and Harris are touting widely distributed fundraising successes following their presidential announcements.
10. Swalwell's Palmetto pitstop over the weekend gave a bit more of a glimpse into his thinking on a run.
11. Finally, Elaine Kamarck has a solid piece on the 2020 rules and the Democratic nomination. The only omission is some of the superdelegates/endorsements-related implications which were more controversial in 2016 and were not affected, at least not directly, by the changes for 2020.
Has FHQ missed something you feel should be included? Drop us a line or a comment and we'll make room for it.
It is not going too far out on a limb to say that any one aspect of a presidential nomination cycle is or will be different than it was in previous cycles. That is and has been the nature of the process in the post-reform era. Rules change. Candidates change. Conditions change.
2020, then, is not exactly like 2016 in the same way that 2016 was not a carbon copy, at least on the Democratic side, of 2008.
One area where 2020 will differ from 2016 is in how candidates running for 2020 accrue endorsements along the way. Much has been made of the rules changes the Democratic National Committee made with respect to superdelegates. That group of unplugged delegates was not eliminated, but their collective voting power at the national convention was curbed to some degree. However, left untouched by the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee was the ability of individual superdelegates to endorse candidates vying for the 2020 nomination.
In that way, superdelegates could play much the same role in 2020 that they have in previous cycles.
But the conditions of 2020 may augur against that. For one thing, there are far more candidates who are seemingly running this time around than four years ago. And there is also no clear frontrunner at this point in 2020 as there was in 2016. The clarity of Clinton's status was buttressed by the endorsements she had. At a similar point in 2015, the former secretary of state had 62 high profile endorsements. And that was before she had announced her bid.
No one candidate for 2020, announced or not, has anything approaching that level of institutional support. Joe Biden's name has been invoked by California senior senator, Diane Feinstein, and New York governor, Andrew Cuomo. And while that may be significant given that folks from those two states -- Harris from the Golden state and Gillibrand from the Empire state -- are running, the total falls far short of Clinton's from four years ago (if one can even consider those full-throated endorsements for Biden at all).
Again, however, with a larger field of candidates and no clear frontrunner, some of that is to be expected. But there may also be other forces at work here that are worthy of further consideration.
One that has been mentioned in light of the 2016 controversy over superdelegates and resulting rules changes that stemmed from that is that some elected officials in the position to endorse may opt to wait as others have in the past until after their constituents have voted (or all of the voting is complete). In some way, superdelegate decision making on the endorsement question is like that of the calculus that big money donors are facing now: wait for the dust to settle a bit and then weigh in.
Yet, the extent to which superdelegates may be frozen out of making an endorsement goes beyond that which donors are encountering. Some may be waiting on a signal rather than more actively/forcefully giving one; a reverse of the causal relationship noted in Cohen, et al. in The Party Decides.
Another aspect of this that I have not seen picked up on to this point is the reduced potential for high profile endorsements this cycle as (unfairly?) compared to the far less wide open 2016 cycle. And what I mean by that is there are already a fair number of superdelegates who are vying for the Democratic nomination in 2020. On a basic level, then, there are just fewer superdelegates to provide endorsements. Elizabeth Warren is not going to endorse Cory Booker anymore than Kamala Harris is going to throw her support behind Jay Inslee.
...at this time.
This, too, to some hypothetical extent has a freezing effect on other high profile would-be endorsers. Why support someone now only to see them withdraw from the race in the coming months? Why endorse a colleague/ally now over another colleague/ally?
In other words, there is a timing element to layer into this decision-making framework. The confluence of everything above may -- may -- give less incentive to early endorsements, but really increase the likelihood (and impact?) of later endorsements once the field has winnowed some and some of these superdelegates are culled from the pack.
In the meantime, there may be other endorsements to fill the void: state legislators. They may not meaningful on an individual endorsement basis, but in the aggregate may give us an idea of which candidates have some institutional support on the state level. And that may, in turn, influence where some of the heavier endorsement hitters wind up in the end.
--
Elsewhere in the invisible primary...
1. Add Kamala Harris to the list. The California senator is officially in and not just exploratory committee in -- like Castro, Gillibrand or Warren -- but in in.
2. Brown's PAC continues to add staff in Iowa.
3. Recent speeches are giving the potential Larry Hogan challenge of the president for the Republican nomination some steam.
4. If his was a run *for* 2020, it was a very half-hearted run from Bob Casey that is now over. It never really got beyond the "I won't close the door on it"/"I'm thinking about it" stage.
5. Booker gets encouragement to run while in Louisiana and Georgia on his trips through the states on the way to South Carolina on the MLK holiday.
6. New Hampshire got a visit from Warren for the second consecutive weekend, and South Carolina will see her there this week.
7. Howard Schultz and his advisers floating the idea of an independent bid seemingly indicates an awful lot about how things are going for him in the Democratic invisible primary.
8. There were no endorsements, but one would rather have potentially influential Iowa Democrats at a speech during a first trip to the Hawkeye state than not. Gillibrand had the state party chair and 2018 Democratic for secretary of state stop in.
9. Both Gillibrand and Harris are touting widely distributed fundraising successes following their presidential announcements.
10. Swalwell's Palmetto pitstop over the weekend gave a bit more of a glimpse into his thinking on a run.
11. Finally, Elaine Kamarck has a solid piece on the 2020 rules and the Democratic nomination. The only omission is some of the superdelegates/endorsements-related implications which were more controversial in 2016 and were not affected, at least not directly, by the changes for 2020.
Has FHQ missed something you feel should be included? Drop us a line or a comment and we'll make room for it.
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
#InvisiblePrimary: Visible -- California, Early Voting, and the 2020 Rules
Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the movements during the day that was...
As 2018 came to a close a second wave of folks seemed to be getting in their two cents about the impact of the three month shift of the California presidential primary on the 2020 calendar.1
And it is not a move that is without import. While California pairing with Texas (among others) on Super Tuesday is a new wrinkle for 2020, frontloaded primary calendars with California on the heels of the earliest states are not. California was part of the logjam on the first Tuesday in March in 2000, and similarly just a month behind Iowa kicking things off on the 2008 calendar.
Of course, the dynamics of each of those races were different. Each cycle is always different in some way from its predecessors.2 The 2000 cycle saw fields of candidates on both sides that were comparatively small. And in 2008, California was early on a de facto national primary date, but other states -- Florida and Michigan -- sought to push even more directly into the early calendar territory Iowa and New Hampshire.
But maybe 2020 is when the stars align for a California primary move to be of consequence. Perhaps, but 2019 has already witnessed no lack of 2020 candidate maneuvering. And the attention, at least to this point, seems to be in the usual directions: toward the earliest states.
Yes, there is still time for that to change.
In fact, the increase in early voting in the Golden state and the stretch of that window of convenience voting to a point on the calendar in line with the caucuses in Iowa may be enough to alter the equation. It is that reality that has driven much of the renewed discourse about the California primary and 2020.
Some have argued that the implications of the California primary move coupled with that Iowa-aligned early voting start means that the Golden state cannot be ignored. If that is even partly true, then it will likely serve as an extension of the frontloaded calendars cited above. To be successful, candidates have to have the resources to plan for a crowded Super Tuesday, and in 2020, an early vote GOTV effort in the state. Both have winnowing possibilities layered into them.
Still others have made the case that a largely unwinnowed, or lightly winnowed, field entering into a month-long California primary voting window may lead to a fractious split of a large cache of delegates, raising the likelihood of an inconclusive outcome to primary season.
FHQ would submit another scenario altogether, a rather counterintuitive one.
Those rooting most heavily for a still crowded field by the time California rolls around in 2020 are those with some nominal frontrunner status, those with some experience winning statewide in the Golden state, or those with some combination of the two. The more crowded it is, the less likely it is that some number of candidates clears the 15 percent threshold to qualify for delegates in (each of the 55 races for delegates in) California.3
The fewer candidates that crest above 15 percent, the greater the delegate prize California would be to those who do. Bear in mind that, despite the fact that winnowing was slow in 2016 in a crowded Republican nomination race, no primary or caucus saw any more than three candidates receive 15 percent or more of the vote.
And hey, if it is crowded enough in the California results, then California could become a very big prize indeed. If early voting is great enough and distributes the votes in a way that only one candidate clears that threshold (in all 53 jurisdictions), then California becomes a winner-take-all affair.
Advantage: winner.
But it is early yet and the winnowing has only really just begun.
--
Elsewhere in the invisible primary...
1. Sanders is heading to the Palmetto state to speak at the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Rally.
2. Later this month Bloomberg will be in Virginia to speak to the Democratic Business Council. This one is more preaching to the choir than broadening any likely coalition of the former New York mayor's.
3. In Iowa today, Steyer is going to announce something. What can one announce in the Hawkeye state?
4. Speaking of announcements, Castro is building up to his own later this week. Yesterday he was in Iowa pledging to shun PAC money and in Nevada reaching out to the Latino community.
