Is Trump rewriting the delegate rules or defending them?

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

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• Alabama Republicans are set to vote on and adopt delegate allocation rules for the Super Tuesday presidential primary. But where is the state party taking them? Making it easier to win delegates? Harder? Maintaining the status quo. One thing is clear: the party does not have much room to make them harder. All the details at FHQ Plus.

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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

...

Politico makes a contribution to the Trump and the 2024 delegate rules storyline that has periodically been touched on by most major national news outlets in 2023. And there is some nice color to Rachael Bade's story, but FHQ does not know how much it is actually adding to what is already known. Generally, candidates seek to influence the state level delegate selection rules, and Trump, in particular, is making some attempt at creating even more frontrunner-friendly rules in the Republican process this cycle. That was established at least as early as February.

And in some respects the Trump campaign has been very active in the process to craft rules at the state level that play to the former president's advantage. But the scope of that activity has been less rewriting -- the headline writer's word, not Bade's -- than it has been playing defense. Because as Bade describes in the piece...

The wonky-yet-important effort underscores just how politically savvy the Trump operation — once caught flat-footed by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s attempted delegate mutiny at the 2016 Republican National Convention — has become. And it exposes how Trump’s aides have been running circles around his rivals, with only one of them — Ron DeSantis and his allies at the Never Back Down super PAC — even putting up a fight.

Again, that is consistent with what has been reported thus far in 2023. Yet, in context, this maneuvering is an extension of what the equally savvy, yet, far less opposed Team Trump did in 2019. Like this cycle, the RNC rules for the 2020 cycle carried over, largely unchanged. That confined any effort at massaging the rules -- within those national party guidelines -- to those on the state level. And the Trump campaign set out to do just that, pushing the bar so high for also-ran candidates in the 2020 cycle that it was nearly impossible for them to win any delegates. 

That was the baseline that Team Trump established for 2024. And honestly, the campaign then gave the campaign now very little additional room to maneuver. It is not that they cannot make any further changes to make delegate allocation harder for other candidates, but that there just are not that many places where they can lobby to turn the knob up even higher (within RNC rules). 

Consequently, most of what the Trump campaign has done in 2023 is play defense. They did so in California, warding off an alternate plan that would have eroded the gains there from four years ago. The same seems true of Alabama. At the end of June, there was talk of DeSantis World having some potential success in nudging the qualifying threshold for delegates there lower. But again, Trump has been playing defense in the Yellowhammer state. The Massachusetts Republican Party chair recently suggested that the party was considering dropping its winner-take-all threshold altogether. Bade seems to indicate that Trump is playing defense there as well. 

And then there are Colorado and Louisiana, sites of Cruz success in the behind-the-scenes delegate battle against Trump in 2016. Both are pretty much maxxed out in terms of delegate allocation barriers allowed under RNC rules, but Team Trump has been fixated on completely ending any thought of a possibility of unbound delegates in either. Proposals in each would have delegates bound through two ballots at the national convention. That might be overkill, but it also fits the pattern of the former president's campaign playing defense with the rules established for 2020, not allowing them to ebb much if at all. 

This will continue. It will continue all the way up to October 1, the deadline by which state Republican parties are to submit their delegate selection plans to the Republican National Committee. And as October 1 approaches, it is important to consider these efforts in this context. Trump is mostly defending the high water mark created in 2019 and smoothing over any other rough edges that they missed then for this cycle. That is the story here. 

 

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From around the invisible primary...

• NYT/Siena finds Trump ahead in Iowa, but lagging behind the pace he has established in national surveys. In a Mondale versus Hart sort of way -- wins relative to expectations -- maybe that matters, but a Trump win in the caucuses in January is one less opportunity for someone else to break through (if no one has by that point).
• Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin received another big contribution to his political action committee, the one geared toward success in the off-year state legislative races in the Old Dominion, from Thomas Peterffy, who had previously given to Ron DeSantis.
• Former Vice President Mike Pence is slowly but surely gaining on debate qualification, pulling in donors after his strong comments about Trump following the former president's third indictment.
• In the endorsement primary, Ron DeSantis was endorsed by another 35 state lawmakers and local officials in South Carolina. The inclination of some may be to shrug endorsements like this off, but with all the big endorsements in the Palmetto state already behind Trump or running themselves, these sorts of endorsements matter. The Florida governor recently also rolled out a wave of sheriff endorsements in Iowa. 
• In Ohio, Trump won the endorsements of Reps. Bill Johnson and Troy Balderson as well as state Treasurer Robert Sprague. And ahead of his address to Alabama Republicans, the former president received the endorsements of the six member Republican US House delegation from the state. 
• In the travel primary, Trump will trek to Alabama tonight, South Carolina tomorrow and New Hampshire early next week. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum was in the Granite state earlier this week. 
• The Quad City Times had a local look at Iowans kicking the tires on South Carolina Senator Tim Scott's campaign. 
• Stand for Freedom PAC, the super PAC aligned with former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, has placed a $6.2 million ad buy for Iowa and New Hampshire over the next nine weeks. 
• In more from the money primary, Florida donors continue to be a financial lifeline for DeSantis.

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Recent posts:

Let's talk about the state of Republican delegate selection rules for 2024 (Part One)

Are the Republican debate qualification rules hurting business as usual in Iowa?

Revisiting the Frankenstein's Monster 

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Post or subscribe by Email. Oh, and find us on Threads: @fhq.plus.

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DeSantis and Trump battle to influence state-level delegate rules for 2024

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

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• There may be some missing pieces at this point in the invisible primary, but there is a general idea about where the 2024 presidential primary calendar will end up. However, what about filing deadlines? When do candidates and their campaigns have to clear hurdles to get on the ballot in the various primaries and caucuses next year? All the details at FHQ Plus.

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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

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It is not exactly news that Donald Trump and his campaign have been working state parties in order to assemble as advantageous a set of state-level delegate selection rules for the former president as possible for 2024. The Washington Post ran a story in February that covered similar ground and also brought up Idaho and Michigan as battlegrounds on that front. 

