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

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From The Trump Trial and the Primary Calendar:

The former president's hush money payment trial in Manhattan is set to start in the sweet spot of the 2024 presidential primary calendar.

Former President Donald Trump beamed into a New York courtroom via video on Tuesday, May 23 for a hearing in which, among other things, the start date of the trial stemming from the 2016 hush money payments investigation was revealed. And the March 25, 2024 date falls right into the heart of the 2024 presidential primary calendar. It is not just that the trial will begin as March winds down following the opening of the (more) winner-take-all phase of the Republican presidential nomination process. 

Yes, the calendar of contests is still evolving, but the tentative start of the trial is a big deal for at least a couple of reasons based on where it looks as if the calendar will end up settling for 2024.

The 50-75 Rule

Sure, March 25 will be well after Iowa and New Hampshire have officially kicked off the voting phase of the Republican presidential nomination race. It will follow Super Tuesday. And it will hit right after the time on the calendar — March 15 — when states are allowed to allocate delegates to candidates in a winner-take-all fashion. But more importantly, March 25 falls in what is likely to be the decisive zone on the presidential primary calendar next year. 

In the last three competitive Republican presidential nomination cycles, the candidate who has held the delegate lead when 50 percent of the total number of delegates have been allocated has gone on to clinch the nomination around the point on the calendar when 75 percent of the delegates have been allocated. And in 2024, the 50 percent mark will likely fall somewhere between Super Tuesday on March 5 and the first round of winner-take-all-eligible primaries on March 19. Just two weeks later, on April 2, the 75 percent mark will likely be crossed with an anticipated subregional primary in the northeast and mid-Atlantic (with Wisconsin along for the ride).

March 25 is right in that window. 

But look at the 50-75 rule in the context of the last few competitive Republican cycles. 

• In 2008, John McCain came out of Super Tuesday on February 5 with a sizable delegate lead that he did not relinquish down the stretch. Super Tuesday was the point on the calendar when the 50 percent mark was passed and McCain had wrapped up the nomination by early March when the 75 percent point came and went. 

• Four years later, the calendar was different. Yes, Florida again pushed the earliest contests into January, but California was no longer in early February. The primary in Texas was no longer in early March. Instead, both delegate-rich states were toward the end of the calendar and that influenced where the 50-75 rule was activated in 2012. 50 percent of the Republican delegates had not been allocated that cycle until after 75 percent of them had been allocated in 2008. The 75 percent mark did not come in 2012 until the Texas primary at the end of May. That is a significant difference, but Mitt Romney was the delegate leader in late March and secured the requisite number of delegates to clinch the nomination in the Lone Star state in late May. 

• In 2016, the calendar changed again, but the 50-75 rule remained fairly predictive. Donald Trump was the delegate leader when the 50 percent mark was crossed on March 15 and had a nearly insurmountable advantage after wins in the northeast and mid-Atlantic in late April, when the process pushed past the 75 percent point on the calendar. No, Trump did not clinch that day, but his last challengers withdrew a week later. 

The 2024 calendar is not shaping up to be like any of those examples exactly. 50 percent of the delegates will have been allocated around the same point on the calendar in 2024 as 2016, but the 75 percent mark will come in much quicker succession thereafter. Again, it comes just two weeks later. That is a rapid delegate distribution. It is not 2008 fast, but it is fast. And March 25 is right there, late enough in process, but right in that calendar sweet spot where nomination decisions tend to be made in the Republican process.

The Emerging April Gap

Fast forward to March 25, 2024. The 50 percent mark has been surpassed in terms of delegates allocated and a candidate has a clear advantage in the delegate count. That candidate is almost always the frontrunner heading into primary season. Not always, but often enough. At this point in time, seven months out from Iowa starting the voting phase, that frontrunner is Donald Trump. He may not be in seven or nine months time. 

Regardless, this big external event is plopped down right in the middle of primary season. And it will not be over and done with on March 25. That trial will last a little bit and draw a lot of attention in the process. It will additionally likely overlap with the April 2 round of primaries. 

Now, the calendar is not set yet. But April 2 is poised to grow its footprint on the 2024 process in the coming days and weeks. Officially, Wisconsin is the only contest on that date as of now. However, bills have been proposed to move the Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island primaries to that date. There are signals that legislation is forthcoming from New York to move the presidential primary in the Empire state to April 2 as well. And talk is ramping up that Pennsylvania’s primary may land there also. 

Yet, in moving, those states are pulling up tent posts in late April and shifting them to the beginning of the month. That is going to hollow out the rest of April on the Republican calendar after April 2. There will potentially be no contests scheduled for the rest of the month.

There will potentially be no primaries or caucuses again until the Indiana primary on May 7. 

That is a five week gap with no contests. That is a five week gap that will exert a tremendous amount of pressure on the candidates trailing in the delegate count to close up shop and call it a day. That is a five week gap into which a trial that starts on March 25 will potentially creep and suck up even more attention (potentially away from those trailing candidates who need it most). 

However, that trial, while possibly drawing attention away from the campaign trail, will also create uncertainty; uncertainty as to the viability of the potential frontrunner and delegate leader. And despite feeling pressure to drop out, that may have the effect of, as Julia Azari and Seth Masket recently pointed out, keeping candidates who may otherwise have dropped out in past cycles in this race longer. 

But the point here is that this emerging April gap in the calendar is at the very point in the process when this trial is set to be going on. And there will be no contests or results to divert attention after April 2. Trump could have the nomination close to wrapped up by that point, but other trailing candidates could still be hanging around even as there are no primaries and caucuses for weeks. 

