Showing posts with label proportional rules. Show all posts
Showing posts with label proportional rules. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 16, 2023

A Winner-Take-All Primary in New Hampshire?

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

First, over at FHQ Plus...
  • FHQ will say it: Nevada Republicans did not "jump" South Carolina on the 2024 presidential primary calendar. Well, they did not in the sense that close observers of the calendar might talk about the jockeying in this cycle's early calendar. It is different this time. Here is why: All the details at FHQ Plus.
If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.


In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
...
Emerson had a new survey out yesterday checking the pulse of voters in the Granite state on the Republican presidential nomination race among other things. The consensus take away from the results at the presidential level was that former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had surpassed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

And while that is true, it also was not what caught FHQ's eye. Here is what did:

1. I have spent a fair amount of time over the course of 2023 charting the positioning of DeSantis in the various polls that have been released both nationally and on the state level. And it is not a mystery that the Florida governor's fortunes have followed a particularly downward trajectory. That has implications for winning delegates in primaries and caucuses next year. First DeSantis flirted with 20 percent in some polling on the race. Then it hovered around 15 percent. If a candidate is going to have any prolonged success in taking delegates in 2024, he or she will have to hit 15 if not 20 percent to stick around. Otherwise, such a candidate is very likely to be shown the door. Actually, failing to hit those marks will be  the manifestation of being shown the door. 

But now DeSantis has dipped below 10 percent in New Hampshire. Yes, it is just one poll. Yes, his average standing in the race there is marginally higher than that: 14 percent. But it tracks with the pattern of slipping support that has dogged DeSantis since the spring. 

2. By why does 10 percent matter? It matters because 10 percent is the threshold candidates have to hit statewide to qualify for delegates in the New Hampshire presidential primary. No, candidates are not necessarily contesting New Hampshire in order to win delegates. There are not that many to find in the Granite state after all. Instead, most are chasing a win or at the very least positioning to avoid having increased winnowing pressure heaped on them. Third probably gets DeSantis through, but it does not exactly speak to future success in winning subsequent contests much less winning delegates in big numbers once the calendar flips to March and the focus shifts to the delegate game. 

But the biggest footnote lurking in this particular Emerson survey is that even though Christie leapfrogged DeSantis, he did not break in to the delegates either. That means that Trump -- at 49 percent -- would hypothetically win 11 of the 22 delegates at stake in New Hampshire, leaving 11 unallocated delegates in the proportional method Republicans in the Granite state use. 

What happens to unallocated delegates in this scenario? They do not become unbound. No, under state law, any and all unallocated delegates in New Hampshire are awarded to the statewide winner. Mitt Romney tacked on an extra two delegates in New Hampshire that way in 2012. Donald Trump added three unallocated delegates to his total in the state in 2016. But in this hypothetical case, there are a lot more unallocated delegates. And they would all go to Donald Trump

Even in a state that uses proportional delegate allocation rules. 

Even in a state where the former president would have received less than a majority of the vote statewide. 

Incidentally, this is exactly what happened in the 2020 New Hampshire Republican primary. Trump won a considerably higher share of the vote (as compared to above), but Bill Weld just missed the 10 percent threshold and the remaining unallocated delegates all went to Trump. 

3. Folks, this is one poll. FHQ does not want to read too much into it. Plus, it is worth pointing out that both Christie and DeSantis are close to the 10 percent threshold in the Emerson survey and there are 13 percent of respondents who were undecided. Some of those may come off the fence and support Trump, but there is a good argument that if one does not already support the former president, then it is unlikely that he would gain their support in the primary. Would that 13 percent automatically go to Christie and/or DeSantis? Maybe, maybe not. But enough would likely jump into their columns to push them north of 10 percent. 

Hypothetically. 


...
Over at Tusk, Seth Masket argues that the pivot (away from Trump) is not coming and it is all about the ebbs and flows of factional power within the broader Republican Party. Good piece.