But that is not to say that there is nothing (or nothing new) in the story about Team Trump pushing for rules changes on the state level up at Reuters today. One just has to dig and parse a bit to get at it. 

Yes, Nevada is in the mix, but questions about whether the early contest in the Silver state would be a primary or a caucus are not new. In fact, the primary calendar filling out still hinges on that decision to some degree. A lesser degree than before South Carolina Republicans weighed in recently, but the decision Nevada Republicans will make still matters. 

And Missouri is a bit of a wildcard as well. The legislature's inability to restore the presidential primary for 2024 in the Show-Me means that there is some mystery in -- if not jockeying by the candidates to influence -- what rules Missouri Republicans settle on in the coming weeks and months. 

Those states make some sense. Each was, has been or will be up for grabs in terms of what the delegate selection rules will look like. 

But Alabama? 

That is an interesting one. It is one that the DeSantis campaign is eyeing and over the threshold to win delegates. Importantly, Alabama Republicans have used a system that requires candidates to win 20 percent in order to qualify for delegates in recent cycles. [The Yellowhammer State was a truly winner-take-all state before 2012.] Yet, 20 percent is the maximum at which a state party can set the qualifying threshold. If there is any change there, then it will be to a lower level than 20 percent. 

That is noteworthy and hints at some underlying strategic direction from Team DeSantis that has not really been adequately explored out there. Part of that lies in the qualifying thresholds that the Florida governor is flirting with in some cases. But another is the assumption that caucuses are good for Trump. That could turn out to be the case. The former president did not necessarily excel in the format in 2016, but the complexion of state parties have changed some in the time since, moving toward Trump in some respects. And that suggests that there may be a real battle in caucus states like the above once the calendar flips to 2024. Until then -- or October 1 anyway -- the lobbying continues.

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The headlines today all seemed to read that Trump had expanded his lead in first-in-the-nation New Hampshire. And indeed the former president pulled in just south of 50 percent in a pair of new polls released from the Granite state. But FHQ scrolled down a little further to see where everyone else was. 

Why?

Delegates are on the line. No, the New Hampshire primary has never been about delegates. There will only be 22 at stake there some time in January next year. But here is the thing: Trump has a sizable lead, and it is just the former president and DeSantis who qualify for delegates. Even with a fairly low 10 percent qualifying threshold, no one else would be in the running for delegates out of the Granite state. Trump would take somewhere in the range of 16-17 delegates and DeSantis would take the rest. No, it is not about the delegates in New Hampshire, but even Jeb Bush got three in 2016. 

And this is yet another illustration of just how much oxygen the pair are taking up in the race for the Republican nomination. It is crowding others out even though it is somewhat lopsided at this moment in the invisible primary. 

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From around the invisible primary...

• In the endorsement primary, DeSantis received the support of the Florida Police Benevolent Association, a group that was aligned with President Trump in 2020. 
• Team Pence has a campaign manager, Steve DeMaura, a former New Hampshire Republican Party executive director. 
• Both Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley have accepted invitations from Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson to appear at the Republican congresswoman's barbecue in the first-in-the-nation caucus state in August. 

...

On this date...

...in 2011, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann officially launched her bid for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. 

...in 2019, Democratic presidential candidates gathered for the second of two consecutive nights of debates in Miami, the initial primary debates of the 2020 cycle. 

--

Recent posts:

DeSantis Deemphasizing New Hampshire?

[From FHQ Plus] The Georgia primary isn't really in "limbo"

The difference in how the national parties approve delegate selection plans

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

[From FHQ Plus] The Georgia primary isn't really in "limbo"

The following is a cross-posted excerpt from FHQ Plus, FHQ's subscription newsletter. Come check the rest out and consider a paid subscription to unlock the full site and support our work. 

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From The Georgia primary isn't really in "limbo":

FHQ always follows along with rules meetings when I have the time. The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) meeting late last week from Minneapolis was no exception. It was a productive if not eventful meeting. Among other things, the panel extended the early calendar waiver for New Hampshire and took up 19 state delegate selection plans, clearing 15 of them as conditionally compliant. 

Much of it seemed straightforward enough. But then I read some of the recaps and kept asking myself if folks had watched the same meeting I had. Sure, rules can have their various interpretations, but these sorts of sessions — those where delegate selection plans are being reviewed — can be pretty technical, pretty black and white. Yet, that did not stop some folks from reading shades of gray into matters where there really is none. Or in the case of the New Hampshire waiver, seeing what they wanted to see.

The consideration of the Georgia presidential primary (and any waiver extension for it) at the DNCRBC meeting last week was one of those situations. Like New Hampshire, the presidential primary in the Peach state had a spot in the early window of the Democratic calendar reserved for it for 2024, but ran into resistance with Republican state officials back home. However, unlike the situation in New Hampshire, the date of the Georgia primary has been set by the secretary of state. That deal is done. 

And DNCRBC co-Chair Minyan Moore seemed to acknowledge that in her comments about what she and fellow co-Chair Jim Roosevelt would recommend to the committee. She conceded that, despite the efforts of Democrats in Georgia and nationally, Peach state Republicans would not budge. They would not cooperate with the proposed change. And though Moore did not acknowledge it, it was an entirely understandable position. Any Georgia primary in mid-February would have cost Peach state Republicans a sizable chunk of their delegation to the national convention in Milwaukee next summer. Their hands were tied. They always were with respect to a February 13 position under Republican National Committee rules. [There were, however, other early window options that may have worked.]

But after that explanation, Moore said…

“…it does not seem to make sense to extend the Georgia waiver at this point. Regardless, I think the foundation has been laid for 2028, and it is a discussion that we need to continue.”

The key phrase in that statement is the highlighted one, at this point. Its addition was enough for the Associated Press to say that the Georgia primary was in limbo, that the committee had “opted not to immediately offer such an extension to another battleground state, Georgia.”