Look, this is already a weird dynamic. But throwing a trial into this rapid succession of delegate allocation followed by a gap in the action right as someone potentially gets close to clinching would create a strange matrix of incentives for all players involved. And that has implications for how the Republican nomination process winds down and transitions into the convention phase typically set aside to bring the party together for a general election run. 

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

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. 

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From The Quirks of Scheduling a South Carolina Presidential Primary:

Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger recently made the curious decision to schedule the presidential primary in the Peach state for March 12, a week after Super Tuesday. And the move not only ended the hopes of Georgia Democrats holding a primary in the pre-window on the 2024 presidential primary calendar, but it also highlighted why South Carolina got the nod from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to take over the lead off slot. 

The Raffensperger obstacle in Georgia, whether viewed through the lens of partisanship or not, is something with which decision makers in the Palmetto state do not have to contend. After all, like Georgia, the state of South Carolina foots the bill for the election. However, unlike Georgia, the it is the state parties in South Carolina that set the date of the contest. It is a unique power that grants the state’s primaries more scheduling mobility than the vast majority of the states and allows South Carolina to remain first-in-the-South (if not first-in-the-nation).

But that freedom in South Carolina is not without some fetters. 

Caitlin Byrd and Alexander Thompson had a nice “yes, South Carolina Democrats are actually having the first primary in 2024” story over the weekend. And complications with rogue New Hampshire (and the very likely resulting penalties from the DNC) aside, they are. South Carolina Democrats will have a February 3 primary next year. 

But as the piece notes, it is not all smooth sailing in the Palmetto state. 

But not everyone is convinced that a 2024 presidential primary would be a major financial or organizing boost. Former party chair Dick Harpootlian questioned the value of holding a potentially costly event for a predictable outcome.  

“The question is, do we have one if it’s the president versus nobody, because it costs a tremendous amount of money to do that,” he said.

Two Democrats so far have announced challenging Biden for the 2024 presidential nomination: Marianne Williamson and Robert Kennedy Jr., both widely viewed as long shots. 

Pressed if he would want a primary with the current field, Harpootlian replied, “I wouldn’t have it.”

Again, South Carolina Democrats are going to have that February 3 primary. But Harpootlian hints at some of the historical quirks in South Carolina, quirks that have taken new shape under state and national party changes. Yes, the parties have the freedom to set the date of the contest for anywhere on the calendar they wish, so long as it follows party rules. And in years past when incumbent presidents have run for reelection, those same state parties have had the freedom to cancel the contest and select delegates through a caucus/convention process. It is not some sinister plot to foil the plans of also-ran candidates. Instead, it is a nod to reality. If the president is going to be renominated, then why, in recent years since the state began funding the primaries, spend taxpayer money (or party money before that) to fund a beauty contest election? The answer is that those state parties have not. There was no big, first-in-the-South primary when Bill Clinton ran for reelection in 1996, or for George W. Bush in 2004, or Barack Obama in 2012 or Donald Trump in 2020. Caucuses and/or conventions were held instead. 

But South Carolina Democrats do not have that freedom for 2024. And no one seems to be lamenting that loss. Everyone is too busy celebrating the elevation of the primary to the first spot on the calendar instead. Well, perhaps not Dick Harpootlian. But he is not wrong, per se, nor is South Carolina alone. The primary is alone at the top, of course, but even other states or state parties that might otherwise go small in 2024 with a Democratic president running again have to go through the motions of a primary because of the Rule 2 encouragements layered into DNC rules for the 2020 cycle, the encouragements to hold the most open and accessible nominating contests as is feasible.

To be sure, folks at the DNC would push back against the notion that any state or state party is “going through the motions.” The argument from the national party would most certainly be that the party is creating the most open, inclusive and accessible process for Democratic primary voters. However, the trade-off, if one wants to call it that, is that the party loses out on the incumbent-cycle streamlining of the process. 

And that streamlining, scaling down from a primary to a caucus, is something that some, if not all of the folks, at the DNC would say is no real loss. While that may be in the eye of the beholder, it is also true that there are and have been limited opportunities to streamline anyway. State parties with party-run nominating events may downgrade — hold caucuses over a party-run primary or a convention over caucuses. And some state parties do opt out of state-run primaries in incumbent cycles. Arizona and South Carolina did on the Republican side in 2020. Democrats in Florida and Michigan did in 2012 to avoid non-compliant primaries that were scheduled too early. And Washington Democrats in the legislature canceled the primary there that cycle, a primary the party never used until 2020 (after the legislature brought it back). And there ends up being a handful of states each cycle that automatically cancel a primary if only one candidate is on the ballot. 

So, there are a few instances each cycle where contests are canceled, but South Carolina is unique among state-funded primary states in that Democrats and Republicans can choose, and have chosen, separate dates throughout the post-reform era. And since the state got into the primary funding business for 2008, just two of the four cycles have seen primary cancelations. But 2024 will be the first one where an incumbent is running and a primary is not canceled. It will be the first time the state of South Carolina has had to pay for a largely uncompetitive presidential primary involving an incumbent president.

Again, this is not the custom elsewhere. In all other primary states, there is one primary. A state party with an incumbent president may opt out, but on the whole primaries are held and delegates are allocated, typically based on lopsided results that hand the president the overwhelming majority if not all of the delegates. But the cost constraint in South Carolina represents a unique obstacle with the state parties holding primaries on separate dates. That is two separate elections to fund. 