...
From around the invisible primary...
  • Indiana Senator Todd Young has already unendorsed Donald Trump for 2024. And like other Republicans, he doubled down in the wake of the latest indictment against the former president. Only, Young reiterated that the party needs to move on from Trump. Obviously, the opposition to Trump stands out, but at some point leaders within the Republican Party who want to chart a different path in 2024 are going to have to line up behind some alternative (or alternatives). But Young is keeping his powder dry for the time being. 
  • Also in the midwest, former Illinois House Republican leader Jim Durkin says that the "Trump fever needs to be broken." [See Masket above] He is not alone in Illinois. Other Republicans in the Land of Lincoln stand against Trump and some have even endorsed other candidates. Also from the Sun Times piece: "Last month, I reported on the call from Illinois National Committeeman Richard Porter to move on from Trump. State Sen. Sue Rezin, R-Morris — the deputy Republican leader in the state Senate — like Porter, backs GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor. Ron Gidwitz was the Trump-appointed U.S. ambassador to Belgium and the acting envoy to the European Union. In 2016, Gidwitz was the Illinois finance chair for the Trump Victory fund. He’s supporting Christie." But the state party remains firmly behind the former president. And Durkin, like Young in Indiana, has not thrown his support behind a non-Trump candidate yet. Those un- and non-endorsements matter. And they matter a lot in this race when they are not expressly affiliated with a Trump alternative. 


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

Monday, July 31, 2023

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

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

First, over at FHQ Plus...
  • California Republicans have new delegate selection rules for 2024. And it seems like some folks are racing to score the change as a win for Trump. It might be! But that is not guaranteed. There are some California-sized caveats, but CAGOP may be the big winner. All the details at FHQ Plus.
If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.


In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
...
FHQ will level with you. I have found the Washington Post's coverage of the evolving Republican delegate selection rules to have been fabulous all year. Reporters there have done a fantastic job of digging up state-level changes, large and small, and have furthermore done well in contextualizing them for a unique 2024 Republican nomination race. Look, the Post has a much larger, much broader audience than FHQ, and the stories are crafted with such an audience in mind. 

They do not necessarily get down in the weeds. And they do not have to! Leave that to niche sites like FHQ with equally niche audiences. Hey, we are happy to fill the void. 

And while that overall view of WaPo coverage has not changed, FHQ did find their article on delegate selection rules following the change in California from this past weekend lacking. And some of this is just cranky blogging, pet peevish stuff for FHQ. But there were also some nuggets in the piece that left me shaking my head, stuff simply not backed up by the facts. So let us endeavor to set the record straight on a Monday. 


Winner-take-all by congressional district

Right out of the gate, Maeve Reston and Michael Scherer hit readers with this:
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign notched a major victory Saturday when members of the California Republican executive committee voted to parcel out convention delegates based on the statewide vote next year — doing away with the state’s longtime system of awarding them by congressional district, which had been perceived as a more level playing field for lower-tiered candidates.
Okay. That is a loaded clause highlighted there. And some of it is technically correct even if it glosses over the nature of delegate selection rules changes made by California Republicans in recent cycles. It is true that California Republicans have had a winner-take-all by congressional district allocation scheme for most of the 21st century. And it was still on the books until its death sentence was signed this weekend (technically for 2024 and for good afterward). 

However, that allocation method was overridden in 2019 for the 2020 cycle with a contingency provision that called for the proportional allocation of the entire California Republican delegation. [Yes, that sounds an awful lot like what the Republican Party in the Golden state just adopted. It is quite similar.] That temporary condition was added in 2019 because the Republican National Committee rules prohibit winner-take-all by congressional district methods of allocation before March 15. Therefore, the state party had to make a change because the 2020 primary fell on Super Tuesday, before March 15. 

But again, that was a temporary contingency that expired at the beginning of 2021, leaving California Republicans with the same default winner-take-all by congressional district method in place. Time passed and the RNC carried over the same winner-take-all prohibition for the early calendar into the 2024 rules. So that was never going to be the method Golden state Republicans used in 2024. Look, California Republicans were not going to give up the one feather in their cap in this process. Theirs is the most delegate-rich state on the Republican calendar. The state party was not going to give up half its delegation -- the penalty for using an unsanctioned winner-take-all by congressional district allocation method in an early March primary -- to keep that method. They just were not. 

That brings the timeline to May of this year when the LA Times had an article describing how California Republicans were going to have this strategically unique delegate allocation method for 2024. The method? Winner-take-all by congressional district. Yes, the very same noncompliant method detailed above. FHQ raises the LA Times piece because it set a baseline that has subsequently poisoned the discourse on these changes that California Republicans have actually made for 2024. 

It was that article that made it seem as if California Republicans were going to use that noncompliant method when all it ever was was a placeholder until the state party set rules for 2024 this summer (just as the party did in the summer of 2019). Indeed, before the new plan was adopted over the weekend, there was an alternative proposal that called for a proportional districted method of allocation. Still districted, but proportional and compliant.