Look, the at this point was in reference to 2024 in its entirety, not this particular point in the 2024 cycle. And the reference to 2028 should have driven that point home. There is no number of waivers that the DNCRBC could offer Georgia Democrats that could get the state-run primary out of that March 12 slot. None. It is not in limbo. It is set for 2024. And this discussion can continue. 

…for 2028.

But it should be noted that there is a loose thread in all of this. There still is no draft delegate selection plan from the Georgia Democratic Party. Its absence at this time could create enough uncertainty that one may be inclined to suggest that maybe a party-run primary of some sort is in the works. 

Maybe. 

But if that was the case, then the DNCRBC would have granted an extension on the Georgia waiver last week. They did not. And they held back on that waiver extension because Georgia is done. The primary is set. 

The committee is set to address delegate selection plans from the southern region at its July meeting, so this all should clear up to some degree by then. 

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Recent posts:

The difference in how the national parties approve delegate selection plans

Nevada responds to State Republican Party suit against the new presidential primary

One more quirk in the scheduling of the South Carolina Republican Presidential Primary

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

The Rules Help Frontrunners in Both Parties, not just Trump

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

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Elaine Kamarck had a really good piece up over at Brookings late last week. Breaking the nomination process timeline into three parts -- invisible primary, early contests and everything -- could perhaps use another layer, the opening of the winner-take-all window on March 15, but that is a small quibble. The hypothesis that someone will have to trip Trump up in one of the early states to take him down is a sound one as well. 

But FHQ breaks with Kamarck on an earlier section she penned...

"A few months ago, I helped create the now conventional wisdom which says that a large field of challengers will help Trump because the Republican winner-take-all or winner-take-most delegate selection rules are tailor made for a candidate who holds a solid base among primary voters and who can wrack up a series of plurality wins."

First of all, this is not exactly wrong. Winner-take-all rules certainly would not hurt a frontrunner with a built-in base of support like Trump seems to have. However, that is not the only layer of the rules that might help. There is another facet of the delegate selection process in both parties that could also help frontrunners in a similar position: the qualifying threshold. After all, candidates in both parties have to receive a minimum amount of support to gain any delegates in the first place. It is a standard 15 percent across all states, territories and jurisdictions in the Democratic process, and although it varies on the Republican side, the qualifying threshold can be no higher than 20 percent. In fact, more Republican state parties moved toward the 20 percent maximum qualifying threshold for the 2020 cycle. That remnant from the changes for the last cycle will potentially benefit the former president as well. 

But it is not just Trump who is helped by such rules. Frontrunners of all stripes can reap the benefits of a qualifying threshold. Here is an example. Say Trump wins 40 percent of the vote in the Minnesota primary on Super Tuesday next year. Ron DeSantis comes in a distant second at 20 percent, enough to qualify for delegates under the proportional rules Minnesota Republicans used in 2020. Trump in that scenario falls below 50 percent, so the winner-take-all trigger is not activated. Yet, only he and DeSantis qualify for delegates. Only their collective vote counts in calculating how many delegates each is allocated. Trump would not receive 40 percent of the delegates. The former president would claim two-thirds of them. DeSantis would take the remaining third. While that is not all of the delegates going to Trump, it would be a fairly healthy net delegate advantage coming out of the state. And if replicated across other states on a Super Tuesday with a number of primaries and caucuses, the delegate count could get lopsided quickly.

And this is not just a Republican phenomenon. This very thing happened to Joe Biden on Super Tuesday in 2020. Yes, some of his competition dropped out after South Carolina (and before Super Tuesday) and endorsed the former vice president, but they were still on the ballot, gobbling up votes and hovering well below the qualifying threshold. Who was above it? Biden, Bernie Sanders and a revolving cast of characters who nudged above 15 percent barrier across the slew of Super Tuesday states. The result was that Biden built a large enough lead in the delegate count to pressure others to cease campaign operations thereafter. 

Look, this is not all just delegate selection rules. As Seth Masket pointed out last week, winnowing matters a great deal in all of this. But the fact remains that it is not just winner-take-all rules that help just Trump. The delegate selection rules in both parties help frontrunners. Kamarck is not wrong, but her hypothesis is a bit too narrowly crafted. 

...

The Republican National Committee late last week also released the qualifying criteria for the first presidential debate this August in Milwaukee. Some candidates are already complaining. Others are too:

“It seems that the RNC is going out of its way to purposely narrow the field at one of the earliest times in the party’s history,” said a Republican consultant working for one of the presidential candidates who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. “And rather than finding a way for as many conservative voices to be heard by Republicans throughout the country, they are attempting to make this a two-man race.”

The RNC was going to catch some flak on this decision regardless, but this is much more about one candidate -- a dominant former president as frontrunner -- than it is about squelching the others struggling to gain support. How much lower than topping one percent in the polls was the national party supposed to go? The donor threshold is lower at 40,000 than it was for Democrats in their first debate four years ago. And Democrats managed to have 20 qualifiers across two debates on consecutive nights. The difference is not those on the low end. This is about the someone at the top end of polling crowding others out of a debate in which he may not even participate. 

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Invisible Primary quick hits:

• In the endorsement primary, former Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam threw his support behind South Carolina Senator Tim Scott.
• Never Back Down, the super PAC aligned with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, started canvassing in New Hampshire, continuing to test the effectiveness of the practice outside of a traditional campaign.
• Granite state Rep. James Spillane flipped his endorsement from Trump to DeSantis. [There has been some early churn in the endorsement primary between these two among state legislators. That may or may not be a story, but it signals that both sides are seemingly (and intensely) battling for the support of this subset of elected officials (especially in early states.]
• And action (or inaction) over in Iowa may help explain why state legislators are so sought after: Republicans elected statewide are for the most part staying neutral for now. That is true in Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire. South Carolina is the exception. Trump has endorsements from the governor and senior senator.