5. Meanwhile, Draft Beto stretches into Nevada and California with new hires in an attempt to pull the former Texas congressman into the 2020 race.
6. Finally, Harris has an entry for the 2020 Book Primary.
Has FHQ missed something you feel should be included? Drop us a line or a comment and we'll make room for it.
--
1 Second wave because there was an initial round back in 2017 when the California legislature pushed the presidential primary in the Golden state up.
2 That is the reason that even small rules changes can yield large impacts (or alternatively, be amplified by differing dynamics).
3 There will be 55 contests for delegates nestled in the broader California primary. Allocations of at-large and party leader and elected official (PLEO) delegates will be based on the statewide results, while the results in each of the 53 congressional districts will determine how the varying numbers of congressional district delegates will be allocated.
As 2018 came to a close a second wave of folks seemed to be getting in their two cents about the impact of the three month shift of the California presidential primary on the 2020 calendar.1
And it is not a move that is without import. While California pairing with Texas (among others) on Super Tuesday is a new wrinkle for 2020, frontloaded primary calendars with California on the heels of the earliest states are not. California was part of the logjam on the first Tuesday in March in 2000, and similarly just a month behind Iowa kicking things off on the 2008 calendar.
Of course, the dynamics of each of those races were different. Each cycle is always different in some way from its predecessors.2 The 2000 cycle saw fields of candidates on both sides that were comparatively small. And in 2008, California was early on a de facto national primary date, but other states -- Florida and Michigan -- sought to push even more directly into the early calendar territory Iowa and New Hampshire.
But maybe 2020 is when the stars align for a California primary move to be of consequence. Perhaps, but 2019 has already witnessed no lack of 2020 candidate maneuvering. And the attention, at least to this point, seems to be in the usual directions: toward the earliest states.
Yes, there is still time for that to change.
In fact, the increase in early voting in the Golden state and the stretch of that window of convenience voting to a point on the calendar in line with the caucuses in Iowa may be enough to alter the equation. It is that reality that has driven much of the renewed discourse about the California primary and 2020.
Some have argued that the implications of the California primary move coupled with that Iowa-aligned early voting start means that the Golden state cannot be ignored. If that is even partly true, then it will likely serve as an extension of the frontloaded calendars cited above. To be successful, candidates have to have the resources to plan for a crowded Super Tuesday, and in 2020, an early vote GOTV effort in the state. Both have winnowing possibilities layered into them.
Still others have made the case that a largely unwinnowed, or lightly winnowed, field entering into a month-long California primary voting window may lead to a fractious split of a large cache of delegates, raising the likelihood of an inconclusive outcome to primary season.
FHQ would submit another scenario altogether, a rather counterintuitive one.
Those rooting most heavily for a still crowded field by the time California rolls around in 2020 are those with some nominal frontrunner status, those with some experience winning statewide in the Golden state, or those with some combination of the two. The more crowded it is, the less likely it is that some number of candidates clears the 15 percent threshold to qualify for delegates in (each of the 55 races for delegates in) California.3
The fewer candidates that crest above 15 percent, the greater the delegate prize California would be to those who do. Bear in mind that, despite the fact that winnowing was slow in 2016 in a crowded Republican nomination race, no primary or caucus saw any more than three candidates receive 15 percent or more of the vote.
And hey, if it is crowded enough in the California results, then California could become a very big prize indeed. If early voting is great enough and distributes the votes in a way that only one candidate clears that threshold (in all 53 jurisdictions), then California becomes a winner-take-all affair.
Advantage: winner.
But it is early yet and the winnowing has only really just begun.
--
Elsewhere in the invisible primary...
1. Sanders is heading to the Palmetto state to speak at the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Rally.
2. Later this month Bloomberg will be in Virginia to speak to the Democratic Business Council. This one is more preaching to the choir than broadening any likely coalition of the former New York mayor's.
3. In Iowa today, Steyer is going to announce something. What can one announce in the Hawkeye state?
4. Speaking of announcements, Castro is building up to his own later this week. Yesterday he was in Iowa pledging to shun PAC money and in Nevada reaching out to the Latino community.
5. Meanwhile, Draft Beto stretches into Nevada and California with new hires in an attempt to pull the former Texas congressman into the 2020 race.
6. Finally, Harris has an entry for the 2020 Book Primary.
Has FHQ missed something you feel should be included? Drop us a line or a comment and we'll make room for it.
--
1 Second wave because there was an initial round back in 2017 when the California legislature pushed the presidential primary in the Golden state up.
2 That is the reason that even small rules changes can yield large impacts (or alternatively, be amplified by differing dynamics).
3 There will be 55 contests for delegates nestled in the broader California primary. Allocations of at-large and party leader and elected official (PLEO) delegates will be based on the statewide results, while the results in each of the 53 congressional districts will determine how the varying numbers of congressional district delegates will be allocated.
Monday, April 16, 2018
#InvisiblePrimary 2020: Uh oh Biden?
Over at Politico, Charlie Mahtesian has this to say about a prospective Biden candidacy for 2020:
"Joe Biden, who leads the Democratic 2020 presidential field in early polls, has all the markings of a front-runner. He possesses a sterling résumé, access to a donor base, name recognition and eight years of loyal service to a president who’s loved by the party base. There’s just one problem: He’s also a deeply flawed candidate who’s out of step with the mood of his party." [Emphasis is FHQ's]
That is just the opening, but Mahtesian goes on to count off the issues Biden may encounter in the lead up to and during 2020. The usual suspects are in there: age, some pre-#MeToo moment indiscretions that may look different in the current context, and a host of past Senate votes that may again spell trouble now that conditions are different in 2018-20.
And that all makes sense. Any or all of those things could derail a Biden run before it starts or some time after it is launched. But Mahtesian is potentially overstating the case here by not exactly detailing where it is that Biden could be in trouble. First, he aggregates the potential roadblocks, toggling back and forth between primary phase problems and general election setbacks. This is compounded by imperfect comparisons to 2016 and Hillary Clinton's troubles throughout that cycle (in both phases).
Age, for example, could be a problem for Biden in the primary phase. It is shaping up to be a crowded field with a number of younger alternatives. But millennials did not have trouble supporting an older candidate in 2016. Much of that had to do with the binary choice that most Democratic primary voters and caucusgoers had during the last cycle. Both options were older. That does not appear to be an issue for 2020. And candidate age may not be what is driving the decision-making of younger voters in the Democratic primary electorate.
During the general election phase, as Mahtesian notes, the age issue would be at least somewhat neutralized compared to another septuagenarian like Trump.
A similar dynamic exists across election phases when the focus shifts to how pre-#MeToo actions are perceived in a post-#MeToo world. That may affect Biden during a competitive Democratic nomination race, but compared to what? Compared to whom in the Democratic field? Additionally, perception of those actions is something that may resonate with a significant segment of the Democratic primary electorate: women. Female voters may opt for someone other than Biden because of that. They already have more options in 2018 than they did in 2014.
But again, during the general election phase, those perceptions of pre-#MeToo actions look different when compared to Trump, his past behavior, and past and present comments. Does that neutralize the issue? Is it a recipe for potentially depressing turnout to some degree among women (something that is much more likely to disproportionately affect Biden)?
In those two areas, Biden would potentially suffer more in the nominations phase. However, when Mahtesian shifts gears and begins to focus on Biden's past Senate votes on a number of issues, the exact nature of where -- primary or general -- the pain is felt fades into the ether. Each of those issues -- whether the 2005 bankruptcy bill or the 1994 crime bill -- affects specific constituencies within the Democratic primary electorate. Biden's positions were compared to Clinton's in 2016, but neither stood in the way of the latter claiming the Democratic nomination during the last cycle. Again, however, the field will be different -- more robust -- in 2020 than it was in 2016. Similar positioning by Biden for 2020 may affect his odds of winning the nomination, but, depending on how the large field winnows and who survives, the effects could vary from great to minimal.
Moreover, the contours of 2020 winnowing extend to the Connor Lamb-like "personally against but politically for" positioning on abortion rights when Mahtesian substitutes Tim Kaine for Hillary Clinton as the point of comparison to Biden. That may or may not be an issue for the former vice president. That depends upon to whom exactly he is compared. Across all of those issues, it may be a problem in the primaries, but less so in the general election.
Look, based on name recognition alone, Biden is at the top of list of potential 2020 Democratic nominees at the moment. That may change. It may not. Given how relatively early it is in the cycle and that the far too early to be meaningful polls are the most data-rich metric at this time, things are apt to change. Visits will be made to 2018 battlegrounds and 2020 early states. Campaign teams will be built. But any propensity for who is in that pole position to morph hinges on to whom Biden is compared. If one is to carry much of Mahtesian's comparison of between Clinton and Biden to its logical end -- Biden as the 2020 stand-in -- it will not be just Bernie Sanders on the other side this time. There will be others involved who will split the nascent Democratic primary electorate differently than in 2016 and impact the direction of that race through the invisible primary in much different ways.