And that brings this back to 2024. There will be two primaries. But this will be the first time the state has funded primaries when the incumbent president’s party is not opting out. No one is complaining. The legislature is not threatening the funding. It is spent in service of keeping South Carolina first-in-the-South. But as Byrd and Thompson noted in their article, Palmetto state Republicans used the costs as a justification for opting out in 2020. Democrats in the state are not doing that for 2024. 

The question is whether that action will be the only first in South Carolina for 2024. Separate Democratic and Republican primaries have been the norm. But they do not have to be on different dates. South Carolina Republicans could join Democrats on February 3, save the state the second expenditure and provide a little more room for Iowa and New Hampshire to maneuver in January. 

But that may be a bridge too far in a state with a number of quirks.

 

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Sunday Series: An Update on 2024 Presidential Primary Movement

Back in March, FHQ had an initial glimpse at early legislation to move, establish or eliminate state-run presidential primary elections for the 2024 cycle. And the picture then was one of a fairly sleepy cycle for movers and shakers on the 2024 presidential primary calendar. In the two months since, things have changed, but the story has basically stayed the same. 

First of all, 2023 looks a lot like the other years immediately prior to a presidential election year during the 21st century. That is the year -- the legislative session -- in the cycle that sees the most activity. To most state legislators, there is more, or has proven to be more, urgency to establish and/or position state-run (and funded) contests at that point than at any other time. It is on their radars. 

The 2023 legislative session has not strayed from that trend, but two months further on into it, the activity has not necessarily remained sleepy. In fact, there are now more bills that have been introduced in state legislatures across the country to schedule or reschedule presidential primaries for 2024 than there were in all of 2019 ahead of the competitive Democratic presidential nomination race. Part of the reason for that is partisan. Despite Democratic gains in state legislatures in the 2018 midterm cycle, Republicans continued to control the bulk of state legislatures in 2019. Presidential primary positioning may have been on the minds of Republican majorities in state legislatures, but it was not the priority to them that it would have been to Democratic legislators. 

However, even with fewer bills introduced overall, 2019 saw a higher success rate -- primary scheduling bills signed into law -- than the 2023 session has seen to this point. Yes, more and more state legislatures are adjourning their regular sessions for the year, but 2023 is still young. Primary bills have passed and been signed into law in four states as of mid-May: Idaho, Kansas, Maryland and Michigan. But there are more in the pipeline that look poised to pass (Connecticut, Rhode Island) and others where legislation is likely to eventually move (Pennsylvania) or be introduced in the first place (New Jersey, New York).

And that particular subset of states -- those in the northeast and mid-Atlantic -- are all signaling (or potentially signaling) an alignment that will have some impact on the overall calendar. Most of those states have in recent cycles occupied spots on the calendar in late April. Yet, with Passover falling in that window in 2024, legislators in some of those states are looking at a point a little earlier in the calendar: April 2. If Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island all join Wisconsin on that first Tuesday in April, then it will likely serve as the backside bookend of the delegate sweet spot on the calendar. All at once, the winner-take-all window will open in the Republican process on March 19 and the number of delegates allocated will hit 50 percent and then 75 percent in quick succession by April 2.¹ And that would trigger the 50-75 rule that has so often been a guide to when Republican nomination races of the recent past have signaled the presumptive nominee. 

But all of that depends to some degree on what happens in that group of northeastern/mid-Atlantic states. Legislators actually have to do the hard work of legislating. And as both Idaho and Missouri have proven already in 2023, that endeavor is easier said than done. Regular sessions have ended in both states and neither has a state-run presidential primary option for 2024. Idaho eliminated their stand-alone March presidential primary and Missouri failed to reestablish their own. Yet, the door is not completely closed on either state. Revived pushes for a presidential primary option may come up in special sessions should they be called. That not only raises the possibility of primaries coming back, but also more bills to be added to the mix above both in terms of the overall number of primary bills and the success rate as well. 

Finally, note that none of the bills discussed or hinted at thus far are in any way threatening the beginning of the calendar. That is significant. Yes, that Michigan bill that was signed into law shifted the presidential primary in the Great Lakes state into the early window in the Democratic process, but that will have limited impact on how the beginning of the 2024 presidential primary calendar shakes out during the rest of 2023. Iowa Democrats appear to have found a way out of the penalties trap and New Hampshire continues to indicate its intention to go rogue, but how far into January Iowa Republicans and New Hampshire end up depends on what Nevada Republicans opt to do (and to a lesser extent how South Carolina Republicans react to that).

Many wondered aloud whether the Democratic National Committee decision to shuffle the primary calendar would set off a rush to the beginning of the calendar like in 2008. It has not. However, that decision has increased the level of uncertainty about the early part of the calendar. But the South Carolina Democratic primary being scheduled on February 3 means that there is a pretty narrow range of possibilities for the remaining undecided early states on the Republican side of the ledger. The big thing about the early calendar to internalize at this point is that neither Iowa nor New Hampshire are scheduled for early February. They never have been and will not be from the look of things at this point in 2023.

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¹ A reminder: Just because the Republican winner-take-all window opens on March 15 does not mean that every state after that point will use winner-take-all rules. It just means that they all will have that option. 

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

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. 

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From Evening Digest 5/4/23:

As mentioned earlier over at FHQ, it was reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today that Raffensperger had made his decision and that March 12 was the choice for the date on which to schedule the Georgia presidential primary for 2024. That instantly makes the Peach state the biggest draw on a day that includes primaries in Mississippi and Washington and Republican caucuses in Hawaii.