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On this date...

...in 1972, Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty withdrew from the Democratic presidential nomination race on the eve of the California primary.

...in 1984, in a series of five contests to end primary season, Colorado Senator Gary Hart won the delegate vote in California and primaries in New Mexico and South Dakota. Former Vice President Walter Mondale claimed victories in New Jersey and West Virginia.

...in 2012, both former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama swept primaries in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota. Obama also took the caucuses in North Dakota.

...in 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the Democratic primary in Puerto Rico.

...in 2020, President Donald Trump won an online vote among Republican party leaders in Puerto Rico to take all of the delegates from the territory.

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Recent posts:

Sunday Series: Demystifying Delegate Allocation and Delegate Selection

[From FHQ Plus] Uncertainty and the 2024 Presidential Primary Calendar

Real Talk: FHQ has to roll its eyes at coverage of this new caucus law in Iowa. It's bad.

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

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

What California Republicans Decide on Delegate Allocation May Matter a Lot. Here's how.

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

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• FHQ Plus has been on a holiday (publishing) hiatus, but be on the lookout for a fun new post today or tomorrow. If you have been on the fence about subscribing to FHQ Plus, this one might be one to get you off of it. Come check out FHQ Plus.

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

In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

...

Over the weekend, there was a new poll out of California taking the pulse of, among other things, the state of the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. The Institute of Governmental Studies (UC Berkeley) poll showed former President Donald Trump up big over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the Golden state. 

But there are some important factors to make note of about where the candidates are relative to one another in a Super Tuesday state that has undefined delegate allocation rules for 2024 at this point. Despite the sunsetting of the rules used in the largely uncontested 2020 Republican primary, California Republicans will not use the current winner-take-all by congressional district method that serves as a baseline method. Well, the state party will not use those allocation rules if they want to avoid losing half of their delegates under Republican National Committee (RNC) rules. 

So what are the alternatives? And perhaps more importantly, what strategic differences could they make for the candidates?

First of all, if the California Republican Party later this year readopts rules similar to those it used in 2020, then Trump would be looking at a big net delegate advantage coming out of the California primary. Granted, that would be weighed against delegates won by other candidates (or not) in other Super Tuesday states. But despite being a blue state, California remains the biggest delegate prize in the Republican process. 

But not as big as it could be.

While Trump, with a nearly two to one advantage over DeSantis in this poll, would hypothetically take a sizable net delegate gain from California, that big plurality would fall short of a majority. And under the 2020 rules, a majority win would activate a winner-take-all trigger for all 169 delegates. Again, Trump would miss out on that with just 44 percent support statewide. However, that 44-26 advantage would allocate the former president 106 delegates to DeSantis's 63. [No other candidates would qualify for delegates by virtue of missing the 20 percent threshold.] By narrowly missing out on a majority, Trump's delegate advantage goes from all 169 delegates to just 43. 

That is a big difference. Yes, a 43 delegate chunk like that is nothing to dismiss. But that is more easily neutralized across other Super Tuesday states for Trump opponents than if the former president had won all of the delegates from California. 

But what if California Republicans opted to split up the delegates, to not pool the at-large, RNC and congressional district delegates? That may also cut further in to any Trump advantage. The statewide results would only affect the allocation of 13 delegates, the at-large (10) and RNC (3) delegates. With a 44-26 win in a California primary, Trump would only win eight of those 13 delegates. DeSantis would be awarded the remaining five and again, no one else would qualify. 

By not pooling all of the delegates, the district delegates -- three per district -- would be allocated based on the result in each of the 52 congressional districts in the Golden state. Trump may win a majority in some of those, something that would net him all three delegates from such a district. But DeSantis may peak above 50 percent in some districts as well. The bigger thing may be the districts where no one wins a majority. The plurality winner would get two delegates and the runner up would get one. And if a third candidate qualifies in a handful of districts, it could, depending on how the rules are crafted, bring the winner (and assume that is Trump for the purposes of this exercise) down to just one delegate. The top three candidates over 20 percent would all get one delegate. 

Understandably, this gets messy in a hurry. However, the point here is that, depending on 1) the allocation rules and 2) how the primary vote is distributed across California, it could shrink Trump's net delegate advantage, making it more possible to neutralize the Golden state in the process. But it could also grow Trump's delegate advantage over the pooled allocation. Now imagine being one of the campaigns trying to figure this out.

Yes, it is just one poll. Yes, it is late May of the year prior to a presidential election year. Yes, there is a great deal of uncertainty still. But depending on the decisions the California Republican Party makes in the very early fall, it could make a big difference come Super Tuesday 2024. Rules matter.

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There are a lot of DeSantis analyses out there since the Florida governor officially joined the Republican presidential nomination race, but few are as thorough as Geoffrey Skelley's at FiveThirtyEight. It provides some nice perspective at the outset of DeSantis 2024. 

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Invisible Primary quick hits:

• NBC News has a good summary of the current state of the endorsement primary. [As an aside, FHQ does not know why RNC member is included as an endorsement category in their analysis. Those three RNC members from each state and territory are ultimately going to be bound delegates next year. Those folks are going to stay (publicly) neutral in the vast, vast majority of cases. There will not be many (if any) endorsements there.]
• After stops in Iowa and New Hampshire after his own launch, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott came home to the Palmetto state over the Memorial Day weekend for a town hall in the Low Country. Scott also has a fundraising trip out west in San Diego planned for mid-June (money primary).
• New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu joined the chorus of prospective Republican candidates suggesting that a presidential announcement is coming "in the next week or two." Chris Christie has sounded similar calls in recent days.
• Vivek Ramaswamy swung back through Iowa over the weekend. 
• Never mind what a crowded field might do to the 2024 Republican race, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says it is good for the Hawkeye state and the Republican Party.
• Not that it is a secret, but aides to North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum are (anonymously) confirming that the launch of presidential campaign is imminent. 

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On this date...