That competition may undermine Biden's candidacy. But it may also be that it is too early to cast Biden as this cycle's Jeb Bush. There are warning signs there; similarities, sure. Yet it is not clear just how those "deep flaws" will filter through the patchwork of processes that determine presidential nominees. That gauntlet tends to produce broadly acceptable general election candidates, even ones with flaws.
But at this stage there are more questions than answers as to how another Biden foray into presidential nomination politics will play out.
Monday, March 12, 2018
Superdelegates and the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee: A Different Perspective After the Winter Meeting
The Democratic National Committee is coming off its 2018 winter meeting, a meeting that culminated with the acceptance of an interim report on the 2020 rules. That report followed continued discussions by the Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) in conjunction with the winter meeting and a previous preparatory RBC meeting just a week before. FHQ tuned in to both rounds of RBC discussions and continues to be struck by the framing of the rules discussions in media accounts. By far the most dominant lens through which those rules discussions are being viewed is the lingering Clinton-Sanders tensions in the broader party coalition.
And it is not that those depictions are wrong. Rather, it is that they are overly simplistic and have missed some important developments along the way that run against that frame. This phenomenon is at its most stark with respect to the party's efforts on superdelegates, the unpledged elected officials and party leaders that have periodically been controversial in Democratic presidential nomination politics.
On the surface, there is a group that wants to see superdelegates go and an opposing group that wants to maintain the status quo. And there also exists the aforementioned Clinton-Sanders divide left over from the 2016 race. These two cleavages in the party are often treated as reinforcing in the context of these 2020 rules discussions. And that is an easy conclusion at which to arrive: the Clinton/establishment faction wants to keep the current superdelegate system intact while the Sanders group would like to see them go.
However, there is growing evidence that that is just not the case; that those two divides do not buttress each other nearly so completely as is often described. For starters, for all of the chatter about the purge of loosely Sanders-aligned members of the RBC by DNC chair, Tom Perez, during and after the 2017 DNC fall meeting in Las Vegas, the committee has not exactly moved against the interests of the Sanders faction in the context of the 2020 rules discussions. The fear within that faction at the time and since was and has been that the RBC would ignore or dilute the recommendations of the Unity Reform Commission.
On the matter of superdelegates, neither has been the case. In fact, the RBC interim report to the DNC stated that the committee "agrees [with the Unity Reform Commission] that the Party must revise the role and reduce the perceived influence that automatic unpledged delegates have in the presidential nominating process." Furthermore, David McDonald, RBC member from Washington, summed up the committee work to this point quite well in observing that there is consensus on the RBC to make a change -- revise and reduce -- but not on the nature of the influence superdelegates have on the nomination process. In other words, at the very least, there is a perception problem with the current superdelegate system. That, too, was voiced by other members of the committee during the RBC session on superdelegates at the winter meeting.
Rather than a keep superdelegates/get rid of superdelegates divide, then, there is within the RBC a perception problem surrounding superdelegates. And that is less about stay or go or Clinton-Sanders and more about how to reduce the perceived role of those unpledged delegates in the Democratic nomination process.
That "how" question, and particularly the options that have been developed to address that how, cross-cut both of the other cleavages as well. Working from the Unity Reform Commission recommendations, the RBC hit something of a wall. This is something that has been missed in nearly all of the accounts of the two early March RBC meetings. Neither the pooled vote option nor the alternate vote option recommended by the Unity Reform Commission have been viewed by the RBC as wholly acceptable answers to the superdelegate problem.
The alternate vote option drew fire from state party chairs on the RBC for overly complicating the roles of both them and their parties in administering the delegate selection process. Another issue that arose from the discussion of the alternate vote option was the potential for forcing abstentions from superdelegates bound to candidates they do not support.
And the pooled vote option, while perhaps a more elegant option, saw pushback from members of the RBC over its automatic transmission of superdelegate votes to the state tally sheet, removing the need for an actual human to fill the delegate slot. As RBC member Elaine Kamarck remarked, if the party moves in that direction "why even have a convention at all."
Together, those criticisms moved the discussion in a different direction: eliminate the superdelegate votes on the first ballot for the presidential nomination. Elimination is a simpler solution relative to the intricacies of the alternate vote option. Additionally, it is, perhaps, a logical if not justifiable (to some) step beyond the pooled vote option. Eliminating superdelegate votes on the first ballot circumvents the non-voting problem for some but not all superdelegates by applying it to all superdelegates on a vote -- the first ballot -- that has settled every Democratic nomination since 1952.
Now, there are arguments on the merits against the elimination option, but FHQ will save that for a separate post. Suffice it to say, however, there are three main options that are before the RBC that can be roughly arranged from complicated (alternate vote option) to easy to explain. The need for the latter was made apparent during a nearly hourlong back and forth around the three ideas at the winter meeting RBC gathering. There is some desire within the group to not only devise a set of rules to address the superdelegate perception problem, but one that is easy to describe/more easily understood by the rank-and-file of the party.
And that is a different discussion than Clinton-Sanders. It involves that divide; it is influenced by it. But it is not the same cleavage. As this process moves forward, it might be best to bear that in mind. There are really three main cleavages to consider:
1) Clinton-Sanders (internal v. external):
Yes, the Clinton-Sanders divide remains a part of this discussion, but it is more a function of external pressure -- outside of the RBC1 -- weighing on the decisions of the group.
2) perception problem/status quo (balancing process v. legitimacy):
It is evident the RBC sees a perception problem and is seeking to deal with that. And it should be noted that past iterations of the group have dealt with similar assaults on the superdelegate system. There was a more robust defense of the system following its maiden voyage in 1984 that, nonetheless, led to alterations thereafter. And after the close 2008 nomination race, the committee also moved to revise the role of superdelegates.2 But the same perception problem existed throughout, bringing, at its worst, the legitimacy of their inclusion and the process into question. The RBC has been sensitive to those questions in its past tinkering. Yet, that superdelegates can but have not overturned the will of the primary/caucus voters through the era of their inclusion fuels the discontent with them even further. The RBC, then, seems willing to test the system with fewer unpledged delegates in 2020 than at any time since before 1984. That seems to be the consensus on the RBC and does not necessarily match the divide described in #1 above; not exactly in any event
3) options: eliminate on first vote, pooled vote, alternative vote (easy to complicated):
Finally, it is worth drilling down and focusing on the options the committee is considering. That way lies the functioning lines of demarcation on the RBC. This, too, overlaps some with both #1 and #2 above, but again, not perfectly. The bottom line here is over whether the answer to a complex problem can or should be parsimonious or demand further complex rules-making.
As the RBC, and ultimately the DNC, continue to work toward a resolution on superdelegate and other rules for the 2020 process, the above frames all should be considered and combine to give us a better picture of what is going on than repeatedly dipping back into the Clinton-Sanders well of explanations.
--
1 This is outside the RBC in terms of outside groups but also members of the DNC (those not on the RBC) who nonetheless want to see a curbing of if not end to the superdelegate role.
2 Add-on superdelegates were moved from unpledged to pledged and the total base number of delegates was raised from 3000 to 3700, reducing the percentage of superdelegates in the process.
And it is not that those depictions are wrong. Rather, it is that they are overly simplistic and have missed some important developments along the way that run against that frame. This phenomenon is at its most stark with respect to the party's efforts on superdelegates, the unpledged elected officials and party leaders that have periodically been controversial in Democratic presidential nomination politics.
On the surface, there is a group that wants to see superdelegates go and an opposing group that wants to maintain the status quo. And there also exists the aforementioned Clinton-Sanders divide left over from the 2016 race. These two cleavages in the party are often treated as reinforcing in the context of these 2020 rules discussions. And that is an easy conclusion at which to arrive: the Clinton/establishment faction wants to keep the current superdelegate system intact while the Sanders group would like to see them go.
However, there is growing evidence that that is just not the case; that those two divides do not buttress each other nearly so completely as is often described. For starters, for all of the chatter about the purge of loosely Sanders-aligned members of the RBC by DNC chair, Tom Perez, during and after the 2017 DNC fall meeting in Las Vegas, the committee has not exactly moved against the interests of the Sanders faction in the context of the 2020 rules discussions. The fear within that faction at the time and since was and has been that the RBC would ignore or dilute the recommendations of the Unity Reform Commission.
On the matter of superdelegates, neither has been the case. In fact, the RBC interim report to the DNC stated that the committee "agrees [with the Unity Reform Commission] that the Party must revise the role and reduce the perceived influence that automatic unpledged delegates have in the presidential nominating process." Furthermore, David McDonald, RBC member from Washington, summed up the committee work to this point quite well in observing that there is consensus on the RBC to make a change -- revise and reduce -- but not on the nature of the influence superdelegates have on the nomination process. In other words, at the very least, there is a perception problem with the current superdelegate system. That, too, was voiced by other members of the committee during the RBC session on superdelegates at the winter meeting.
