Race to 1144: Iowa Caucuses

FHQ will let the graphics speak for themselves here. However, I did want to make a statement about the delegate totals below and Iowa last night. There are a few things to know about the delegate selection process the Republican Party of Iowa utilizes. First of all, there were NO delegates at stake last night. Second, the 28 delegates Iowa was apportioned by the Republican National Committee will be selected at the state convention in June. Third, every delegate selected in June will go to the Republican National Convention in Tampa unpledged. Finally and relatedly, there is no formal method -- winner-take-all or proportional -- for allocating those delegates. They will remain unbound.

All of that makes the CNN delegate total FHQ has seen cited several times today all the more frustrating to see. It is a myth rooted in fantasy. That the cable network has tentatively allocated/projected the Iowa Republican delegates proportionally is misleading and it is irresponsible. There is no mention of proportionality anywhere in the Constitution and Bylaws of the Republican Party of Iowa. Period. As such, what you see below is a delegate total that is comprised of the 15 automatic delegates who have endorsed a candidate to this point and are not bound by the results of a presidential primary or caucus.

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Source: Democratic Convention Watch

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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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In Search of Ron Paul Delegates, 2012 Edition

Look, FHQ agrees with Jon Bernstein: Ron Paul will not be the Republican presidential nominee. However, I think that he is underestimating the impact of the not-so-secret Paul delegate strategy that is being talked about in some quarters today. The only problem is that no one has any way of knowing by how much.  Let me explain.

Way back in the halcyon days of 2008 when the Clinton-Obama nomination battle was all anyone was talking/writing about, FHQ got bored and briefly shifted our focus to the settled Republican race. It was on the Republican side where a steady stream of anecdotal evidence continued to come out of any number of states about how Ron Paul advocates were -- there's no way to say this without offending someone -- infiltrating the back end of the Republican nomination process. Ron Paul was, after John McCain had surpassed the number of delegates necessary to become the presumptive nominee on March 4, 2008, competing not for wins and delegate pledges so much as the Texas representative and his supporters were delegates. See, there are two parallel processes that are happening in any presidential nomination race. One is the primaries and caucuses that we all love to analyze to death; the part that binds the delegates in most states. The other, however, is the process of -- from the participants' perspective -- becoming a delegate or from the party's perspective, identifying delegates.

Ron Paul hung around in 2008 losing the first process -- rarely breaking the 20-25% barrier in the votes in late primaires and caucuses -- and while he still lost the second process also, it was by a smaller margin. The most extreme example of this was when Paul and Paul delegates to the state convention in Nevada were able to parlay a very distant second place finish in the January caucus in the Silver state into a cancelation of the state convention. The process in Nevada had been derailed to such an extent that the Nevada Republican State Central Committee eventually selected the delegates to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.¹ There were similar stories of lesser chaos elsewhere.

But I don't think the Paul campaign is after that same goal this time around. Well, not that same type of chaos anyway. Two points:

First of all, the Paul folks are VERY organized. FHQ has something of an inside view of this. For months now, FHQ's 2012 presidential primary calendar has been used by at least two or three Ron Paul sites in either efforts to get the word out about when the various states are actually holding votes or in lengthy tutorials on how to become a delegate. These folks -- whether directly coordinating with the Paul campaign or not -- know the rules and are focused on what I call the back end of the process; the selection of actual delegates (not the binding of them).

Secondly, the business casual orders that came down the line within the Paul campaign to its young volunteers in Iowa hints at something bigger. The campaign, in other words, wants to appear to and actually be a part of an orderly delegate selection process, but a part that gets more Paul supporters a step further in the process in 2012 versus 2008. To the convention in Tampa.

And this gets back to Jon's point. Do a hundred or two hundred Paul delegates in Tampa disrupt the nomination of, say, Mitt Romney? No. Do they influence the platform to any great degree? Perhaps, but probably not. Yet, if I'm a betting man -- and I'm not -- I'd take the over on that estimate of Paul delegates in Tampa. The Ron Paul campaign is built to last both financially and organizationally. It won't be a conventional campaign. The field should winnow down to most likely Romney and Paul with similar dynamics to 2008 heading down the stretch of the primary calendar, but with Paul folks focused more heavily on the back end of the delegate selection process rather than the front end of winning contests.