...in 1975, former North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford entered the 1976 race for the Democratic presidential nomination. And New Hampshire Governor Mel Thomas signed HB 73 into law. This is the now famous (or infamous depending on one's perspective) law on the books in the Granite state that gives the secretary of state the discretion to set the date of the presidential primary, directing them to keep it seven or more days ahead of any similar election. 

...in 2012, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney won the Texas Republican primary and surpassed the number of delegates necessary to claim the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

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Recent posts:

Sunday Series: Ranked Choice Voting in 2024 Presidential Primaries, Updated (May 2023)

[From FHQ Plus] The Trump Trial and the Primary Calendar

DeSantis is not without Organizational Strengths in the Republican Nomination Race, part two

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

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

Sunday Series: Biden, Incumbent Presidents and Setting the Rules of Renomination

This past week has been a week in which Iowa, New Hampshire and the 2024 presidential primary calendar have come back into clearer view. 

Iowa Republicans are reported to be simultaneously planning on January caucuses, but lamenting the uncertainty that Hawkeye state Democrats have thrust upon the overall scheduling process by insisting on a vote-by-mail presidential preference vote.

In New Hampshire, Democrats continue to 1) resist DNC calendar changes that would push the state out of the first primary position in 2024 and 2) refuse to consider alternatives to a "predicament ... of the president's own making."

And to compound matters, Biden surrogate and 2020 nomination kingmaker Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) recently "said the quiet part out loud," noting that the DNC calendar changes for 2024 were made with Biden "avoiding embarrassment" in Iowa and New Hampshire in mind.

Dems in disarray, right? What is the party doing?

Well, outside of the takes generator that is spitting out tales of Democratic own goals with respect to the national party and the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination process, there are a few big picture things going on that many are glossing over. Most of it is typical of incumbent parties defending the White House and some of it is new to 2024. 

Coalition maintenance

The macro view of what the Democrats have done and are doing for the 2024 cycle is twofold. First, the Biden administration and the Democratic National Committee under it are doing what big tent parties tend to do. Namely, the party is tending to constituencies in an effort to maintain the winning coalition from 2020. And some of that, through a zero-sum lens, is the messy business of picking winners and losers, choosing which policies and other actions to prioritize. 

So, there has been a push to continue to appeal to black and brown voters who are the bedrock of the party's coalition. Voting rights and criminal justice reform met resistance in Congress, but the Biden administration advanced the cause of representation on the nation's highest court by seeing the nomination of Ketanji Brown-Jackson through to her installation, thus fulfilling a campaign promise. Along the same lines, the president pushed for a change in the early calendar lineup of states for the first time since the 2008 cycle. And importantly, the administration once again attempted to elevate the voices of black and brown voters in the nomination process by supplanting Iowa and New Hampshire with South Carolina in the lead-off spot. 

But beyond mere constituency concerns on that calendar decision, there were clear winners and losers. South Carolina won. Michigan won. Iowa and New Hampshire, on the other hand, both lost. Each lost, and in New Hampshire's case, Democrats there were resistant and have remained defiant. And while the national party decision was perhaps out of the ordinary, the reaction in the Granite state has not been. And while that reaction has added some drama (and the attention that comes along with it) to an incumbent presidential renomination process that is unlikely to offer much of it, it does once again point out just how difficult it is to alter institutions that have long since become normalized fixtures of the presidential election process. 

Again, if it was easy to change, then any number of component parts of the presidential nomination process -- including but not exclusively Iowa and New Hampshire -- would have been changed by now. Grumbling about Iowa, New Hampshire and their positions atop the presidential primary calendar is not new. It did not just start in 2020 when Iowa Democrats botched their caucuses. That grousing goes back years. 

However, the extent to which the subject has arisen between elections has ebbed and flowed, but it always comes up. In some years, like between 2004 and 2008, the party examined it closely. The result was that Nevada and South Carolina got added to the early window (and before the fallout from Florida and Michigan, Nevada's Democratic caucuses were to have been between Iowa and New Hampshire). In other cycles, such as between 2008 and 2012, Iowa and New Hampshire came up but the Rules and Bylaws Committee punted, saving the battle for another time.  

But to reiterate, it always comes up. And that pre-2012 example is instructive. That was the last cycle that a sitting Democratic president was seeking renomination. Theoretically, the stakes are lower in those times than they are or would be in a competitive nomination environment. It is then, or in the case of the 2024 cycle, now that a change in the early calendar would hypothetically be easiest. And it may, in fact, be easier than if this were a seriously contested cycle, but uprooting Iowa and New Hampshire is by no stretch of the imagination easy. If anything, Team Biden is bearing witness to just how not easy it is right now. 

So why take on the task of changing the calendar at all? 

Well, coalition maintenance is one answer. Creating a more representative early calendar lineup of states is and has been a long-time priority to some within the broader Democratic Party network. And just like changing the superdelegate rules for the 2020 cycle, it was not only a priority but there was sufficient support for the reform within the DNC. Yet, unlike the case of the superdelegate reform -- thorny as that was -- reforming the early calendar is not completely within the jurisdiction of the national party. Ultimately, credentialing and seating delegates from a state that has followed its state law and happens to be rogue relative to national party rules is within the DNC (or the convention's) purview, but bringing that to fruition and keeping Democrats from said rogue (and aggrieved) state out is a long process with a number of potential pressure points along the way that makes it politically difficult. 

It may be that Iowa and New Hampshire's time has simply come. But Iowa and, to a seemingly larger degree, New Hampshire will have something to say about that. 