Rather than a keep superdelegates/get rid of superdelegates divide, then, there is within the RBC a perception problem surrounding superdelegates. And that is less about stay or go or Clinton-Sanders and more about how to reduce the perceived role of those unpledged delegates in the Democratic nomination process.
That "how" question, and particularly the options that have been developed to address that how, cross-cut both of the other cleavages as well. Working from the Unity Reform Commission recommendations, the RBC hit something of a wall. This is something that has been missed in nearly all of the accounts of the two early March RBC meetings. Neither the pooled vote option nor the alternate vote option recommended by the Unity Reform Commission have been viewed by the RBC as wholly acceptable answers to the superdelegate problem.
The alternate vote option drew fire from state party chairs on the RBC for overly complicating the roles of both them and their parties in administering the delegate selection process. Another issue that arose from the discussion of the alternate vote option was the potential for forcing abstentions from superdelegates bound to candidates they do not support.
And the pooled vote option, while perhaps a more elegant option, saw pushback from members of the RBC over its automatic transmission of superdelegate votes to the state tally sheet, removing the need for an actual human to fill the delegate slot. As RBC member Elaine Kamarck remarked, if the party moves in that direction "why even have a convention at all."
Together, those criticisms moved the discussion in a different direction: eliminate the superdelegate votes on the first ballot for the presidential nomination. Elimination is a simpler solution relative to the intricacies of the alternate vote option. Additionally, it is, perhaps, a logical if not justifiable (to some) step beyond the pooled vote option. Eliminating superdelegate votes on the first ballot circumvents the non-voting problem for some but not all superdelegates by applying it to all superdelegates on a vote -- the first ballot -- that has settled every Democratic nomination since 1952.
Now, there are arguments on the merits against the elimination option, but FHQ will save that for a separate post. Suffice it to say, however, there are three main options that are before the RBC that can be roughly arranged from complicated (alternate vote option) to easy to explain. The need for the latter was made apparent during a nearly hourlong back and forth around the three ideas at the winter meeting RBC gathering. There is some desire within the group to not only devise a set of rules to address the superdelegate perception problem, but one that is easy to describe/more easily understood by the rank-and-file of the party.
And that is a different discussion than Clinton-Sanders. It involves that divide; it is influenced by it. But it is not the same cleavage. As this process moves forward, it might be best to bear that in mind. There are really three main cleavages to consider:
1) Clinton-Sanders (internal v. external):
Yes, the Clinton-Sanders divide remains a part of this discussion, but it is more a function of external pressure -- outside of the RBC1 -- weighing on the decisions of the group.
2) perception problem/status quo (balancing process v. legitimacy):
It is evident the RBC sees a perception problem and is seeking to deal with that. And it should be noted that past iterations of the group have dealt with similar assaults on the superdelegate system. There was a more robust defense of the system following its maiden voyage in 1984 that, nonetheless, led to alterations thereafter. And after the close 2008 nomination race, the committee also moved to revise the role of superdelegates.2 But the same perception problem existed throughout, bringing, at its worst, the legitimacy of their inclusion and the process into question. The RBC has been sensitive to those questions in its past tinkering. Yet, that superdelegates can but have not overturned the will of the primary/caucus voters through the era of their inclusion fuels the discontent with them even further. The RBC, then, seems willing to test the system with fewer unpledged delegates in 2020 than at any time since before 1984. That seems to be the consensus on the RBC and does not necessarily match the divide described in #1 above; not exactly in any event
3) options: eliminate on first vote, pooled vote, alternative vote (easy to complicated):
Finally, it is worth drilling down and focusing on the options the committee is considering. That way lies the functioning lines of demarcation on the RBC. This, too, overlaps some with both #1 and #2 above, but again, not perfectly. The bottom line here is over whether the answer to a complex problem can or should be parsimonious or demand further complex rules-making.
As the RBC, and ultimately the DNC, continue to work toward a resolution on superdelegate and other rules for the 2020 process, the above frames all should be considered and combine to give us a better picture of what is going on than repeatedly dipping back into the Clinton-Sanders well of explanations.
--
1 This is outside the RBC in terms of outside groups but also members of the DNC (those not on the RBC) who nonetheless want to see a curbing of if not end to the superdelegate role.
2 Add-on superdelegates were moved from unpledged to pledged and the total base number of delegates was raised from 3000 to 3700, reducing the percentage of superdelegates in the process.
Friday, March 9, 2018
Skipping Early States, 2020 Edition
Edward-Isaac Dovere at Politico reports on the strategizing among the nascent campaign team in former Vice President Joe Biden's orbit:
The premise remains the same: pick a spot on the calendar/state contest where you are more likely to succeed, win then/there, and keep winning on the way to the nomination. Simple, right?
In reality, that has proven easier said, or maybe strategized, than done. It did not go as planned when Al Gore focused on the Southern Super Tuesday states in 1988, and it did not work for Rudy Giuliani twenty years later when he attempted to resurrect a similar strategic path by putting everything on the late January Florida primary. Both campaigns foresaw their respective foci as springboards. Gore from a delegate haul in his home region that would give him enough of a lead to make it difficult for others to catch up. And Giuliani from a winner-take-all Florida win into a series of contests a week later when half the country would be voting.
Both lost.
Gore split the South with Michael Dukakis and Jesse Jackson, leaving behind his natural base of support and with no delegate advantage to show for it. Giuliani lost Florida to John McCain and the Arizona senator -- winner in New Hampshire and South Carolina -- used that series of wins to effectively wrap up the nomination a week after Florida on Super Tuesday.
Now, FHQ does not want to make too much of just two cases, but they are instructive with respect to the prospective "Biden to skip Iowa and New Hampshire" strategy in 2020.1 Nominees -- or frontrunners in real time during the primaries -- do not skip states. Those campaigns do not cede wins, delegates, and attention to their opponents for a month.
But the allure of South Carolina to Biden is clear and under a rationale much like those above. A win in the Palmetto state with its heavily African American primary electorate would serve as an important hypothetical precursor to wins across the South. And many of the states of the region -- with similar primary electorates -- vote just a week later. That would be an extension of the Clinton success story from 2016. Wins fueled by African American support across the region built the delegate advantage by which the former secretary of state claimed the nomination. Actually, that is the surest path to the modern Democratic nomination.
But skipping Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada is no way to start any march to the nomination even with the "South Carolina gateway to the rest of the South" as the centerpiece. That lowers expectations in any of the first three states to zero and raises expectations on anyone camping out waiting in South Carolina. However, expectations can be lowered or rather tempered without ignoring the first three of the carve-outs.
Romney's "keep Iowa at arm's length" strategy in 2012 is a decent guide. There was a lot of talk of the former Massachusetts governor skipping Iowa in 2011 to focus on New Hampshire, but while he did not spend a ton of time and effort there, Romney was there. That is lower expectations, but not to zero, not ceding the state to the competition.
In a supposedly wide open race, candidates cannot give away anything. And on the Democratic side, get to 15 percent and qualify for and claim whatever delegates you can. Now, if Biden can do that without so much as looking Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada's way, then bully for him. But activists and volunteers, not to mention voters in those states will likely not be receptive to such a snub.
The skipping strategy throws the baby out with the bathwater.
--
Quickly, about that entering/announcing late strategy:
Biden may announce late, but if the campaign seeks to do this properly, then the announcement will not really come as a surprise.
Why?
Campaigns have to raise money and hire staff to run the operation. That is groundwork that has to be laid well in advance, and the public will see signs of progress (or lack thereof) during the invisible primary regardless of any announcement. To wait on building that campaign infrastructure is to, again, cede it to the competition. Biden stayed on the sidelines too long in 2015, and though the chatter of a possible run was there, donors and campaign operatives were not. They had signed on elsewhere and were not willing to switch.
--
Betting at home?
Biden announces early and plays in all of the carve-outs to some extent if he plays at all.
--
1 The Politico article is another cut in the death by one thousand cuts that the Nevada caucuses continue endure. Presumably, if a Biden campaign is skipping Iowa and New Hampshire to focus on South Carolina, then they are skipping third in the order Nevada as well.
"...a tight circle of aides has been brainstorming a range of tear-up-the-playbook ideas for a White House run, according to people who’ve been part of the discussions or told about them.
On the list: announcing his candidacy either really early or really late in the primary process so that he’d define the field around him or let it define itself before scrambling the field; skipping Iowa and New Hampshire and going straight to South Carolina, where he has always had a strong base of support; announcing a running mate right out of the gate and possibly picking one from outside of politics; and making a pitch that he can be a bridge not just to disaffected Democrats, but to Republicans revolting against President Donald Trump."It is kind of early in the cycle for the "skipping states" discussion, but with 2020 giving all indications (at this time) of being a wild nomination cycle on the Democratic side, perhaps it is an idea worth exploring anew.