We could conceivably, then, end up with an unknown but fairly sizable number of Paul delegates pledged to Romney or some other candidate in Tampa based on the rules in the various states. Romney in that scenario wins the nomination but the Paul folks become increasingly likely to hold some sway over some planks in the platform. [And just because, I'll add this: They may also influence the nomination rules for 2016.]

Now, none of this is happening in a vacuum. The Romney campaign and presumably the RNC if Romney becomes the presumptive nominee can organize against this. They could and can get people out to the caucuses/conventions that decide who becomes delegates just as easily as the Paul campaign if the latter shows signs of dominating or influencing the back end of the process.² This may or may not be a story in a month, but it is worth keeping an eye on.

It is an unknown just how many delegates the Paul campaign can get through to the convention in Tampa. If the over/under is 200, take the over.

...on January 4. The dynamics can and likely will change.

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¹ It should be noted that this is a completely acceptable -- sanctioned -- method of allocating/selecting delegates according to the RNC rules on delegate selection. Man, I should have brought up this midstream shift in the rules when Republicans in Texas were adamant that the RNC would not allow the state party to change the rules after the October 1 deadline to have finalized them.

² Now, lest you say to FHQ that Paul would only really have an advantage in caucus states, recall that even the primary states have parallel caucus/convention systems in place to select the actual delegates to the national convention. The primary part only binds the delegates in states that choose to bind their delegates to candidates.

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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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For Virginia Democrats, A Primary That May Not Be

One of the most interesting things to FHQ about the ballot in the Virginia primary being set late last week -- no, not the part about Newt and the chocolate factory -- was the news that the State Board of Elections may/will cancel the Democratic primary. The first inclination here at FHQ was to go back to the Virginia Democratic delegate selection plan and see when the caucuses to elect the actual delegates are to take place next year. As it turns out, however, those April 21 and 23 city and county caucuses will not serve as the back up plan for the presidential preference vote. Those meetings will continue to hold the role of beginning the delegate selection process -- identifying those who will be bound to what candidates at the national convention -- but there will be no vote on presidential preference in the process; at a primary or caucus.

Well, that doesn't seem entirely fair. Democratic voters don't get a choice with a canceled primary. Remember, though, that President Obama would have been the only choice on the ballot anyway. [Write ins are not an option.] The primary, then, would have been meaningless. As such, the plan is to continue as if the primary -- for Democrats -- was happening on March 6 simultaneous to the two man contest on the Republican side and allocate/bind the delegates accordingly. Obama would have received 100% of the vote and thus all of the Virginia Democratic delegates.

...and he will at the state convention anyway.

Thanks to Virginia DNC member, Frank Leone, for fielding my questions and filling in the gaps.

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Republican Delegate Allocation Rules: 2012 vs. 2008

Let the questions be answered.

The RNC released yesterday the final piece of the puzzle in terms of how delegates will be allocated in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.¹ Now, FHQ has been saying all along that, theoretically, the changes to the delegate selection rules would not affect states and subsequently the candidates and their efforts to win more delegates all that much. Again, theoretically. At issue has been whether a state had to in some way abandon either straight winner-take-all delegate allocation or a hybrid system with winner-take-all allocation of at-large (base and bonus) delegates and congressional district delegates for a more proportional method in states with contests before April 1. Some change was inevitable, but because the rules change was treated as black and white -- that Republican winner-take-all states now had to be proportional before April 1 -- the impact of the change has been consistently overstated.

Well, now the unknown is known and we can examine just how much of a change has occurred in state delegate selection rules relative to 2008. Since so many states shifted back the dates on which their primaries and caucuses will be held in 2012, the number of straight winner-take-all states -- those that allocate all of their delegates based on the statewide vote -- was fairly limited. Florida, Arizona, Vermont and Virginia were forced to depart from their past method of allocation. [Of course, already penalized for holding contests before the first Tuesday in March, both Florida and Arizona opted to continue with straight winner-take-all rules under the rationale that they could not be penalized further.] Still other states had winner-take-all allocation but had that split up between the at-large delegates and the congressional district delegates. That latter group of states had in place a set of rules that were already fit for a change. The straight winner-take-all states had a much greater move to make.

With that said, though, what have states done to comply with the new rules on delegate allocation? More importantly, what could states do to comply? Let's take the second question first. There are two main responses that states could have made to most easily comply with the new RNC rules.