Strategic considerations

Perhaps, then, the coalition maintenance hypothesis is not fully adequate to answer the "why take this task on now?" question. Maybe there are strategic concerns too. But even that explanation seems dubious. Before all of this, it was not exactly clear that Iowa and New Hampshire were going to make life, much less renomination, difficult for President Biden in 2024. No challengers of any great import were champing at the bit to throw their hats in the ring and attempt to dethrone a sitting Democratic president. Sure, California Governor Gavin Newsom and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker were both doing some of the things that potential presidential aspirants do, but it is also difficult to tease out whether that was midterm campaign activity/surrogacy or something else (like laying the groundwork in case Biden did not run). It also is not clear that either governor shut the door on a run (and have subsequently joined Biden's reelection advisory board) because Team Biden made the calendar "harder" for challengers. The calendar change was merely another signal that the president intended to run and that in supporting the change, the DNC was behind him. All this despite the fact that the guessing game on whether Biden would run persisted well into 2023 after the initial DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee vote on the calendar. 

But take a step back for a moment. How common is it for sitting presidents and their parties to create favorable conditions for a renomination bid? The answer is that it is quite common. And it is probably better cast as reducing token resistance rather than some nefarious attempt to squelch democracy. 

In the past, all of this has mainly fallen into two categories: not holding primary debates and cancelling or downscaling contests (cancelling caucuses or shifting from primaries to caucuses). Both parties have done this. When was the last time an incumbent party sponsored a presidential primary debate? The RNC went so far as to eliminate the national party rule calling for a committee to sanction debates in 2020 only to bring it back for 2024. And yes, Republican state parties cancelled or downscaled a number of contests for the 2020 cycle, but those were not precedent-setting actions. Instead, it was par for the course. It is so commonplace that one almost has to skip incumbent years in gathering time-series data on presidential primaries (depending on the research question). In my own research on the movement of primaries and caucuses, it is next to useless to account for incumbent party years. State parties opting out of state-run primaries and primaries being cancelled because of only one candidate making the ballot make it nearly impossible. 

And how does the DNC look on both of those fronts for 2024? For starters, there are no plans for primary debates. But it is a funny thing on cancelled and downscaled contests. It is more difficult now than it has ever been to do either in a Democratic presidential nomination contest. Notice that Iowa Democrats are not talking about cancelling the caucuses like Republicans in the Hawkeye state did in 2020 to avoid any of the calendar messiness that has supposedly gripped the 2024 Democratic process. In fact, Iowa Democrats are going in the opposite direction. The party is planning on making the caucuses meaningless with respect to delegate allocation and adding a presidential preference vote(-by-mail) to allocate delegates. No states are planning on cancelling caucuses. There are none left now that Iowa and Nevada off the board. [Wyoming Democrats cannot decide if the party wants to call their process in 2024 a caucus or a party-run primary.] 

Why?

DNC encouragements added to Rule 2 for 2020 require state parties to provide for open and accessible contests. Parties have to demonstrate in their delegate selection plans that they are doing all they can to create the most open and accessible process possible. And state parties have heeded that guidance in practice in 2020 and in draft delegate selection plans for 2024. 

As a result of that rules change, the DNC and Team Biden did not have cancelling or downscaling contests as an option to potentially help streamline the process against token opposition. One avenue available as a streamlining opportunity, however, was the primary calendar order. And there, the options were limited. The status quo was an option. The path of least resistance in setting the rules was always to keep Iowa and New Hampshire as the lead-off contests (or shunt Iowa out of the early window because of 2020 and move New Hampshire up).

But does an incumbent president and/or the national party behind them want to leave to chance the start of a nomination process in two states where the president did not even win during the previous nomination cycle (even against token opposition in the coming cycle)? It certainly could all work out. But it could also be a situation like President Lyndon Johnson failing to meet expectations in New Hampshire in 1968 despite winning. And it is worth pointing out that Donald Trump still has not won the Iowa caucuses. He lost in 2016 and the caucuses were cancelled for 2020. Biden does not have the luxury, under DNC rules, of Iowa Democrats simply cancelling their caucuses next year. 

No, the alternative was to explore an alternative early calendar lineup, something the DNC Rules and Bylaws was already considering through a process that eliminated for 2024 guaranteed spots for traditional early states. It was a process open to any an all states that wanted to make a pitch. And the Biden administration took that opening -- the process of states applying for those early slots -- to swing for the fences.

They pushed a plan that placed South Carolina first, the first state the former vice president had won in 2020. But that was not exactly the driver behind the calendar decision. Shifting African American voices to an earlier position on the calendar was a priority but the options were limited in terms of states that the DNC could feasibly get into place. Look at the Georgia experience. Try as they might, Democrats nationally and in Georgia could not convince a Republican secretary of state to commit to the plan to add the Peach state to the mix. And the same would have been true for any other southern state with high levels of black and brown voters. Republican-controlled state governments stood in the way.

The exception?

South Carolina. Since the date-setting authority in the Palmetto state is in the hands of the state parties, the South Carolina primary could be moved into an even earlier position on the calendar with relative ease. 

This is not some grand conspiracy. The whole process has been one that, in part, has done what past incumbent presidents have done. However, due to rules changes on the Democrats side, the Biden team could not do exactly what past incumbents running for renomination have done. Instead, they took a calendar process already underway (and open) before the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee and used it to break a long standing precedent (Iowa and New Hampshire up front), fulfill a priority for many in (and out of) the party in the process (uprooting Iowa and New Hampshire) and potentially streamline a nomination race in which Biden was already the overwhelming favorite. 

...just like other incumbents in the post-reform era. 

--

Recent posts:

[From FHQ Plus] The Quirks of Scheduling a South Carolina Presidential Primary

The Disconnect on Iowa and New Hampshire 2024

Missing the Real Story on the New Hampshire Primary

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[From FHQ Plus] About the California Republican Party Delegate Rules for 2024

The following is a cross-posted excerpt from FHQ Plus, FHQ's new subscription service. Come check the rest out and consider a paid subscription to unlock the full site and support our work. 

--

From Evening Digest 5/11/23:

Seema Mehta at the LA Times had a nice piece up today on Republican delegate allocation in California for 2024. The premise was that the winner-take-all by congressional district rules would grant greater voice to the small number of Republican voters in large urban areas compared to the more conservative areas of the state.