The premise remains the same: pick a spot on the calendar/state contest where you are more likely to succeed, win then/there, and keep winning on the way to the nomination. Simple, right?
In reality, that has proven easier said, or maybe strategized, than done. It did not go as planned when Al Gore focused on the Southern Super Tuesday states in 1988, and it did not work for Rudy Giuliani twenty years later when he attempted to resurrect a similar strategic path by putting everything on the late January Florida primary. Both campaigns foresaw their respective foci as springboards. Gore from a delegate haul in his home region that would give him enough of a lead to make it difficult for others to catch up. And Giuliani from a winner-take-all Florida win into a series of contests a week later when half the country would be voting.
Both lost.
Gore split the South with Michael Dukakis and Jesse Jackson, leaving behind his natural base of support and with no delegate advantage to show for it. Giuliani lost Florida to John McCain and the Arizona senator -- winner in New Hampshire and South Carolina -- used that series of wins to effectively wrap up the nomination a week after Florida on Super Tuesday.
Now, FHQ does not want to make too much of just two cases, but they are instructive with respect to the prospective "Biden to skip Iowa and New Hampshire" strategy in 2020.1 Nominees -- or frontrunners in real time during the primaries -- do not skip states. Those campaigns do not cede wins, delegates, and attention to their opponents for a month.
But the allure of South Carolina to Biden is clear and under a rationale much like those above. A win in the Palmetto state with its heavily African American primary electorate would serve as an important hypothetical precursor to wins across the South. And many of the states of the region -- with similar primary electorates -- vote just a week later. That would be an extension of the Clinton success story from 2016. Wins fueled by African American support across the region built the delegate advantage by which the former secretary of state claimed the nomination. Actually, that is the surest path to the modern Democratic nomination.
But skipping Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada is no way to start any march to the nomination even with the "South Carolina gateway to the rest of the South" as the centerpiece. That lowers expectations in any of the first three states to zero and raises expectations on anyone camping out waiting in South Carolina. However, expectations can be lowered or rather tempered without ignoring the first three of the carve-outs.
Romney's "keep Iowa at arm's length" strategy in 2012 is a decent guide. There was a lot of talk of the former Massachusetts governor skipping Iowa in 2011 to focus on New Hampshire, but while he did not spend a ton of time and effort there, Romney was there. That is lower expectations, but not to zero, not ceding the state to the competition.
In a supposedly wide open race, candidates cannot give away anything. And on the Democratic side, get to 15 percent and qualify for and claim whatever delegates you can. Now, if Biden can do that without so much as looking Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada's way, then bully for him. But activists and volunteers, not to mention voters in those states will likely not be receptive to such a snub.
The skipping strategy throws the baby out with the bathwater.
--
Quickly, about that entering/announcing late strategy:
Biden may announce late, but if the campaign seeks to do this properly, then the announcement will not really come as a surprise.
Why?
Campaigns have to raise money and hire staff to run the operation. That is groundwork that has to be laid well in advance, and the public will see signs of progress (or lack thereof) during the invisible primary regardless of any announcement. To wait on building that campaign infrastructure is to, again, cede it to the competition. Biden stayed on the sidelines too long in 2015, and though the chatter of a possible run was there, donors and campaign operatives were not. They had signed on elsewhere and were not willing to switch.
--
Betting at home?
Biden announces early and plays in all of the carve-outs to some extent if he plays at all.
--
1 The Politico article is another cut in the death by one thousand cuts that the Nevada caucuses continue endure. Presumably, if a Biden campaign is skipping Iowa and New Hampshire to focus on South Carolina, then they are skipping third in the order Nevada as well.
Friday, October 23, 2015
South Carolina Democrats Are Not Getting Snubbed
Democrats in the Palmetto state may feel like they are getting snubbed by the candidates vying for the party's presidential nomination, but they aren't.
The National Journal's Adam Wollner digs into some of the theories floating around South Carolina -- Clinton has a big lead in the polling conducted in the state mainly -- to explain the deficit. Collectively, however, they fall short of providing the context necessary to understand what is happening in the first in the South primary state.
Apples to Oranges comparisons
Comparing the state of play in the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination race to the 2016 Republican process or the 2008 Democratic battle is imperfect. Partly that is a function of the varying levels of competition in those respective nomination races, but another contributing factor is that there just are not as many candidates fighting for the 2016 Democratic nomination as there were in the 2008 race or are in the 2016 Republican primary. More candidates yield more visits. And that trend is enhanced when there is also a comparatively higher level of competition among a larger group of candidates.
Context and Iowa
One way to shoot down the perception that South Carolina is getting snubbed and to highlight the above point is to compare the attention South Carolina receives from the candidates to that which Iowa receives (within cycles). In other words, compared to Iowa, what is the share of attention -- candidate visits -- South Carolina is receiving?
During the competitive 2004 Democratic primary race -- one that was both contested and had more candidates involved than is the case in 2016 -- South Carolina had 183 visits (see Ridout and Rottinghaus 2008). Iowa was visited by the Democratic candidates 860 times. South Carolina, then, had approximately one-fifth the number of visits that Iowa did in 2004. Four years later, South Carolina had 143 Democratic visits as compared to 1214 to Iowa (see Putnam 2009). In 2008, South Carolina had roughly 10% of the visits that Iowa received.
In 2016?
As Wollner points out, so far this year, Iowa has had the Democratic candidates come calling 91 times. South Carolina has only had the candidates on the ground campaigning for just 19 days. That is a ratio that is comparable to the one South Carolina visit for every five in Iowa witnessed in the 2004 cycle.
Looking at the just the raw numbers, visits are down for both (and across the board for all states for that matter). But, again, that is a function of the number of candidates involved in the race and how competitive it is.
There is one other factor that feeds into the perception of being snubbed in the Palmetto state. Democrats there and elsewhere have not seen a competitive primary race since 2008. None of them really like the prospect of sitting on the sidelines in 2016. In South Carolina, Democratic activists and voters see Bernie Sanders doing quite well in polls in Iowa and New Hampshire and that that has not translated down South. Again, those folks do not want to be on the sidelines for four or eight more years awaiting a competitive presidential nomination race. They want a piece of the action that Iowa and New Hampshire are getting.
But the thing is, neither the Hawkeye state nor the Granite state are really getting the attention either. There just are not enough candidates involved nor is the race competitive enough (see polling, endorsements and fundraising).
--
It also bears mentioning that of all the carve-out states, South Carolina is the least competitive in the general election phase of the presidential election process. If the Clinton campaign has one eye on the general election, then that May also push her to Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada more. That does not appear to be the case at this point, however.
The National Journal's Adam Wollner digs into some of the theories floating around South Carolina -- Clinton has a big lead in the polling conducted in the state mainly -- to explain the deficit. Collectively, however, they fall short of providing the context necessary to understand what is happening in the first in the South primary state.
Apples to Oranges comparisons
Comparing the state of play in the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination race to the 2016 Republican process or the 2008 Democratic battle is imperfect. Partly that is a function of the varying levels of competition in those respective nomination races, but another contributing factor is that there just are not as many candidates fighting for the 2016 Democratic nomination as there were in the 2008 race or are in the 2016 Republican primary. More candidates yield more visits. And that trend is enhanced when there is also a comparatively higher level of competition among a larger group of candidates.
Context and Iowa
One way to shoot down the perception that South Carolina is getting snubbed and to highlight the above point is to compare the attention South Carolina receives from the candidates to that which Iowa receives (within cycles). In other words, compared to Iowa, what is the share of attention -- candidate visits -- South Carolina is receiving?
During the competitive 2004 Democratic primary race -- one that was both contested and had more candidates involved than is the case in 2016 -- South Carolina had 183 visits (see Ridout and Rottinghaus 2008). Iowa was visited by the Democratic candidates 860 times. South Carolina, then, had approximately one-fifth the number of visits that Iowa did in 2004. Four years later, South Carolina had 143 Democratic visits as compared to 1214 to Iowa (see Putnam 2009). In 2008, South Carolina had roughly 10% of the visits that Iowa received.
In 2016?
As Wollner points out, so far this year, Iowa has had the Democratic candidates come calling 91 times. South Carolina has only had the candidates on the ground campaigning for just 19 days. That is a ratio that is comparable to the one South Carolina visit for every five in Iowa witnessed in the 2004 cycle.
Looking at the just the raw numbers, visits are down for both (and across the board for all states for that matter). But, again, that is a function of the number of candidates involved in the race and how competitive it is.
There is one other factor that feeds into the perception of being snubbed in the Palmetto state. Democrats there and elsewhere have not seen a competitive primary race since 2008. None of them really like the prospect of sitting on the sidelines in 2016. In South Carolina, Democratic activists and voters see Bernie Sanders doing quite well in polls in Iowa and New Hampshire and that that has not translated down South. Again, those folks do not want to be on the sidelines for four or eight more years awaiting a competitive presidential nomination race. They want a piece of the action that Iowa and New Hampshire are getting.