Moreover, that baseline set in the LA Times piece from May has led subsequent news accounts to compare changes relative to what was never going to be a winner-take-all by congressional district allocation method. In reality, the comparison should have been to the rules used by the state party in 2020, rules that were compliant. Yes, those rules expired, but to better understand the nature of the change for 2024, the 2020 rules are the better comparison and the better encapsulation of the state party's thinking on how to craft compliant rules for an incumbent cycle (2020) versus a competitive one (2024). 

The press has dropped the ball on this one. 

Fortunately, the newly adopted 2024 California Republican delegate allocation rules sunset at the end of next year. Not just the subsection detailing the compliant proportional allocation, but the whole section including the legacy winner-take-all by congressional district method. Make note of that now. Hopefully that means we all will not be talking about these same noncompliant rules in California in 2027. No one should be comparing any changes then to that method anyway. 

To circle back to the WaPo reference to "the state’s longtime system of awarding them [delegates] by congressional district," it really was not necessary. That is a false point of comparison for the new method. And it is one that did not need to feature as prominently as it did in that story or the similar story about the rules change from the LA Times

Did the winner-take-all by congressional district method warrant a mention somewhere in either story? Sure, but the endless parade of quotes from Republicans in California seemingly pining for the "old system" just made those folks look out of touch. To repeat, the California Republican Party was not going to sacrifice half of their delegates to allocated delegates the old way (2016 and before). 

Okay. FHQ got that one off its chest. What else? 

--

Looking for more like this? Consider a paid subscription to FHQ Plus.


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

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Trump and the 2024 Delegate Allocation Rules

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

First, over at FHQ Plus...
  • South Carolina is unique among states with state-run and funded presidential primaries. In some ways that helped elevate the Palmetto state to the first slot on the 2024 Democratic primary calendar. But quirkiness presents some challenges as well. All the details at FHQ Plus.
If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.


In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
...
Gregory Korte had a nice piece up at Bloomberg the other day concerning the delegate allocation rules and how the Trump campaign's efforts to massage them in 2020 may pay dividends for the former president in 2024. As he notes, however, there will not be a complete picture of the state-level delegate allocation rules until October 1. That makes it tough to game out the impact of the rules for next year. 

Moreover, the various campaigns are doing the same thing. They are currently trying to plan this out, but they are also simultaneously trying to affect what those rules are to lay the groundwork for advantageous allocation rules next year. And that makes for some potential, if not likely, cross-pressures with which state-level party officials/committees/conventions making these decision will have to deal. Together that makes for a challenging decision-making environment. FHQ talked about this in setting the 2024 Republican delegate allocation rules baseline back in March:
If decision makers in state parties across the country cannot see a clear advantage to an allocation change one way or the other, then it is more likely that the 2020 baseline method survives into 2024. That theoretically helps Trump. ...if he is the frontrunner. But if Trump is not the frontrunner once primary season kicks off, then any shift away from the 2020 baseline -- a baseline with the knobs turned toward incumbent defense (or frontrunner defense) -- may end up helping a candidate other than the one intended. 

Another factor adding to this uncertainty is how decision makers view a change playing with rank and file members of the party. If elected officials or other elites in the party are wary of endorsing one Republican candidate or another, then they may also be less willing to make an allocation change for fear that it would be viewed as helping or hurting Trump. In other words, it looks like they are putting their thumb on the scale one way or the other. That is the sort of view that augurs against change. And again, the status quo likely helps Trump (if current conditions persist). 

Basically, the bottom line is this. Allocation changes are tough. They are tough to make because there is uncertainty in the impact those changes will have. It is much easier to see the potential impact of moving a primary to an early date for example. It could help a favorite son or daughter candidate. But an earlier primary or caucus definitely better insures that the state influences the course of the nomination race. If a contest falls too late -- after a presumptive nominee has emerged and clinched the nomination -- then that contest has literally no impact. Some impact, no matter how small, is better than literally zero impact. The same is true with respect to the decision to conduct a primary election or caucuses. There are definite turnout effects that come with holding a primary rather than caucuses. And greater participation in primaries typically means a more diverse -- less ideologically homogenous or extreme -- electorate.