And sure, under the Republican National Committee (RNC) delegate apportionment scheme every congressional district — red, blue or purple — counts the same: three delegates each. As Mehta put it:

It doesn’t matter if it’s former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco-based district, home to 29,150 registered Republicans, … or current House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s district centered in Bakersfield, where 205,738 GOP voters live.

Mathematically speaking, it makes some strategic sense for campaigns to chase the districts with the smaller number of partisans. Very simply, the return on investment is greater. And there was some evidence of this in the 2016 race as FHQ noted in Invisible Primary: Visible earlier this year. 

But here is the thing: California will have a Super Tuesday primary next year. And that March 5 date is prior to March 15 when the winner-take-all prohibition under RNC rules ends. As a result, California Republicans utilizing a winner-take-all by congressional district delegate allocation method before March 15 would be in violation of those national party rules and cost the party half of their 169 delegates under Rule 17(a). 

How did it come to this? Is the California Republican Party deliberately flaunting RNC rules? It does not really look that way. 

To start, the baseline set of national convention delegate allocation rules is a winner-take-all by congressional district method. That has not changed in recent years. What did change in 2019 was that the party adopted a set of allocation rules that were more proportional for 2020 and complied with RNC rules for that cycle. But they sunset in 2021.1 That means that the baseline winner-take-all by congressional district rules are the rules for 2024. 

…for now.

But that will likely change and FHQ bases that on a couple of factors. First, nothing dealing with national convention delegates was even on the March state convention agenda with respect to bylaws changes. Of course, nothing had to be. There is a baseline set of allocation rules in place already that snapped back into action once the 2020 rules expired. 

Second, however, this is setting up just like 2019 when California Republicans faced the same dilemma heading into September ahead of their fall state convention that year. Staring down the prospect of RNC penalties if the party did not change the winner-take-most rules, California Republicans at the late September 2019 state convention adopted the proportional allocation scheme that sunset in 2021, a more proportional set of rules. 

And California Republicans have a September 2023 state convention lined up right before the RNC deadline to submit rules for the 2024 cycle to the national party on or before October 1. 

The question that emerges from this is why did the 2020 California allocation rules have to expire at all? It makes sense from the state party’s perspective to sunset the proportional rules if there is even an outside shot that the RNC would change its requirement for proportional rules during the early part of the calendar. But the RNC held steady and mostly carried over the same 2020 rules to the 2024 cycle when it finalized the rules package in April 2022. There is no evidence that the national party has subsequently made any additional changes (and could not after September 30, 2022 anyway under the restrictions on further rule amendments in Rule 12).

Look, San Francisco Republicans may dream of a bigger voice in 2024, but they are unlikely to get it if the state party wants to have its full voice at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in summer 2024.

--

Recent posts:

Endorsements, Non-Endorsements, Unendorsements and Pre-Endorsements

A reminder about Iowa Republican Delegate Allocation

The National Parties and the Sanctioning of Presidential Primary Debates

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

A reminder about Iowa Republican Delegate Allocation

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

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• Missouri's presidential primary comeback remains in limbo and Pennsylvania could be a primary calendar wildcard deep into 2023. All the details at FHQ Plus.

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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

...

FHQ is not going to make much of poll of potential Republican caucus-goers in Iowa eight months away from the lead off caucuses. But I will do that thing that I do as a reminder. Trump's 54 percent to 24 percent advantage over DeSantis in the poll would net him just more than half of the delegates available in the Hawkeye state in 2024. Trump hypothetically pulling more than half of the support of those caucusing would not trip a winner-take-all trigger in a state that is strictly proportional with no official qualifying threshold to win delegates. 

But recall that under current Republican Party of Iowa rules, those delegates are only proportionally allocated during primary season. If there is only one name placed in nomination at the national convention in Milwaukee next year, then all of the delegates from Iowa will be bound to that candidate on the first ballot. That caveat makes the Iowa delegate allocation -- or the binding of those delegates, really -- akin to the National Popular Vote plan that would award a state's electoral college votes in the presidential election to the national winner rather than the state winner. But again, that is only if there is just one name placed in nomination for the roll call vote as has become the custom. If there is a break in that trend, and more than one candidate makes the ballot, then the proportional allocation from primary season would carry over to the roll call vote. 

File that one away for later.

...

Harry Enten puts Trump's advantages at the moment into perspective:

There are very few candidates, of either party, in nonincumbent races who were near or north of 50% in the national primary polls this early on. Those included Republicans Bob Dole in 1996 and George W. Bush in 2000, and Democrats Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. All of those candidates won their party’s nominations, and none of those races were particularly close.

The interesting extension of that is what an early prohibitive favorite for a nomination does to the resulting field of candidates. Bush, Clinton and Gore all avoided a great number of opponents, viable or otherwise. Dole may have held an early lead in 1995 but that Republican nomination race drew more than a few candidates into the competition who had the conventional characteristics of successful nominees even if they did not ultimately take off (Phil Gramm or Lamar Alexander, for example). 

But as with many other things, Trump is unique. The former president's legal wranglings create just enough doubt about 2024 as to lure some folks that might otherwise pass on a run against an internally (intra-party) popular former president into the race. Just yesterday I drew a parallel between the size of the 2016 Democratic field and that of the emerging 2024 Republican field. And while there is some truth to that, it will likely not be a field that is quite as small as the 2016 Democratic group or without conventionally qualified competition. The 2024 Republican presidential nomination race is likely to feature a field of candidates that is smaller than the 2016 Republican race, but with more concentrated quality (a former vice president, a former governor/UN ambassador, a well-funded senator and a popular governor and rival from the same state as Trump) than existed on the list of 1996 Republican aspirants. 

...