One option is to simply keep the same old winner-take-all rules -- straight or hybrid -- and make winner-take-all allocation dependent upon one candidate clearing the 50% mark in the statewide vote. If no candidate reaches that level, the allocation is proportional. But even that has been interpreted to widely varying degrees. For a straight winner-take-all state like Virginia, they could have put in that threshold and moved on. However, for a hybrid winner-take-all state like Ohio, where the winner-take-all allocation is based on votes both statewide and within the congressional district, that sort of threshold was only necessary -- according to the RNC rules -- on the at-large (base and bonus) delegates based on the statewide vote.

The second option is for states to either just switch to straight proportional allocation or to shift to allocating the at-large (base and bonus) delegates proportionally, leaving the congressional district delegates to be allocated winner-take-all. FHQ has always operated under the assumption -- let's call it an unofficial hypothesis -- that state parties would do whatever is necessary to comply with these sorts rules changes, but make the least amount of change possible. That is why I say it is harder for a straight winner-take-all state than a state that already has the allocation split into statewide and congressional district votes. There are easier outs for the latter simply because they can stay relatively close to what they had previously than a straight winner-take-all state. Regardless, either type of state could, at a minimum, make the allocation of the at-large (base and bonus) delegates proportional and be done. At the opposite end of the spectrum, states could just make everything proportional and break with a winner-take-all past.

Fine, so what have the states done?

Well, in looking at the table below, FHQ has a few observations. The first, and perhaps the biggest, is that the states on the calendar through February have made no changes to their delegate allocation from 2008. They were already compliant with the 2008 method or were penalized for an early primary or caucus date and stuck with the 2008 rules knowing the RNC would not punish them further (...or daring the national party to do so). There is a chance, then, that if this nomination race resolves itself quickly, the rules changes will have no impact. Well, the new winner-take-all/proportional rules will not have had an impact. The new calendar restrictions -- no states before the first Tuesday in March other than the exempt states -- will play a bigger role in that scenario.

If, however, the race stretches into March, that is when we may start seeing the winner-take-all/proportional changes influence the race. Looking at the March states and matching 2012 to 2008, the most frequent response to the rules changes was for states to tack on a conditional element to their allocation rules. Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia -- all Super Tuesday states -- added a conditional element to their allocation rules. Winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon a candidate receiving over 50% of the vote, statewide and/or on the congressional district level.² This is an important point. That 50% threshold is really going to play a role if the field has been winnowed down to just two candidates. Actually, FHQ has made this point before: The fewer candidates there are, the more likely it is that someone breaks 50% of the vote, and subsequently takes all the delegates in any of these conditional states. Those January/February states become very important. In fact, that lull throughout much of February may be a killer for any candidate clinging to just a modicum of viability at that point. Voters will start limiting their choices to those who are most likely to win and if the likes of Bachmann and Santorum and whoever are not already out, that stretch will be very difficult to survive through.

Obviously, in a scenario where there is a Clinton/Obama-type struggle for the 2012 Republican nomination, these rules are going to matter. But if Romney wins Iowa and wins where he is "supposed to" after that, the former Massachusetts governor will win the nomination and the rules won't play that much of a role. Looking at both the changes to the calendar and the changes the states have made, I can see something in the middle of those two extremes being most likely. The early contests get split, but it favors Romney, the February dead period puts significant strain on the candidates trying to stay in the race but without the resources to make it happen, and Romney breaks 50% in some of these conditional winner-take-all states on March 6. That would put a significant amount of pressure on any other candidates from a delegate math perspective. At that point, it becomes a matter of making up the delegate deficit for any non-Romney candidate. Some later winner-take-all contests would theoretically help, but there are very few straight winner-take-all states to completely shut out Romney as the calendar enters April. There are a handful, but likely not enough.

The bottom line is that there are no changes to the rules up front. Those start kicking in in March. But at that point, it could be too late for those changes to make any difference. If anything, history tells us that the nomination will wrap up sooner rather than later (...and that has been true in strictly proportional Democratic races with similar calendars). The question now is how long will this race last? The race needs to last long enough for the rules to kick in, which will, in turn, draw the race out even further. That is not how people have been thinking about this. Instead, the standard thought is that the new rules will prolong the process.

Now the process just has to get to a point where those rules would matter. We shall see.