Things are less clear with allocation rules changes. 
There is much more in that post. FHQ will be drawing from it throughout the remainder of the invisible primary if not into primary season in 2024. Go read it. But in the meantime, a couple of additional things:
  1. Yes, more truly winner-take-all states help Trump at this time. But they would help any frontrunner. These are, after all, frontrunner rules. They help build and pad a delegate lead once the RNC allows winner-take-all rules to kick in on March 15, entering 50-75 rule territory.
  2. But Team Trump is likely looking toward (and looking to maintain) the other rules changes from 2020 for an earlier-on-the-calendar boost. An earlier (technical) knock out for a 2024 frontrunner may come from states earlier than March 15 with winner-take-all triggers. If a candidate wins a majority of the vote statewide and/or at the congressional district level, then that candidate wins all of the delegates from that jurisdiction (or all of a state's delegates available if the delegates are pooled). Alternatively, if no other candidates hit the qualifying thresholds (set to their max of 20 percent in most proportional states in 2020), then the winner is allocated all of the delegates in some states even if they do not have a majority. And the name of the game here is not necessarily winning all of the delegates, but maximizing the net delegate advantage coming out of any given state. All of the Republican campaigns are asking how much they can improve on a baseline proportional allocation, and picking spots on the map and calendar where they can do. Well, campaigns are doing that if they know what they are doing anyway.

...
In the travel primary, former Vice President Mike Pence will be back in New Hampshire on Tuesday, May 16. And it looks at if a super PAC has formed around his before the end of June presidential launch. The interesting thing is less the formation of an aligned super PAC and more about some of the staff primary hires the new group has made. There are folks from the orbits of a former Republican presidential nominee (Scott Reed, former campaign manager of the 1996 Dole campaign), a once talked-about possible 2024 aspirant who declined to run (Mike Ricci, former spokesman for former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan) and a still-talked about possible 2024 candidate who says he is not running (Bobby Saparow, former campaign manager for current Georgia Governor Brian Kemp). In total, that makes for an interesting mix of old school Republican politics and new school Trump resistance within the party. That may not represent a winning path in the Republican nomination race, but it is indicative of a unique course forward for Pence relative to his competition.


...
Endorsement Math. Yesterday, FHQ raised the sizable number of Iowa state legislative endorsements Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rolled out before his weekend trek to the Hawkeye state. And on Monday, Never Back Down, the super PAC aligned with DeSantis, released another 49 new endorsements from fellow early state, New Hampshire. [That is 51 endorsements minus the previously revealed support of New Hampshire House Majority Leader Jason Osborne and the double endorsement -- of both Trump and DeSantis -- from Juliet Harvey-Bolia.] Three of those DeSantis endorsements in the Granite state are from representatives who have supported Trump in the past.

But the math is different across both of those waves of DeSantis endorsements from Iowa and New Hampshire. The 37 state legislative endorsements from the Hawkeye state accounted for more than a third of all of the possible Iowa Republican legislators -- House and Senate. In New Hampshire, those 50 endorsements, all from members of the state House, register differently. They make up just a quarter of the total number of possible endorsements from the lower chamber alone. Yes, that may be splitting hairs, but it is also a long way of saying the pool of endorsements is bigger in New Hampshire. Others will be vying for the support of the remaining 150 Granite state House members. 


...
On this date...
...in 1972, Alabama Governor George Wallace, a day after being shot campaigning in Maryland, won primaries in the Old Line state and in Michigan

...in 2000, long after becoming the presumptive nominees of their parties, George W. Bush and Al Gore won the Oregon presidential primary.

...in 2019, long shots, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Rocky de la Fuente, respectively entered the Democratic and Republican presidential nomination races. 



--

Thursday, May 11, 2023

A reminder about Iowa Republican Delegate Allocation

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

First, over at FHQ Plus...
  • Missouri's presidential primary comeback remains in limbo and Pennsylvania could be a primary calendar wildcard deep into 2023. All the details at FHQ Plus.
If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.


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

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

File that one away for later.


...
There are very few candidates, of either party, in nonincumbent races who were near or north of 50% in the national primary polls this early on. Those included Republicans Bob Dole in 1996 and George W. Bush in 2000, and Democrats Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. All of those candidates won their party’s nominations, and none of those races were particularly close.
The interesting extension of that is what an early prohibitive favorite for a nomination does to the resulting field of candidates. Bush, Clinton and Gore all avoided a great number of opponents, viable or otherwise. Dole may have held an early lead in 1995 but that Republican nomination race drew more than a few candidates into the competition who had the conventional characteristics of successful nominees even if they did not ultimately take off (Phil Gramm or Lamar Alexander, for example). 