But it is a curious selection. Most outlets are treating the news as a denial of the proposed elevation of Georgia in the Democratic National Committee (DNC) calendar rules for next year. And it is, but that misses the point. First of all, the proposed February 13 date for the Georgia primary was never workable without either breaking the Republican National Committee (RNC) timing rules or splitting up the Democratic and Republican primaries and holding them on different dates.

That was clear last December when the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) first adopted the calendar rules. And it was even clearer when the full DNC followed suit this past February and when Raffensperger’s office drew a red line because of the aforementioned conflicts.
But what makes this curious and also is being missed is that there was a middle ground in this case that was never really considered. And it is not clear why. As FHQ has noted in February, the secretary could have scheduled the Georgia primary for March 1 or 2 and the move would have met the criteria set by his office. The contest would shift into the early window on the Democratic calendar, albeit later than February 13, would not violate RNC rules and would keep the two parties’ primaries together.

The only catch was that the Georgia Republican Party may have wanted to retain its winner-take-all by congressional district method of delegate allocation. That would potentially have kept the primary in the second half of March. But by selecting March 12, Raffensperger took that discretion away from Georgia Republicans. The party will be stuck with some version of proportional rules for the 2024 cycle.

Without that hitch — without Peach state Republicans insisting on winner-take-most allocation methods — there was no difference between March 1 and March 12. The winner-take-all prohibition treats both dates, and all dates before March 15, the same. But those dates, March 1 or 2 and March 12, are separated by miles in terms of potential impact. A solitary primary before Super Tuesday stands to carry a lot more weight than a primary, especially a proportional primary on the same date as other contests, a week after Super Tuesday. The former is a guaranteed impact, an influence on the Super Tuesday contests. The latter is influenced by Super Tuesday and may — MAY (It would be a gamble.) — put a candidate over the top in the delegate count or be enough to winnow the remaining viable challengers.

That point, however, is moot now. The Georgia presidential primary will fall on March 12. But that does not make it any less strange a decision.

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Recent posts:

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Iowa Democratic Draft Delegate Selection Plan Points Toward Changes Ahead

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Raffensperger Zeros in on Date for Georgia's Presidential Primary

Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• More on the delegate selection plan from Iowa Democrats (and an update on that caucus bill working its way through the state legislature there as the session winds down), a final update on Hawaii's presidential primary and Iowa's was not the only delegate selection plan to go live on Wednesday. All the details at FHQ Plus.

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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

...

Georgia to March 12? Greg Bluestein and Mark Niesse at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution are reporting this morning that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) is set to schedule the presidential primary in the Peach state on Thursday, May 4. And the choice is an interesting one. 

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger plans to announce the decision on Thursday to establish Georgia’s primary date for March 12, according to several people with direct knowledge of the decision who aren’t authorized to speak publicly ahead of a press conference.

Georgia added some flexibility to the timing of its presidential primary back in the lead up to the 2012 nomination cycle. Instead of the state legislature handling those scheduling duties, the body ceded that authority to the secretary of state and empowered the office with rather broad latitude on the matter. Despite that discretion, the presidential primary in the Peach still ended up on Super Tuesday in both 2012 and 2016, consistent with where the primary had been stationed in every cycle dating back to 1992.

But Raffensperger broke with that pattern for the 2020 cycle, initially setting the date for the fourth Tuesday in March, three weeks later than had become usual. And the move was something of a nod to Georgia Republicans. The state Republican Party took the opportunity of the later date to increase the delegate prize for anyone victorious in the Republican presidential primary. Delegate allocation shifted from a more proportional method to one that was winner-take-all by congressional district. Georgia was another piece in the bigger puzzle that was President Trump's renomination race. As in other states across the country, Georgia's 2020 plan made it harder for other candidates to win any delegates and easier for Trump to win, if not all, then most of the delegates in the state. 

All of that is important context for the decision Secretary Raffensperger is apparently set to make. Moving to March 12 would not only impact the ill-fated plans of national and Georgia Democrats to move the primary to a pre-Super Tuesday position, but it would affect the delegate allocation scheme Georgia Republicans would be able to use. Any plan like the one used in 2020 would not comply with Republican National Committee rules. Winner-take-most methods like the one used by Georgia Republicans in the last cycle are prohibited by RNC rules before March 15. 

That means that Georgia Republicans will have to return to a more proportional method similar to the ones utilized by the party in either 2012 or 2016. It may take some folks a bit of time to get there on this, but some will likely eventually argue that this move by Raffensperger hurts Trump because it dilutes any potential net delegate advantage the former president may take out of the Peach state next March. But honestly, that conclusion is not exactly clear at this point in time. The difference between a winner-take-all by congressional district method and a proportional one that has a winner-take-all trigger (as Georgia's did in 2016) can be negligible. If Trump is in the position he is in now in polls when votes are cast next year in primaries and caucuses, then it is likely that he would take fairly significant net delegate gains from Georgia regardless of the methods mentioned above. 

That, however, hinges on what Georgia Republicans decide about delegate allocation rules in the coming months. It seems unlikely, but the state party could opt for a strictly proportional method that really could hurt Trump or at the very least potentially stunt any significant delegate gain from the Peach state. 

All this just triggers the usual mantra used around these parts: The rules matter. And this calendar decision of Raffensperger's moves the needle there. 