2008 vs. 2012 Republican Delegate Allocation
January
State	Total Delegates	District Delegates	Base Delegates	Bonus Delegates	Automatic Delegates	2012 Rules1	2008 Rules2
IA	28	12	10	3	3	Caucus3	Caucus
NH	12	--	--	--	--	Prop.	Prop.
SC	25	--	--	--	--	WTA/CD	WTA/CD
FL	50	--	--	--	--	WTA	WTA
February
State	Total Delegates	District Delegates	Base Delegates	Bonus Delegates	Automatic Delegates	2012 Rules1	2008 Rules2
NV	28	12	10	3	3	Prop.	Prop.
CO	36	21	10	2	3	Caucus	Caucus
MN	40	24	10	3	3	Caucus	Caucus
ME	24	6	10	5	3	Caucus	Caucus
AZ	29	--	--	--	--	WTA	WTA
MI	30	--	--	--	--	WTA/CD--Prop./at-large	WTA/CD--Prop./at-large
March
State	Total Delegates	District Delegates	Base Delegates	Bonus Delegates	Automatic Delegates	2012 Rules1	2008 Rules2
WA	43	30	10	--	3	Caucus	WTA/CD--Prop./at-large
AK	27	3	10	11	3	Prop.	Prop.
GA	76	42	10	21	3	Top 2/CD--Prop./at-large	WTA/CD
ID	32	6	10	13	3	Caucus (80% Prop.)	Prop.
MA	41	27	10	1	3	Prop.	Prop.
ND	28	3	10	12	3	Caucus	Caucus
OH	66	48	10	5	3	Conditional WTA/at-large--WTA/CD	WTA/CD
OK	43	15	10	15	3	Conditional WTA	WTA/CD
TN	58	27	10	18	3	Conditional WTA*	Conditional WTA
VT	17	3	10	1	3	Conditional WTA/at-large--WTA/CD	WTA
VA	49	33	10	3	3	Conditional WTA/at-large--WTA/CD	WTA
VI	9	--	6	-	3	Caucus	Caucus
WY	29	3	10	13	3	Prop./CD--Convention/at-large	Prop./CD--Convention/at-large
KS	40	12	10	15	3	WTA/CD--Prop./at-large	WTA/CD
AL	50	21	10	16	3	Conditional WTA	Conditional WTA
AS	9	--	6	--	3	Caucus	Caucus
HI	20	6	10	1	3	Caucus	Caucus
MS	40	12	10	15	3	Prop.	Conditional WTA
MO	52	24	10	15	3	Caucus	WTA
PR	23		10	10	3	Caucus	Caucus
IL	69	54	10	2	3	Loophole	Loophole
LA	46	18	10	15	3	Caucus/CD--Prop./at-large	Caucus/CD--Prop./at-large
April
State	Total Delegates	District Delegates	Base Delegates	Bonus Delegates	Automatic Delegates	2012 Rules1	2008 Rules2
MD	37	24	10	--	3	WTA/CD	WTA/CD
TX	155	108	10	34	3	Prop.	Conditional WTA
DC	19	--	10	6	3	WTA	WTA
WI	42	24	10	5	3	WTA/CD	WTA/CD
CT	28	15	10	--	3	Conditional WTA/at-large--WTA/CD	WTA
DE	17	3	10	1	3	WTA	WTA
NY	95	81	10	1	3	Conditional WTA/at-large--Top 2/CD	WTA
PA	72	54	10	5	3	Loophole	Loophole
RI	19	6	10	--	3	Prop.	Prop.
May
State	Total Delegates	District Delegates	Base Delegates	Bonus Delegates	Automatic Delegates	2012 Rules1	2008 Rules2
IN	46	27	10	6	3	WTA/CD	WTA/CD
NC	55	39	10	3	3	Prop.	Prop.
WV	31	9	10	9	3	Loophole	WTA/CD--caucus
NE	35	9	10	13	3	Convention	Convention
OR	28	15	10	--	3	Prop.	Prop.
AR	36	12	10	11	3	Conditional Prop.	Conditional Prop.
KY	45	18	10	14	3	Prop.	Prop.
June
State	Total Delegates	District Delegates	Base Delegates	Bonus Delegates	Automatic Delegates	2012 Rules1	2008 Rules2
CA	172	159	10	--	3	WTA/CD	WTA/CD
MT	26	3	10	10	3	Caucus	Convention
NJ	50	36	10	1	3	WTA	WTA
NM	23	9	10	1	3	Prop.	Prop.
SD	28	3	10	12	3	Prop.	Prop.
UT	40	12	10	15	3	WTA	WTA
No Date
State	Total Delegates	District Delegates	Base Delegates	Bonus Delegates	Automatic Delegates	2012 Rules1	2008 Rules2
GU	9	--	6	--	3	Caucus	Caucus
MP	9	--	6	--	3	Caucus	Caucus
1 Source: Republican National Committee Counsel's Office 2 Source: The Green Papers 3 Key: WTA = winner-take-all; WTA/CD = winner-take-all by congressional district and statewide; conditional WTA = winner-take-all if candidate clears 50%, proportional otherwise; top 2 = top two candidates all allocated delegates if no candidate receives a majority; prop. = proportional; caucus = caucus; convention = convention; loophole = delegates directly elected (on primary ballot)