But the thing is, neither the Hawkeye state nor the Granite state are really getting the attention either. There just are not enough candidates involved nor is the race competitive enough (see polling, endorsements and fundraising).
--
It also bears mentioning that of all the carve-out states, South Carolina is the least competitive in the general election phase of the presidential election process. If the Clinton campaign has one eye on the general election, then that May also push her to Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada more. That does not appear to be the case at this point, however.
Monday, June 1, 2015
Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and the 2016 Democratic Presidential Nomination
Let's take those indicators one at a time:
1. David Bernstein posed a question this morning about studies examining crowd size and the correlation that holds with success in early primaries. It is an interesting question, but no one on an ad hoc panel of three political scientists could come up with any research that had dug into the question. Anecdotally, it is reminiscent of the similar connection that was drawn from the level of Romney crowd enthusiasm during the home stretch of the 2012 presidential (general) election. It just does not seem to be a good indicator of success in (presidential) elections.
2. But why were there 3000 or more people there to greet Bernie Sanders on a Sunday afternoon in late May 2015 in Minneapolis of all places? That has to say something, right? Yes, it does. But let's look at what it means from a slightly different angle.
Political scientists will often tell you to "ignore those polls". And that is absolutely correct in the instance of presidential primary polls this far out from when the Iowa caucuses kick off the presidential primary season. However, there has been a consistency to the polling of the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination race. Clinton has been at or around the 60% mark since 2013. That is a few data points. One could obviously counter that that is just name recognition driving that. A large part of it probably is. Survey respondents know Clinton better than they know Sanders or O'Malley or Chaffee or Webb or whomever. Let's focus not on that 60% but instead zero in on the remaining 40%.
That is a pretty significant chunk of Democratic primary voters. A chunk that would prefer someone else to Hillary Clinton. A chunk that can be enthusiastic about that preference. But that could also be a faction of Democratic primary voters who still only comprise 40% of the total primary electorate. That may yield some primary or caucus victories -- if there is a clear alternative to Clinton behind whom that faction nearly unanimously backs -- but it still is not likely to win the Democratic nomination.
As FHQ and others have often pointed out, polling is but one indicator at which to look in the context of a presidential nomination battle. There are also fundraising and endorsements. FHQ has often drawn a parallel between Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Al Gore in 2000. It may be splitting hairs, but perhaps the better 2000 comparison is George W. Bush. Like Clinton in 2015, Bush had huge polling, fundraising and endorsement leads in 1999. Even with those advantages, Bush still lost a handful of early contests (New Hampshire, Michigan, Arizona in February and a handful of northeastern states on Super Tuesday in early March) to John McCain. An insurmountable lead does not necessarily prevent primary or caucus losses for the frontrunner, but it does present a very steep climb for any challenger for the nomination.
Clinton can and perhaps will lose a primary or caucus here and there during 2016. And if one wants to look at where enthusiastic crowds can or will matter look to the same group of contests that bedeviled the 2008 Clinton campaign: caucuses. In those lower turnout elections in states like Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado or Nevada (or Kansas, Maine and Nebraska), a small enthusiastic group might be able to overwhelm the process in a manner similar to the way the Obama campaign did in 2008 or the Paul campaigns have done in 2008, 2012 and hope to replicate in 2016.
There are a couple of things that run against that hypothesis for Clinton in 2016. First, the institutional memory within the Clinton campaign is not that short. They will, no doubt, work to prevent a similar caucuses collapse in 2016. Secondly (and perhaps because of the memories of 2008), those seven caucuses states listed above are the only caucuses states scheduled (or likely scheduled) before March 22. The remaining seven caucuses states begin the caucus/convention process on or after March 22. That is a point on the calendar where the field will have been significantly winnowed if not winnowed to just Clinton.
Look, ask anyone -- Democrat, Republican, independent or political junkie -- and they will tell you that they would rather see a real race for the Democratic nomination than something like 2012 when President Obama was seeking renomination or like 2000 when Vice President Gore easily handled a challenge from former New Jersey senator, Bill Bradley. But wanting the Democratic nomination to be competitive or as competitive as the Republican nomination race probably is is not realistic. There will likely be an attempt made to read a McCain in 2000 scenario into the 2016 Democratic nomination race, but what we may get is that scenario similar to the Romney/not-Romney dynamic in 2012.
...but with those, in this case, not-Clintons rising and falling during 2015 and peaking in the polls far below where Clinton is established. FHQ would urge folks not to jump to conclusions on all of this.
--
1 It seems that there is some effort to manufacture a contest on the Democratic side without really scrutinizing it in the same way that the Republican race is being covered. Is there any reason to suspect that Sanders would not enjoy the polling (and enthusiasm?) bumps, post-announcement, that some of the Republican candidates have seen after they threw their hats in the ring?
Friday, February 13, 2015
Bernie Sanders and Vermont's Attempt at Challenging the New Hampshire Primary
Favorite sons and their influence on state delegate selection rules are in the news these days. But it is not all Rand Paul requesting Kentucky Republicans to switch to a caucuses/convention process.
News out of Vermont that legislation had been proposed to move the Green Mountain state presidential primary to the same date as the New Hampshire primary came out of left field the other day. For starters, Vermont has never really been a big player in the presidential nomination process. The state is just not that delegate-rich, and it has always taken a backseat to its eastern neighbor on that front. In recognition of that Vermont has not been much of a primary calendar mover over the years. Since abandoning beauty contest primaries and/or caucuses after 1992 for binding primaries in 1996, Vermont has been stationed on the first Tuesday in March.1 Not even when former Vermont Governor Howard Dean sought the Democratic nomination in 2004 did Vermont relent in holding onto that early March position.2
The record is pretty clear, then, that Vermont has not really been a factor in nomination races nor on the primary calendar. But what is different about 2016? Why is there interest in moving the presidential primary in Vermont and challenging New Hampshire's long-held first in the nation status?
One fairly convincing idea is that the move is intended to help Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who is considering a challenge to a potential Hillary Clinton campaign for the Democratic nomination. This sort of action is not foreign to the history of presidential nomination politics. There was talk of Utah moving its primary to benefit Mitt Romney in 2012. Part of the rationale behind Illinois' uncharacteristic shift out of its traditional third Tuesday in March calendar position for 2008 was to provide then-Senator Barack Obama with a counterweight to Hillary Clinton wins on Super Tuesday. President Carter's reelection campaign sent envoy Hamilton Jordan to Georgia (and Alabama) to talk to legislators there about moving their primaries to dates that serve as a counterbalance to any gains Ted Kennedy might receive from early contests in New Hampshire and Massachusetts in 1980.
States moving primaries or caucuses around to help presidential candidates from that state is nothing new.
What helps the idea along that this is what is happening in Vermont with Bernie Sanders is that the bill came from a state legislator not in the Democratic or Republican parties but from a state senator -- Sen. Anthony Pollina (P/D-28th, North Middlesex) -- who is a member of the Progressive Party. Now, Sen. Sanders is an independent (who caucuses with Democrats) from Vermont in the United States Senate, but that does not mean he is not often associated with the Progressive Party in Vermont or that the party does not claim him as one of their own.
Now a former Progressive Party gubernatorial candidate and current state senator has introduced legislation in the Vermont legislature to move the Green Mountain state presidential primary to the same date as the New Hampshire primary. FHQ will not advance into the strategic considerations of what a Vermont primary on the same day as New Hampshire would mean for a contest between Clinton and Sanders.3 However, it is interesting to consider how home state legislators will address such a bill. The Progressives are a small cadre of legislators in both chambers of the Vermont legislature, so they would need help moving this bill. Would some Democrats join them to help Sanders and/or promote Vermont's position? Would some Republicans get behind the effort to promote Vermont or potentially hurt Clinton (whether it actually would or not)?4 Could a little of both happen and get the bill close to passage or over that hurdle?
In the end, considering those questions is nothing more than a thought exercise. There are too many ifs involved at this point to even really consider passage of the bill. But even if it becomes law, Bernie Sanders might be the only one campaigning (if he chose to) in a throwback beauty contest primary in Vermont while all the attention remains further east in New Hampshire.
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1 Even during the beauty contest primary years, the primary fell on the first Tuesday in March (see 1976, 1980 and 1988). Actually, the fact that the Vermont primary was not binding in those years is the only reason that it escaped penalties from the national parties. The Democratic Party, for instance, did not allow non-Iowa/New Hampshire contests to be held before the second Tuesday in March. That did not change -- moving up a week to the first Tuesday in March -- until the 1992 cycle.
2 The primary could have been moved as early as the first Tuesday in February in 2004. That was the year that the DNC joined the RNC in allowing non-Iowa/New Hampshire states to conduct nominating contests in February. The RNC had allowed a handful of February contests as early as 1996. It should also be pointed that the Vermont House was under Republican control at the time and the chamber may have been less amenable to a change in the primary date intended to help a Democrat, even a Vermont Democrat.