...

Iowa Leftovers. I still do not feel like many folks have spent much time reading the Iowa Democratic Party draft delegate selection plan. Some of the reporting has been bad and some of the reactions have been worse.

From New Hampshire, Michael Graham at The New Hampshire Journal had this lede:

The Democratic National Committee may have killed the Iowa caucuses, but Hawkeye State Democrats aren’t going down without a fight. Their problem is that, even if they can somehow battle their way past the DNC, they’ve still got to contend with New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan.

This is just wrong. 

The Iowa plan in no way signaled that Iowa is fighting anything. In fact, it indicated just the opposite. If anything, the Iowa plan was a deescalation in its back and forth with the Democratic National Committee. Yes, it laid out a delegate selection process that will start with the likely January precinct caucuses. But the allocation process, the important one based on the vote-by-mail preference vote, will not kick in until that preference vote is completed. The Iowa plan went to some lengths to separate those two processes so as not to run afoul of the DNC rules for the 2024 cycle. It stands to reason, then, that the preference vote will not be complete until some time that is compliant with DNC rules. 

Now, those mail ballots may be sent out to Iowa Democrats at some point in January, but that is no different from absentee ballots being mailed to voters or early voting starting before early contests like New Hampshire's primary conclude. Hey, Californians started voting as early as February 3 in 2020, the same day as Iowa's caucus (and before the New Hampshire primary!). But results were not reported until Super Tuesday, well after the early contests in 2020. And guess what! New Hampshire's primary law was not "triggered."

Sure, there is a new secretary of state in New Hampshire this cycle, but the dynamic is no different. New Hampshire's results will very likely be in and part of the fabric of the 2024 presidential nomination races before Iowa Democrats begin to report on the preference vote there. 

Graham really should have led with Secretary Scanlan's last line from the New Hampshire Journal story: “We’re just going to have to watch and see what they do.” Indeed. If the Iowa Democratic preference vote ultimately is scheduled to conclude before New Hampshire, then there may be a fight, but all this "fight" talk is wholly premature in light of the plan Iowa Democrats shared on Wednesday.

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And from Iowa, FHQ hates to disagree with our friend Tim Hagle, but I do disagree with elements of his reaction to the Iowa Democratic delegate selection plan here:

“It’s polite to say it’s in flux.” He [Hagle] added, “Nobody knows what’s going on at this point. ... The plan that the Democrats are putting through with a mail-in caucus, there won’t be that sort of that intensity where you’ve got to get people ready by caucus night. And so we’re probably not going to see a lot of candidates. It’s basically a disservice to Iowa voters.”

It is fact to say that the draft delegate selection plan is in flux. Plans from all 57 states and territories are at this point. But Iowa's plan made things a lot clearer about the path forward there. The disservice that the Iowa Democratic Party is doing is continuing to call the entire process a caucus. Yes, there is a brand there. But the plan offered by the party is no longer a caucus. The delegate selection process is through a caucus, but the allocation part of this -- the part that matters to everyone watching -- is going to be routed through a separate vote-by-mail preference vote. Folks, Iowa now has a party-run primary if some version of this basic plan is approved. That is what this is. Continuing to call it a caucus just confuses that reality. 

...

Polls may be flashing warning signs at President Biden, but just as troubling, if not more so, is the fact that a major union, the United Autoworkers, is holding off on endorsing the president. That is a biggish story about the potential Democratic coalition in 2024. Granted, the polling and the UAW not endorsing at this time may just fit into a broader narrative that is in vogue at this juncture of the invisible primary: embattled Biden. It is something of a theme this week, what with there being a story about Biden's possible troubles with African American voters recently as well. 

Of course, all of this comes before the reelection campaign has kicked into full gear for the president, the sorts of activities meant to woo valuable constituencies back into the Democratic fold for the general election in 2024. Voters are just not engaged yet. As Karl Rove noted over at the Wall Street Journal just this morning, Barack Obama was not in the best of positions at this point in 2011 either. Let's get into (or at least closer to) 2024 and see what the fundamentals look like and then we can talk about warning signs. They may be there now, but odds are high that the UAW will endorse Biden in the end and African Americans will solidly back the president (Yes, the margins matter.).

...

On this date...

...in 1972, Alabama Governor George Wallace (D) won the first Tennessee presidential primary.

...in 1976, both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan swept primaries in Alabama, Georgia and Indiana. Reagan's Indiana victory was his first primary win outside of the South. 

...in 2004, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) won the Indiana primary on his way to the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.

...in 2015, Carly Fiorina entered the 2016 Republican presidential nomination race.

...in 2016, Ohio Governor John Kasich bowed out of the contest for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

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Recent posts:

Iowa Democratic Draft Delegate Selection Plan Points Toward Changes Ahead

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Did Glenn Youngkin Run for 2024?

Invisible Primary: Visible -- New Hampshirites Are Not Surprisingly Defending the New Hampshire Primary

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From FHQ Plus: Calendar Foreshadowing in New York

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 support our work. 

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From Lunchables -- 4/18/23:

One of the missing pieces of the 2024 presidential primary calendar is the primary in the Empire state. And the major reason for that is the standard protocol for scheduling the election every cycle dating back to 2012. Basically some variation of the following has taken place every cycle since the New York legislature moved the presidential primary — the “spring primary” — to February for 2008. 

1. Faced with a noncompliant primary, the New York legislature some time in the late spring sets the parameters of the next year’s presidential primary, including the date, method of delegate allocation, etc.