NOTE: FHQ should note that this RNC release is not a death knell for our examination of the state-by-state rules. The above is a 30,000 foot view of the process, but there is still a lot under the hood that is worth talking about in greater detail. That obviously could not be forced into on giant post. Continue to be on the lookout for that in the coming weeks under the 2012 Republican Delegate Allocation series label.

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¹ Below is the summary of delegate allocation from the Republican National Committee:
2012 RNC Delegate Summary

² Tennessee has a higher 66% threshold. It will be very difficult to a candidate to get to that mark in a multicandidate field.

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Don't Bet on the Iowa Caucuses Going Anywhere in 2016

No, FHQ wouldn't even bet on it if Ron Paul won the caucuses on January 3.

Now, I won't go as far as to say that it won't happen, but the odds are against Iowa's caucuses being removed from its position at the front of the calendar. And in the end that will have very little to do with Iowans or campaign surrogates there saying the caucus process was "hijacked". Assuming Paul does win the caucuses and then fails to capture the Republican nomination, that really is no different than Iowa caucusgoers choosing wrong in the past in nomination races in both parties. As FHQ has said previously, Iowa's role isn't to predict the nominee, but rather to winnow the field. Iowa caucusgoers don't necessarily anoint the frontrunner, they usually pare the field down to either that candidate (if the invisible primary has been at all conclusive) or the frontrunner and another couple of candidates (if the invisible primary has been inconclusive). Iowa's success rate at picking the nominee isn't/wouldn't necessarily be any better or worse than any other state in that position.

But I don't want to defend Iowa's position on the calendar again.

...not that I am.

FHQ is just mindful of the reality of the process that produces a presidential primary calendar every four years. The decision of whether to keep Iowa and/or New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina up front is up to the national parties. If the parties want them there, then there those contests will be. If not, the delegate selection rules will be crafted in a way as to (attempt) to prevent that. And sure, that brings up a perfectly valid point: Why couldn't Iowa Republicans and Democrats just pull a Florida and ignore the national party rules if those rules didn't protect Iowa's spot at the head of the queue?

They could. But the problem is -- and Romney is demonstrating this to some extent this cycle -- that candidates can keep Iowa at arms length if they feel they can win the nomination without Iowa. No, FHQ doesn't mean skipping. No candidate would ever skip the first state, but they could choose to limit their time there, biding their time until the right point. That, however, takes a certain type of candidate; a frontrunner or a self-/well-financed challenger. Iowa Republicans are really worried about that -- those internal factors like candidate visits/spending -- instead of the RNC changing the rules and reshuffling the order at the beginning of the process -- an external factor.

Let's look at those externals first and then revisit the other end of the Iowa equation. First of all, if a Republican wins the White House next year -- regardless of whether the Iowa caucuses correctly predict the nominee -- then Iowa will not be an issue in 2016. It may be, but it isn't likely. Why? Parties in the White House rarely tinker with their rules; especially if the objective is to renominate/reelect the president (see Klinkner, 1994). If there is one thing the Democratic Rules and Bylaws Committee said last year, it was that their main objective -- the party's really -- was to reelect President Obama. They were not going to discuss anything -- and certainly not a contentious "Iowa and New Hampshire shouldn't be first" debate -- that was going to rock the boat. Buttressing that issue, there is no evidence that the Democratic Party would push Iowa from its lofty perch. If anything gives a state party an argument for being in a particular position on the calendar (early, in other words), it is the other party in the state holding down an early position. And in Iowa's case, there is a tradition of the two parties holding caucuses on the same date.