Quick hits:

• In the travel primary, yes, Trump and DeSantis will both be in Iowa this weekend, but travel to the Hawkeye state is intensifying in frequency. 
• Illinois is not the general election battleground that Wisconsin is, but it will be another example of a delegate-rich state positioned deeper in the primary calendar that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is visiting in the coming days. [And bear in mind that the Prairie state is one of those where delegates are directly elected on the primary ballot. Winning there in the delegate game requires a particular brand of know-how, if not direct experience.]
• DeSantis is not the only prospective candidate visiting states beyond the early ones on the calendar. Former Vice President Mike Pence was in Ohio earlier this week. And what was late last month a presidential announcement to come "well before late June" is now just "before the month of June is out" for Pence. So June for an official announcement. [But Pence has been running for 2024 for some time.]

...

On this date...

...in 1976, as a marker of how different the early cycles of the post-reform era were, contests remained competitive in both parties nomination races. President Gerald Ford and former California Governor Ronald Reagan split primaries in Nebraska and West Virginia. Reagan took the former, the only seriously contested primary of the day. On the Democratic side, former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter narrowly won caucuses in Connecticut, but lost to Idaho Senator Frank Church in Nebraska and to favorite son, Senator Robert Byrd in West Virginia. 

...in 2004, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry swept the primaries in Nebraska and West Virginia. 

...in 2011, former Speaker Newt Gingrich officially joined the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

--

Recent posts:

The National Parties and the Sanctioning of Presidential Primary Debates

The Early Primary Calendar Gauntlet in 2024

The Lessons of the 2016 Republican Presidential Nomination Process, Redux

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

The Lessons of the 2016 Republican Presidential Nomination Process, Redux

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

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• An update on some maintenance to the 2024 presidential primary calendar, primary-related legislation is moving in New Hampshire and Rhode Island and delegate selection plans keep trickling in on the Democratic side. All the details at FHQ Plus.

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

In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

...

There are a couple of inter-related themes that FHQ has revisited in this space with respect to the 2024 invisible primary. One is attempting to assess where former President Trump is (in 2023) on a scale of Trump 2015 to Trump 2019. In other words, across an array of measures -- fundraising, endorsements, organization, etc. -- is the former president closer to where he was in 2015 as a first-time candidate or 2019, when he carried the advantages of incumbency and the Republican Party infrastructure behind him? 

The other theme focuses on lessons various actors involved in the Republican presidential nomination process have learned from and since the last competitive nomination cycle in 2016. One such lesson Team Trump has taken to heart is to not take the delegate selection portion of the process for granted. While they may have been out-hustled on that front in 2016, the Trump campaign of 2019-20 designed a set of rules at the national level and pushed for changes on the state level that would ward off challengers, yes, but maximize the number of delegates the president would win in the process on his way to claiming a second nomination as well. 

Fast forward four years and Trump no longer enjoys the trappings of the office of the presidency nor the direct backing of the Republican National Committee. But the lessons of 2016 have not been forgotten. Team Trump is using a network of connections forged during his time in the White House to potentially influence the state-level delegate selection rules for 2024 if not some of the future Republican delegates in 2024. Politico's Alex Isenstadt updated his March story with further details of Team Trump's outreach to state party leaders. And it is clear that, despite doubt about Trump's delegate rules acumen in opposing campaign networks, the former president is mindful of the shortcomings of the 2016 operation and tending to the relevant state-level players to avoid a repeat in 2024.

Isenstadt leads with the recent effort to woo Republicans from Louisiana. And that is an interesting test case. Yes, the Cruz campaign lapped Trump in delegate selection in the Pelican state after Trump won the primary there. But that was not unusual in 2016. The Cruz campaign was adept at exploiting the intricacies of the delegate rules to their advantage where available. However, the Trump reelection effort in 2019-20 cleaned up much of that. Louisiana Republicans, for example, greatly streamlined their process from 2016 for 2020. A later primary date in the 2020 cycle allowed the state party to use truly winner-take-all rules to allocate and bind all of the state's delegates to the winner of the primary. 

Now, there is a delegate rule story (or many more) in every state, but this Louisiana example is instructive. Team Trump likely wants the party to utilize rules that more closely resemble the 2020 rules with respect to allocation and binding rather than those of the 2016 plan. And they are doing that outreach not only to Louisiana Republicans but Republicans in state parties across the country. Importantly, according to Isestadt's reporting, all signs point toward the president not only having a head start in these efforts but that his campaign is the only one wooing state party actors at this time.

Together, all of this is important and worthy of continued tracking. Trump wants to maintain for 2024 as much of the baseline rules from 2020 as possible. 

...

Team Trump is not the only one working those who will make decisions on the rules that will govern the 2024 Republican presidential nomination process on the state level. Vivek Ramaswamy was in Michigan this past weekend and he made the case for Michigan Republicans to conduct a primary next year rather than caucuses. Yeah, the state party will need a waiver from the RNC no matter what they decide.

...

FHQ has raised Trump's standing with evangelicals in response to a number of stories that emphasize each side of a divide with his falling support among the group on one side to his continued good standing there on the other. Seth Masket has a good one that mostly falls into that latter category, casting Trump's relationship with white evangelicals as transactional and that, because Trump delivered for them during his time in the White House, he remains in good shape with that particular demographic. Good piece.

...

On this date...

...in 1984, former Vice President Walter Mondale won the Maryland and North Carolina primaries while Sen. Gary Hart's narrow victories in Indiana and Ohio kept his campaign alive for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination.

...in 1987, Gary Hart dropped out of the 1988 Democratic presidential race (for the first time that cycle) after reports of an extramarital affair surfaced.

...in 2012, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was three for three against nominal competition in the Indiana, North Carolina and West Virginia primaries as he closed in on securing the delegates necessary to claim the Republican nomination.

--

Recent posts:

Sunday Series: There's no budding feud between Iowa and New Hampshire, but the Democratic parties in each are approaching 2024 differently. Here is how.

[From FHQ Plus] A Curious Decision on the Georgia Presidential Primary

Checking in on 2024 Republican Delegate Math

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