2. At the end of the presidential election year, the date of the primary — typically in April in 2012-20 period — reverts to the noncompliant February position it had to begin with.

3. The process starts anew for the next cycle.

In the 2024 cycle, New York is stuck somewhere in step one above: saddled with a February presidential primary date that no one with decision-making power over the date of the primary intends to keep. 

But that does not mean that there have not been hints about where the thinking is in the Empire state with respect to the primary date for 2024. Those hints, however, have not come from the legislature as of yet nor even from inside the state to this point. Instead, there has been talk of concurrent Connecticut and New York primaries in early April during a committee hearing concerning a bill to reschedule the presidential primary date in the Nutmeg state. And there was another mention of a cluster of contests involving Connecticut, New York and Rhode Island on the same April 2 date for 2024 in the draft delegate selection plan (DSP) of Ocean state Democrats. 

Now, there are further indications that actors actually in New York are targeting April 2. Quietly last week, the New York Democratic Party posted for public comment its draft delegate selection plan for the upcoming cycle. And in it were details of a presidential primary to take place on April 2, 2024. That is likely more than merely aspirational. The same basic pattern occurred four years ago when the 2020 draft delegate selection plan foreshadowed the legislative change to come in Albany.

And legislative action is still required in this instance. It just is unlikely to occur before June (if recent cycles are any indication). There are currently three bills dealing with the scheduling of the presidential primary already introduced in the New York Assembly or Senate, but none of them are necessarily candidates to be vehicles for the sort of change called for in the Democrats’ delegate selection plan. Sure, all three could be amended, but it has been standard for a clean bill with details of not just the timing of the presidential primary but the preferred delegate allocation method of each of the parties to be included in the introduced legislation.

That is likely still a ways off, but this is one more clue that New York is going to have a primary cluster with Connecticut and Rhode Island on April 2. And Hawaii and Missouri could be there too.

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Sunday Series: Iowa and New Hampshire Are Super Unlikely to Hold February Contests. Here is why.

It has been a pretty bad stretch this last little bit. 

Mentions of the 2024 presidential primary calendar have increasingly peppered articles, op-eds and other news items in recent weeks. And why would they not? 2024 is approaching. The process is heading into the thick of candidate announcement season. Things are heating up as the invisible primary progresses and becomes more visible. 

But there is a problem. These calendar blurbs keep getting it wrong. 

It started with Karl Rove writing in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks back. He correctly noted that Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary have no dates yet, but then he moved on to South Carolina. "Democrats are trying to shift the primary there from Feb. 24 to Feb. 3." The South Carolina primary is not scheduled for February 24. It was never scheduled for February 24. February 24 does happen to be on the last Saturday in February, the day on which South Carolina Democrats held their 2020 presidential primary. But the state parties in the Palmetto state set the dates of the primaries. It is not set in state law. In other words, there is no state law with a specific date that carries over from the previous cycle. It resets to nothing -- there is no date -- every cycle. 

Then it was Richard Winger at Ballot Access News who picked up on the South Carolina theme. But in his case, it was talk of the Republican process in the typically first-in-the-South primary state. And again, the date quoted for the South Carolina contest in a post that has subsequently been edited was February 24. As with the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary, the contest on the Republican side has and has had no date. The Republican Party will make that decision later this year sometime, likely at a point when the decision makers within the party can insure that the primary will be first-in-the-South and/or third in the calendar order as called for in Republican National Committee (RNC) rules. 

And now this last week, the indictment against Donald Trump in Manhattan led to another series of 2024 primary calendar mentions in the context of the potential overlap between any trial there and presidential primary season next year. Some said a January trial would happen a month before the Iowa caucuses. Others said Iowa and New Hampshire will conduct delegate selection events in early February. Another was more specific than that, suggesting that the Iowa caucuses are set for February 5 and the New Hampshire primary for February 13. 

Not a one of those descriptions is correct. None of them. There are no dates for any of those contests. Not Iowa. Not New Hampshire. Not South Carolina (Republicans). And just a cursory dig into any of those supposed dates -- February 5, February 13 and February 24 -- leads to one place: The Green Papers. 

Look, I love The Green Papers. The value of that storehouse of information built by Richard and Tony is immeasurable. I still cannot believe my dumb luck in stumbling on the page in 1999 working on an undergraduate paper in George Rabinowitz's US national elections class. I frequently cite The Green Papers here at FHQ. Heck, their site is perpetually linked in the right sidebar. I would not do that unless I trusted the information they provide. 

However, I take issue with how The Green Papers deals with the dynamism of the evolving presidential primary calendar every cycle. It is a philosophical difference. The Green Papers is willing to carry over dates from the previous cycle, whether there are actual dates for contests set by state law or not. And FHQ is very simply unwilling to suspend our disbelief and "presume" that the Iowa caucuses, for example, will fall on Monday, February 5, 2024. 

Well, actually, FHQ is unwilling to do that now. But in January 2021, when FHQ posted its first iteration of the 2024 presidential primary calendar, it made sense to slot Iowa into a February 5 slot. And if Iowa could be tentatively penciled in there on the calendar, then the remaining three early states could easily be shifted into similarly tentative spots all before Super Tuesday on March 5. That is what the initial FHQ calendar showed. 