It is slightly more likely that Iowa would be in danger if Obama is reelected. The Republican Party would potentially be willing to reexamine just about anything within their 2016 nomination process -- Iowa's position included -- if they lost in 2012. And the Democratic Party would be more willing to go along if there is some consensus -- intra-party and inter-party -- behind moving Iowa from the top or reforming the system in some small measure. [BIG ifs.]

No, I think what is most probable -- even if Ron Paul wins on January 3 -- is that Iowa is simply left alone. Neither party was particularly interested in opening up that Iowa/NewHampshire debate in the last round of delegate selection rule tweaking and it isn't clear that they would want to in the future. It's complicated as I think much of the writing on FHQ will attest. This whole thing -- the Iowa conundrum -- has more to do with the dynamics of this race and within the Republican Party right now. If there was a clear frontrunner right now and a win in Iowa  was viewed as the first win in a string of fairly sure victories (think George W. Bush in 2000), then said frontrunner will be there and so will the other candidates. However, if you have no clear frontrunner and instead someone who is kind of sort of ahead in the polls (or at least consistent in them) and overspent and got burned in Iowa four years prior, then you have a recipe for an indecisive Iowa result. It really is as simple as that. The dynamics of the last two Republican races have hurt Iowa -- as it would have a great many other states that could have been at the front -- if the measure is defined as Iowa choosing the eventual nominee. But that isn't Iowa's role in this process and that is part of the reason they aren't likely to go anywhere anytime soon.

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Deal Would Push Consolidated Texas Primary back to April 3

Add one, subtract one.

As soon as Ohio rejoined Super Tuesday on March 6 an apparent deal between the Republican Party of Texas and the Texas Democratic Party has the Lone Star state on the verge of shifting its presidential primary -- along with the primaries for other offices -- back a month from March 6 to April 3. The deal was necessary to accommodate the need for time for the federal courts to resolve the redistricting dispute in the state, redraw the lines and leave enough time for the elections to be properly administered. With Texas now shifting off the Super Tuesday line on the calendar -- pending approval from the federal district court in San Antonio¹ -- the already less Super Tuesday relative to 2008 loses 155 Texas delegates. That leaves Super Tuesday as the date on the calendar with the most delegates at stake and brings April 3 -- with the addition of Texas -- up to the date with the third highest number of delegates on the line in the Republican nomination race; just ahead of April 24 (New York, Pennsylvania, etc.) and behind only Super Tuesday and June 5 (California, New Jersey, etc.).

However, the move does have consequences as FHQ alluded to in our Texas post this morning. Sure, Rick Perry is going to have to win some contests (Iowa and South Carolina???) to survive long enough for the southern contests on March 6, but now the Texas governor can no longer rely on Texas on Super Tuesday. And once this gets into March, it may take more than wins -- more like wins with attendant large delegate margins -- to survive and advance. In other words, with Texas pushed even further back on the calendar, Perry's chance of survival, much less a path to the nomination, takes a hit.

And even though FHQ got some resistance from the Republican Party of Texas -- the communications director and an Executive Committee member -- on the likelihood of RPT altering its allocation rules from proportional back to conditional winner-take-all, I can't help but wonder if the party may petition the RNC for a shift. As of now, the RPT line is that the October 1 deadline to finalize rules with the RNC has passed and the current proportional allocation is set in stone. [Sorry. These sorts of questions haunt me. It is a constant quest for a definitive answer where no wiggle room exists.] There may be no wiggle room here, but RPT could argue that their decision-making calculus would have been different had they known the courts would intervene in the redistricting fight and put the March 6 primary date in jeopardy. Now, the RPT argument is that the matter is settled and such a plea would fall on deaf ears at with the national party. That is entirely possible and signals that there may be no desire to make a change within the party. That may be true now, but this bears watching over the next [insert some definite period of time here]; whether sentiment within the state party changes on the matter of delegate allocation.  

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¹ According to those close to the process, the courts left it up to the two state parties to hash out.

Recent Posts:

Kasich Signature Places Ohio Presidential Primary Back on March 6

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: South Carolina

Deal to Conditionally Split April Texas Primaries Emerges in Ongoing Talks to Resolve Primary Date Dispute

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Kasich Signature Places Ohio Presidential Primary Back on March 6

Ohio is back on Super Tuesday.

...again.