3 It really is moot. New Hampshire is more than adept at fending off these types of challenges.
4 There are not enough Progressives and Republicans to overcome the Democratic majorities in either chamber.
Recent Posts:
Utah Bill Would Shift February Presidential Primary Option Back to March
Michigan Presidential Primary Bill Passes State Senate, but...
Oklahoma Presidential Primary Bill Gets the Green Light from Senate Committee
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News out of Vermont that legislation had been proposed to move the Green Mountain state presidential primary to the same date as the New Hampshire primary came out of left field the other day. For starters, Vermont has never really been a big player in the presidential nomination process. The state is just not that delegate-rich, and it has always taken a backseat to its eastern neighbor on that front. In recognition of that Vermont has not been much of a primary calendar mover over the years. Since abandoning beauty contest primaries and/or caucuses after 1992 for binding primaries in 1996, Vermont has been stationed on the first Tuesday in March.1 Not even when former Vermont Governor Howard Dean sought the Democratic nomination in 2004 did Vermont relent in holding onto that early March position.2
The record is pretty clear, then, that Vermont has not really been a factor in nomination races nor on the primary calendar. But what is different about 2016? Why is there interest in moving the presidential primary in Vermont and challenging New Hampshire's long-held first in the nation status?
One fairly convincing idea is that the move is intended to help Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who is considering a challenge to a potential Hillary Clinton campaign for the Democratic nomination. This sort of action is not foreign to the history of presidential nomination politics. There was talk of Utah moving its primary to benefit Mitt Romney in 2012. Part of the rationale behind Illinois' uncharacteristic shift out of its traditional third Tuesday in March calendar position for 2008 was to provide then-Senator Barack Obama with a counterweight to Hillary Clinton wins on Super Tuesday. President Carter's reelection campaign sent envoy Hamilton Jordan to Georgia (and Alabama) to talk to legislators there about moving their primaries to dates that serve as a counterbalance to any gains Ted Kennedy might receive from early contests in New Hampshire and Massachusetts in 1980.
States moving primaries or caucuses around to help presidential candidates from that state is nothing new.
What helps the idea along that this is what is happening in Vermont with Bernie Sanders is that the bill came from a state legislator not in the Democratic or Republican parties but from a state senator -- Sen. Anthony Pollina (P/D-28th, North Middlesex) -- who is a member of the Progressive Party. Now, Sen. Sanders is an independent (who caucuses with Democrats) from Vermont in the United States Senate, but that does not mean he is not often associated with the Progressive Party in Vermont or that the party does not claim him as one of their own.
Now a former Progressive Party gubernatorial candidate and current state senator has introduced legislation in the Vermont legislature to move the Green Mountain state presidential primary to the same date as the New Hampshire primary. FHQ will not advance into the strategic considerations of what a Vermont primary on the same day as New Hampshire would mean for a contest between Clinton and Sanders.3 However, it is interesting to consider how home state legislators will address such a bill. The Progressives are a small cadre of legislators in both chambers of the Vermont legislature, so they would need help moving this bill. Would some Democrats join them to help Sanders and/or promote Vermont's position? Would some Republicans get behind the effort to promote Vermont or potentially hurt Clinton (whether it actually would or not)?4 Could a little of both happen and get the bill close to passage or over that hurdle?
In the end, considering those questions is nothing more than a thought exercise. There are too many ifs involved at this point to even really consider passage of the bill. But even if it becomes law, Bernie Sanders might be the only one campaigning (if he chose to) in a throwback beauty contest primary in Vermont while all the attention remains further east in New Hampshire.
--
1 Even during the beauty contest primary years, the primary fell on the first Tuesday in March (see 1976, 1980 and 1988). Actually, the fact that the Vermont primary was not binding in those years is the only reason that it escaped penalties from the national parties. The Democratic Party, for instance, did not allow non-Iowa/New Hampshire contests to be held before the second Tuesday in March. That did not change -- moving up a week to the first Tuesday in March -- until the 1992 cycle.
2 The primary could have been moved as early as the first Tuesday in February in 2004. That was the year that the DNC joined the RNC in allowing non-Iowa/New Hampshire states to conduct nominating contests in February. The RNC had allowed a handful of February contests as early as 1996. It should also be pointed that the Vermont House was under Republican control at the time and the chamber may have been less amenable to a change in the primary date intended to help a Democrat, even a Vermont Democrat.
3 It really is moot. New Hampshire is more than adept at fending off these types of challenges.
4 There are not enough Progressives and Republicans to overcome the Democratic majorities in either chamber.
Recent Posts:
Utah Bill Would Shift February Presidential Primary Option Back to March
Michigan Presidential Primary Bill Passes State Senate, but...
Oklahoma Presidential Primary Bill Gets the Green Light from Senate Committee
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Friday, August 22, 2014
DNC Set to Finalize 2016 Rules at Atlanta Meeting
The Democratic National Committee has kicked off its summer meeting in Atlanta. The party will meet over the weekend to hear and vote on the draft proposal for its 2016 delegate selection rules from the Rules and Bylaws Committee.
As FHQ mentioned following the spring meeting when changes to the rules were discussed, there is little in the way of substantive change to 2016 (as compared to the 2012 rules). That continues to be the big take home along with the fact that the proposed (ideal) calendar of primaries and caucuses is largely in line with that of the RNC. The underlying rules are slightly different across parties, but the intent is the same: keep contests out of January, make February about Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, and let every other state opt for a position thereafter.
The DNC vote will close the door on national party rules tinkering for the 2016 cycle. The RNC is not set to meet again before its deadline -- for finalizing its rules -- at the end of September. That will clear the way for states to react and adapt to the changes during 2015.
Recent Posts:
South Carolina Bill to Streamline Presidential Primary Funding Becomes Law
Jindal Signature Nudges Louisiana Presidential Primary Up Two Weeks
Missouri Presidential Primary Shifts Back to March Following Nixon Signature
Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.
As FHQ mentioned following the spring meeting when changes to the rules were discussed, there is little in the way of substantive change to 2016 (as compared to the 2012 rules). That continues to be the big take home along with the fact that the proposed (ideal) calendar of primaries and caucuses is largely in line with that of the RNC. The underlying rules are slightly different across parties, but the intent is the same: keep contests out of January, make February about Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, and let every other state opt for a position thereafter.
The DNC vote will close the door on national party rules tinkering for the 2016 cycle. The RNC is not set to meet again before its deadline -- for finalizing its rules -- at the end of September. That will clear the way for states to react and adapt to the changes during 2015.
Recent Posts:
South Carolina Bill to Streamline Presidential Primary Funding Becomes Law
Jindal Signature Nudges Louisiana Presidential Primary Up Two Weeks
Missouri Presidential Primary Shifts Back to March Following Nixon Signature
Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.
Monday, March 3, 2014
Iowa. Still a Winnowing Contest. ...to Clinton and everyone else.
The news stories about the 2016 Iowa Democratic caucuses are less deja vu these days than they are like the constant, repetitive backgrounds in cartoon chase scenes. The pattern is pretty clear at this point:
Mark Z. Baraback has the latest fuel for the fire that powers this perpetual motion machine; cautioning a prospective Clinton campaign about what might lie ahead in the Hawkeye state. The problem is that there is little caution in there. The problem from a political science perspective is that we're dealing with a small N problem. There are so few observations -- competitive nomination races in the post-reform era (1972 and after) -- that it is difficult to make generalizations in a sea of idiosyncratic presidential election cycles we can chalk up to the dynamics/fundamentals of any given year.
The point is that it is relatively easy to find examples of frontrunners losing (relative to expectations) in Iowa. [That game can be played with New Hampshire too!] Within that group there are two subgroups: 1) those frontrunners who "lose" Iowa and go on to win the nomination and 2) those frontrunners who "lose" in Iowa and lose the nomination. The latter group is fairly limited and often leads to the conclusion in #2 above. [More on that momentarily] There are, though, other groups of cycles that often get short shrift in this discussion. Most people remember recounts in 2000, but understandably forget the two (mostly) cakewalk nomination races that year. Many also fail to include the favorite (regional/state) son phenomenon that hit Iowa in the 1988-1992 period when Gephardt, Dole and Harkin won the caucuses.
So, there are exceptions. Regardless, frontrunners are typically successful in their quests for nominations no matter if you quantify that -- being a frontrunner -- as a mixture of poll position and funds raised (Mayer) or as a combination of those two and endorsements from party elites/insiders (Cohen, et al).
[And keep in mind that no one in Iowa wants to say that Hillary Clinton is inevitable. As Richard Skinner has noted in response to Peter Hamby's story from Iowa, it hurts their bottom line -- encouraging interest in the (competitive) Iowa caucuses. It is same there as it is in newsrooms where writing "Clinton is inevitable" stories gets old quite fast.]