But the information environment around those tentative early state dates did not hold for long. And it did not hold because six months into 2021, Democrats in unified control of state government in Nevada established a state-run presidential primary in the Silver state. Not only did decision makers in Nevada shift from caucuses to a primary, but in the process they staked a claim on a first Tuesday in February calendar position that broke with the previous conception of the early calendar order. Theirs was a move to make a case to be first in the order, or to set the stage to make a case to be first in the order. 

Yet, at that early stage of the invisible primary in mid-2021, not even the national parties had set their rules for the 2024 cycle. Although, at that point, a Nevada presidential primary set for Tuesday, February 6 meant that Iowa and New Hampshire (and South Carolina on the Republican side) would have to conduct contests before the first Tuesday in February to protect their traditional positions. That was known in June 2021 when that Nevada presidential primary bill was signed into law.

In other words, it was clear then that a February 6 Nevada presidential primary meant that Iowa, New Hampshire and possibly South Carolina Republicans would not fall on February 5, February 13 and February 24, respectively. That view was further buttressed a year ago this month when the RNC adopted its rules for the 2024 cycle, rules that once again protected the early positions of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. Granted, there was still uncertainty at that point in April 2022. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) had not yet set its calendar rules for 2024, but serious talk of an early calendar shuffle had already begun, talk in which Nevada's position prominently figured. And even if national Democrats signed off on an earlier Nevada primary, Silver state Republicans could still opt out and hold caucuses at a later date. 

But at that point, in the late spring of 2022, a Nevada Democratic primary on February 6 still would have meant that February 13 -- a week later -- would be off the table as an option for New Hampshire, given the state law in the Granite state and how decision makers in the office of the secretary of state have behaved, despite national party rules, in the past. And as New Hampshire goes, so too does Iowa often go. February 5, then, likely would not have been an option for Iowa Republicans. 

Of course, any real discussion of February 5 Iowa caucuses or a February 13 New Hampshire primary died, or started to officially die, on December 1, 2022 when President Biden sent a letter to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) on the eve of its meeting to decide on the states that would get waivers to hold early presidential nominating contests in 2024. The information environment around the 2024 presidential primary calendar again shifted. The votes at the December 2, 2022 DNCRBC meeting and the February 4, 2023 DNC meeting solidified the decision to schedule the South Carolina Democratic primary on February 3. Most uncertainty that had existed about the Democratic calendar was extinguished that day. The question then was not whether Iowa and New Hampshire would settle for February 5 and February 13 slots respectively. Instead, the question was how far ahead of the South Carolina Democratic primary the two traditionally first states would jump. 

At this point in the 2024 cycle, the Iowa caucuses are not set for February 5. They are not "presumably," to adopt the tag used by The Green Papers, set for February 5. The same is true for the New Hampshire primary and February 13. Those dates are wrong. They serve no purpose other than to obliquely suggest that those were the dates of the Iowa and New Hampshire contests in the last cycle. And when folks miss that oblique reference and run with the wrong dates, they are misinforming their readers. 

It is and has always been FHQ's mission to better inform people about this complicated process. We can do better than presuming dates from the last cycle carry over to the current one. They do in a great many cases, in instances where there is a state law or state party rule that clearly defines a date for any given delegate selection event. And there are laws in both Iowa and New Hampshire that dictate, and have dictated, where the contests in those states will end up. Those laws are specific as to the position, if not the date, of those contests, seven days prior to another primary in New Hampshire (as has been the interpretation) and eight days before another contest in Iowa. If actors in the Hawkeye and Granite states do what they usually do (or what they have signaled in 2023 that they will do in 2024), then both contests will fall some time in January 2024. How far into January depends on whether Nevada Republicans opt into or out of the February 6 presidential primary. 

Again, I am interested in better informing readers. This is not about trying to drag The Green Papers and drive traffic from there to here. There is room for both, and I stand by 99 percent of what Richard and Tony do over there. But we approach the calendar's evolution differently. And those differences matter. They matter when wrong information starts to filter into the broader conversations about the 2024 presidential nomination process. And February 5 (Iowa) and February 13 (New Hampshire) -- not to mention February 24 (Nevada and/or South Carolina) -- are wrong. Those are not the dates of those contests and will not be barring an unprecedented cave on the part of the president and the DNC on the Democratic calendar. The odds of that are long, perhaps not as long as Marianne Williamson or Robert Kennedy Jr. becoming the Democratic presidential nominee in 2024, but really, really long. 

Iowa and New Hampshire may not end up where FHQ has them placed now either. The information environment could change again! But it is a near certainty that those contests will not be in early February given what we know now. If push comes to shove and one does not know how to describe it, then just say that Iowa and New Hampshire will be early next year. No, that may not be as specific as some want, but it is accurate at this time. 

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Recent posts:

From FHQ Plus: Drama Introduced into Effort to Move Idaho Presidential Primary

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From FHQ Plus: Drama Introduced into Effort to Move Idaho Presidential Primary

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

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From 3/31/23:

The 2023 state legislative session drags on in Idaho. Gem state lawmakers had targeted last Friday, March 24, as the date on which the body would adjourn. But last Friday came and went and the work has continued well into this week. 

One bill that was a part of that unfinished business was S 1186, the trailer bill to legislation that now sits on the desk of Governor Brad Little (R), having already passed both chambers of the legislature. Together, H 138 and S 1186 were intended to eliminate the separate presidential primary in March and consolidate the election with the primaries for other offices in May. Actually, the House bill was intended to do all of that on its own. But despite the stated intent, all H 138 ever did was strike the presidential primary language from state code. It never built back the statutory infrastructure to add the presidential line to the May primary ballot. S 1186 was the patch for those omissions.