On Thursday, December 15, Governor John Kasich (R) signed HB 369 into law. The legislation passed by both chambers a day prior not only sets the new congressional district boundaries, but consolidates the once split presidential/US House primaries with the primaries for all remaining offices. The move -- the fourth shift of the year for the Ohio presidential primary -- puts the Buckeye state back in a position to potentially influence the Republican nomination race. That is a much easier proposition from March 6 than it would have been all the way back on June 12 in the next to last position on the calendar. As have mentioned previously, Ohio would be a unique state on March 6: the only Rust Belt state in a sea of southern/northeaster primaries and western caucuses.

UPDATE: One other note about this bill that is of great importance in the long journey that has been the setting of the Ohio presidential primary date is that because HB 369 was passed with an emergency clause, it took effect upon Governor Kasich's signature.

Recent Posts:

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: South Carolina

Deal to Conditionally Split April Texas Primaries Emerges in Ongoing Talks to Resolve Primary Date Dispute

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: New Hampshire

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2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: South Carolina

This is the third in a multipart series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation by state.¹ The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2012 -- especially relative to 2008 -- in order to gauge the impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. As FHQ has argued in the past, this has often been cast as a black and white change. That the RNC has winner-take-all rules and the Democrats have proportional rules. Beyond that, the changes have been wrongly interpreted in a great many cases as having made a 180º change from straight winner-take-all to straight proportional rules in all pre-April 1 primary and caucus states. That is not the case. 

The new requirement has been adopted in a number of different ways across the states. Some have moved to a conditional system where winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon one candidate receiving 50% or more of the vote and others have responded by making just the usually small sliver of a state's delegate apportionment from the national party -- at-large delegates -- proportional as mandated by the party. Those are just two examples. There are other variations in between that also allow state parties to comply with the rules. FHQ has long argued that the effect of this change would be to lengthen the process. However, the extent of the changes from four years ago is not as great as has been interpreted and points to the spacing of the 2012 primary calendar -- and how that interacts with the ongoing campaign -- being a much larger factor in the accumulation of delegates (Again, especially relative to the 2008 calendar).

For links to the other states' plans see the Republican Delegate Selection Plans by State section in the left sidebar under the calendar.


SOUTH CAROLINA

[NOTE: See also our additional examination of the post-sanctions delegate allocation in South Carolina.]

One note that FHQ has failed to mention to this point in the series is that there is a subsection to Rule 15 in the Rules of the Republican Party that not only carves out an early -- February, in theory -- position for Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, but it also exempts those four states from the proportionality requirement to which every other state is party. That exemption means very little in Iowa and New Hampshire as FHQ has shown, but in South Carolina, the rule is of great consequence in light of state party rules on the matter of allocation (see Rule 11.b).

The South Carolina Republican Party, by rule, allocates its national convention delegates on a winner-take-all basis by congressional district and statewide. Unlike some subsequent states FHQ will examine soon, however, South Carolina -- because of that exemption -- will not have to set a minimum threshold (50% of the vote or greater) by which winner-take-all allocation is triggered. If a candidate wins the statewide vote by one vote (with, say, 20% of the vote) that candidate is entitled to all of the at-large delegates (26 delegates before the 50% penalty for hold a primary before February). The same holds true for votes on the congressional district level (3 delegates per 7 congressional districts; 21 in total before the 50% penalty). Note also that there is no minimum vote percentage floor required to win delegates. That said, it is unlikely in a slightly (to greatly) winnowed field post-Iowa/New Hampshire that a candidate will win South Carolina with less than 30% of the vote. Both John McCain and Mike Huckabee cleared that threshold in 2008 in a very narrow victory for McCain. That isn't to say such an outcome cannot happen, but it isn't, perhaps, likely.

Through the first three contests, then, there is no change in the allocation rules in 2012 versus 2008. The sequence is the same, the spacing between contests is similar -- albeit without a Michigan primary between New Hampshire and South Carolina -- and the rules are the same. The only difference -- potentially -- are the dynamics of the race.

That may or may not change with the next state on the list: Florida. Things may get quirky with the Sunshine state.

Delegate allocation score: 0 [No change from 2008.]
Cumulative allocation score: 0 [No change through three contests from 2008.]

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¹ FHQ would say 50 part, but that doesn't count the territories or account for the fact that there is no public information on Republican delegate selection in some states at this point.

Recent Posts:

Deal to Conditionally Split April Texas Primaries Emerges in Ongoing Talks to Resolve Primary Date Dispute

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: New Hampshire

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Iowa

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