The logical follow up is to ask why Iowa is first when it is so bad a choosing nominees/presidents. But please don't do that. That's just keeping Fred and Barney running past that doorway and potted plant. Iowa just does not derail front-running candidates with any level of regularity. It tends to winnow the field, leaving the determinative job to some subsequent state or series of state contests. That is the cycle we should be paying attention to.
- Some combination of Hillary Clinton lost Iowa in 2008 and/or frontrunners often "stumble" there.
- Iowa is terrible at picking nominees/presidents.
- A new poll is released showing Clinton up on any and all Democratic challengers.
- Wash, rinse, repeat.
Mark Z. Baraback has the latest fuel for the fire that powers this perpetual motion machine; cautioning a prospective Clinton campaign about what might lie ahead in the Hawkeye state. The problem is that there is little caution in there. The problem from a political science perspective is that we're dealing with a small N problem. There are so few observations -- competitive nomination races in the post-reform era (1972 and after) -- that it is difficult to make generalizations in a sea of idiosyncratic presidential election cycles we can chalk up to the dynamics/fundamentals of any given year.
The point is that it is relatively easy to find examples of frontrunners losing (relative to expectations) in Iowa. [That game can be played with New Hampshire too!] Within that group there are two subgroups: 1) those frontrunners who "lose" Iowa and go on to win the nomination and 2) those frontrunners who "lose" in Iowa and lose the nomination. The latter group is fairly limited and often leads to the conclusion in #2 above. [More on that momentarily] There are, though, other groups of cycles that often get short shrift in this discussion. Most people remember recounts in 2000, but understandably forget the two (mostly) cakewalk nomination races that year. Many also fail to include the favorite (regional/state) son phenomenon that hit Iowa in the 1988-1992 period when Gephardt, Dole and Harkin won the caucuses.
So, there are exceptions. Regardless, frontrunners are typically successful in their quests for nominations no matter if you quantify that -- being a frontrunner -- as a mixture of poll position and funds raised (Mayer) or as a combination of those two and endorsements from party elites/insiders (Cohen, et al).
[And keep in mind that no one in Iowa wants to say that Hillary Clinton is inevitable. As Richard Skinner has noted in response to Peter Hamby's story from Iowa, it hurts their bottom line -- encouraging interest in the (competitive) Iowa caucuses. It is same there as it is in newsrooms where writing "Clinton is inevitable" stories gets old quite fast.]
The logical follow up is to ask why Iowa is first when it is so bad a choosing nominees/presidents. But please don't do that. That's just keeping Fred and Barney running past that doorway and potted plant. Iowa just does not derail front-running candidates with any level of regularity. It tends to winnow the field, leaving the determinative job to some subsequent state or series of state contests. That is the cycle we should be paying attention to.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Minnesota Democrats Set for February 7 Caucuses
The revised and presumably final delegate selection plan for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor has been posted on the party website.1 The party will use the February 7 precinct caucuses called for by state law in the Land of 10,000 Lakes; a change from the March 6 caucus date previous plans had proposed. The presidential preference vote taken on February 7, according to the plan, will be affirmed at the Organizing Unit Conventions on March 6.
As FHQ discussed when the original Minnesota delegate selection plan was released back in the spring of 2011, this is a work-around to allow the vote to take place on the caucus date specified by law, but for the results to be revealed once the vote is affirmed/finalized on March 6.
Now, some may say that this is a potential slippery slope for the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (for the RBC to have approved this plan). Perhaps, but FHQ is willing to wager that any state that might try this in the future -- particularly in a future competitive race where the method of allocation may matter -- is likely to be met with resistance from the RBC. First of all, the argument can be made by the committee that with Obama being the only (viable?) candidate on the ballot, that he will receive all of the votes anyway. But I doubt the RBC would have to resort to that argument anyway. FHQ doesn't have access to the waiver request submitted by the Minnesota DFL, but I suspect the argument there had little if anything to do with the competitiveness of the Democratic presidential nomination race than it dealt with the fact that a Republican-controlled legislature blocked last-minute efforts to change the provision in the presidential caucus law triggering the first Tuesday in February date. That point is key. That is the out that the DNC delegate selection rules provide: If efforts were made by Democrats in the state to schedule a compliant contest, but the decision was out of their hands, then a waiver can be granted (Rule 20.C.7).
A tip of the cap to Tony Roza over at The Green Papers for passing this news along.
--
1 Below is the revised Minnesota DFL delegate selection plan:
2012 National Delegate Selection Plan Revised for DNC 2012-01-04
Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.
As FHQ discussed when the original Minnesota delegate selection plan was released back in the spring of 2011, this is a work-around to allow the vote to take place on the caucus date specified by law, but for the results to be revealed once the vote is affirmed/finalized on March 6.
Now, some may say that this is a potential slippery slope for the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (for the RBC to have approved this plan). Perhaps, but FHQ is willing to wager that any state that might try this in the future -- particularly in a future competitive race where the method of allocation may matter -- is likely to be met with resistance from the RBC. First of all, the argument can be made by the committee that with Obama being the only (viable?) candidate on the ballot, that he will receive all of the votes anyway. But I doubt the RBC would have to resort to that argument anyway. FHQ doesn't have access to the waiver request submitted by the Minnesota DFL, but I suspect the argument there had little if anything to do with the competitiveness of the Democratic presidential nomination race than it dealt with the fact that a Republican-controlled legislature blocked last-minute efforts to change the provision in the presidential caucus law triggering the first Tuesday in February date. That point is key. That is the out that the DNC delegate selection rules provide: If efforts were made by Democrats in the state to schedule a compliant contest, but the decision was out of their hands, then a waiver can be granted (Rule 20.C.7).
A tip of the cap to Tony Roza over at The Green Papers for passing this news along.
--
1 Below is the revised Minnesota DFL delegate selection plan:
2012 National Delegate Selection Plan Revised for DNC 2012-01-04
Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Follow Up on March Arizona Democratic Caucuses
Before the holidays, FHQ had the opportunity to speak with Arizona Democratic Party Executive Director Luis Heredia about the state party decision to abandon the February primary for late March caucuses. The motivation(s) for the move was obvious. The primary, scheduled for February 28 would have been non-compliant given the DNC rules on the timing of delegate selection events. That would have potentially cost the state half its delegation to the Democratic convention in Charlotte. But as FHQ pointed out in the earlier post on the move, since the state government is controlled by the Republican Party -- both a Republican governor and a Republican-controlled legislature -- the decision on when the primary would be held has been out of the hands of Arizona Democrats all year. That could have been grounds for the submission of a waiver similar to the ones applied for by both Missouri and Minnesota.
I was curious if a waiver had been considered. Mr. Heredia told FHQ that the idea was out there but was never really considered by ADP. Furthermore, the party had in place a plan to shift to a caucus as early as May when its draft delegate selection plan was submitted to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee. The party, however, waited on both the drawn out process of setting the date of the Arizona presidential primary and the redistricting situation to resolve itself -- considering a ballot proposition if the Republican challenge to the commission-drawn districts had been successful -- before pulling the trigger on the primary to caucus change.1 Like Democrats in Michigan, ADP also considered tweaking Arizona Republicans over the $5 million price tag on the primary but ultimately did switch to a caucus.
Regardless, the Arizona Republican Party will utilize the February 28 primary while Democrats in the state will begin the delegate selection process on March 31 in caucuses.
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1 The Arizona Democratic Party State Committee made the decision on November 21, 2011.
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I was curious if a waiver had been considered. Mr. Heredia told FHQ that the idea was out there but was never really considered by ADP. Furthermore, the party had in place a plan to shift to a caucus as early as May when its draft delegate selection plan was submitted to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee. The party, however, waited on both the drawn out process of setting the date of the Arizona presidential primary and the redistricting situation to resolve itself -- considering a ballot proposition if the Republican challenge to the commission-drawn districts had been successful -- before pulling the trigger on the primary to caucus change.1 Like Democrats in Michigan, ADP also considered tweaking Arizona Republicans over the $5 million price tag on the primary but ultimately did switch to a caucus.
Regardless, the Arizona Republican Party will utilize the February 28 primary while Democrats in the state will begin the delegate selection process on March 31 in caucuses.
--
1 The Arizona Democratic Party State Committee made the decision on November 21, 2011.
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Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Florida Democrats Consolidate County Caucuses on May 5
In a revised delegate selection plan -- dated October 25, 2011 -- the Florida Democratic Party has opted to hold all county caucuses on May 5. The earlier version of the plan that was open to public comment put forth a conditional plan whereby the county caucuses scheduled for the period of April 15-May 5 would serve as the first determining step in the Florida Democratic Party delegate selection. In the time since, the date of the county caucuses has changed in addition to some other details that the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee required for approval of the plan.
With one consolidated county caucus date in May, the Florida delegation to the Democratic convention will increase because of a 15% bonus for holding a later contest.
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