Only, that patch ran into trouble in committee on the House side on Thursday, March 30. Again, H138 is on the governor’s desk. It overwhelmingly passed both chambers with bipartisan support, and S 1186 had cleared the state Senate as well. All that seemingly stood in the way of the intended elimination and consolidation was a quick committee hearing and another presumably lopsided vote in favor of the trailer bill. 

But then came Thursday’s House State Affairs Committee consideration of the measure. The hearing itself covered familiar ground. Sponsors (and the secretary of state) touted the more than $2 million savings consolidating the elections would have while those tightly associated with the state Republican Party cried foul for not being consulted about the potential change ahead of time (before its winter meeting earlier this year).

And it was during that Republican Party backlash to the legislation that the hearing got interesting. Idaho Republican Party Chair Dorothy Moon spoke in opposition to the bill, saying that, if anything, the state party would prefer to move the primary up even further on the calendar than the second Tuesday in March rather than back to May. She went on to say that she and the party would like to have been given the chance to work with the Republican National Committee to move the primary to February; to make Idaho the “Iowa of the West.”

Put a pin in that for a second. That is a storyline in and of itself, but there was another twist. 

All the witnesses who lined up to testify spoke, and it then looked as if the committee was going to move quickly to vote on S 1186 and presumably push it to the floor. Again, the three floor votes that each of these two bills had faced ended with bipartisan passage. The assumption, then, was that State Affairs was going to move this to the House floor for final consideration. Instead, this happened:

State Affairs Committee Chair Brent Crane (R-13th, Nampa): “Senate bill 1186 is properly before the committee."

Silence. [Crane glances around with a slight, knowing grin on his face.]

Chair Crane: “Senate bill 1186 dies for lack of a motion.”

From the Democratic side of the dais: “Uh.”

Chair Crane: “Already made my decision.”

So, with that S 1186 died in committee. 

Now, that could mean a lot of things moving forward. But what it means in the near term is that Governor Little has a decision to make about H 138. If he signs the measure into law, then the March presidential primary is eliminated, but has no home alongside the May primary. If, however, he vetos the House bill, then everything with the presidential primary stays the same as it has been in Idaho for the last two cycles. 

Maintaining the status quo on the March primary may hinge on how much the governor values the cost savings of eliminating the stand-alone presidential primary. If he prioritizes that roughly $2 million savings, then Little may very well sign the bill or allow it to become law without his signature. 

But that means there would be no Idaho presidential primary in 2024, at least not without further action in a special legislative session. It could be that consideration in that setting may occur after enough time that the state Republican Party has had a chance to consult with the RNC about their February primary idea. Granted, that proposal would be dead on arrival with the national party. The RNC set the early calendar in the rules it adopted in April 2022, and Idaho was not among the states given a carve-out to hold February or earlier primaries or caucuses. Additionally, Idaho Republicans would face the national party’s stiff super penalty if it opted to thumb its nose at the rules and conduct a February contest.

That may or may not be enough to deter the Idaho state legislature from going along with an unsanctioned (by the RNC), state-funded presidential primary in February or even raising the presidential primary issue again in a special session. But the Idaho Republican Party may forge ahead without the primary, whether a state-funded option is available or not. 

Gem state Republicans may choose to hold caucuses instead. And, like West Virginia, Idaho fits into this sort of sweet spot with respect to the RNC super penalty. Yes, the penalty would eliminate all but 12 delegates if Idaho broke the timing rules. But there are only 30 Idaho delegates to begin with. Yes, that is a penalty and one that is greater than the old 50 percent reduction that the RNC employed in the 2012 cycle. Yet, it may not be enough to keep Idaho Republicans from forcing the issue and attempting to become the “Iowa of the West.”

And honestly, that may be a good thing for the overall Republican primary calendar for 2024. The Democratic calendar — with South Carolina at the top on February 3 — is likely to push the early Republican states into January, leaving a barren expanse with no contests for all or much of February until Super Tuesday on March 5. A February Idaho caucus and/or a Michigan primary (with waiver) may help fill in that gap.

However, all of that remains to play out. First thing’s first: Governor Little has a decision to make on H 138. And it is a bigger decision than one might expect for a seemingly simple presidential primary bill.

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NOTE: It was reported this past week upon the Idaho legislature adjourning sine die that Governor Little signed H 138 into law. That eliminates the stand-alone March presidential primary in the Gem state, but bigger questions remain about where the Idaho delegate selection events for both parties end up on the 2024 presidential primary calendar.

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California Bill to Change Primary Date Amended

Earlier this week, significant changes were made to a California Senate bill that, upon its introduction, appeared to affect the date of the consolidated primary, including the presidential primary, in the Golden state.

In fact, the original version of that bill -- SB 24 -- struck the entire section of the California code dealing with various aspects of the primary, leaving the date unspecified. In brief, the introduced bill described the legislation like this:

This bill would change the date of the presidential primary and consolidated statewide direct primary described above to an unspecified date.

As it turns out, however, that was a change meant to serve as a placeholder while the particulars of the intended bill were worked out. The newly amended version of SB 24 was released on Monday, March 20 and revealed that the date of the presidential primary would remain unaffected moving forward. In its place, grander language to put a public financing (of elections) system before the voters of California was inserted. 

California, it seems for now, will remain one of the anchors of Super Tuesday alongside the primary in Texas. 

Related:

2/17/23: Legislation Would Make the California Presidential Primary Date Unspecified

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