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


...
Quick hits:

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

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

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



--

Thursday, March 2, 2023

What's the Baseline for 2024 Republican Rules Changes at the State Level?

The Washington Post reported last week that the Trump campaign has been doing its due diligence of late, attempting to get a jump start on an often hidden aspect of the invisible primary: the battle over delegates. Or in this case, the battle over the state-level rules that will define the ways in which candidates will receive delegates based on primary and caucus results across the country in 2024. 

While Trump running for a second term after losing a previous bid is unusual in the post-reform era, it is not out of the ordinary for a candidate and his or her campaign to flex its muscle early like this. After all, this is a candidate and a campaign that have done this before. And this is a campaign that may not be as dominant as it was four years ago, but is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was eight years ago. And tending the garden on the state level in an attempt to reap a harvest of delegates down the road is clear evidence of that. 

Moreover, that touches on a theme Jeff Greenfield highlighted late last year in a piece at Politico:
But if you really want to know whether Donald Trump is ascendant or in free fall, you might do better to focus on what might seem like a recipe for narcolepsy: the Republican Party’s delegate-selection process across the 50-plus states, territories and commonwealths. Over the next year and a half, there will be no better clue to the strength and weaknesses of Trump and his competitors. Why? Well, for one thing, the way that delegates are chosen by state primaries, conventions and caucuses are far more important than a dozen debates and tens of millions of campaign dollars. And how the GOP state parties decide how their convention delegates are selected may also tell you whether these state parties are out to hobble the former president — or put him on a glide path to another nomination.
Look, as a rules person, the expectation is that FHQ is going to agree with that assessment. I do. ...in part. The rules are important, but they are just a piece of a larger matrix of variables -- polls, endorsements, fundraising, etc. -- that provide observers with a sense of the former president's strength during the 2024 invisible primary. And again, the early signs are that Trump is behind where he was in 2019 but ahead across the board on each of the above metrics compared to where he was in 2015. The Party Decides showed that endorsements matter. They demonstrate a measure of institutional support for a candidate. But if the bulk of elected officials and other elites within the Republican Party network waver in making 2024 endorsements of any candidate as they did during the 2016 cycle, then this rules tinkering in 2023 may serve as a proxy of that institutional support. 

But the thing about both the Washington Post article and Greenfield's opinion piece is that they lack context. The Post reports that the Trump campaign is attempting to make inroads and Greenfield speculates that Trump-aligned and Trump-opposed forces may make rules changes to aid their specific candidate or candidates. But from where are the states starting? What moves might they make? How common -- or uncommon -- is such tinkering on the state level in the first place? 

In other words, what is the baseline? 

The story of where states begin 2024 starts in 2019
To the extent there was any discussion in 2019 about efforts on the Republican side to craft rules for Trump's reelection, it mostly revolved around the canceling of a handful of primaries and caucuses. But that belies the bulk of what went on behind the scenes in the 2020 Republican invisible primary. Yes, the cancelations got spun as efforts to protect Trump against a challenge. However, Trump got from Bill Weld and Joe Walsh and March Sanford the sort of challenge that President Biden will get from Marianne Williamson in 2024: a token challenge. Trump's grip on the 2020 Republican nomination was never threatened, so the cancelations were less about protecting the nomination and more about protecting his dominance in winning the nomination. 

But the state-level contest cancelations were just the tip of the iceberg and that has implications for 2024.

The Trump team was unusually active in nudging state parties toward changes for 2020 that 1) made it easier for Trump to gobble up delegates as the nomination process moved through the calendar of contests and 2) made it much more difficult for multiple candidates to win delegates. Bear in mind that there were minimal changes to the 2020 rules at the national level and that trend has largely held as 2020 transitions into 2024. There have been national rules changes, but they were aimed at cleaning up small problems from the past or to accommodate a July convention. Or to add a debates committee back into the rules

However, in 2019, there were changes made in 30 states and territories (out of 56 total). And it was not just the cancelations of a primary in South Carolina or of a preference vote at caucuses in Alaska. Take the Massachusetts example WaPo provided:
For his 2020 reelection campaign, Trump advisers Justin Clark and Bill Stepien worked for more than a year to change party rules to ensure he would not face a challenger at the nominating convention. In Massachusetts, for example, the Trump campaign changed the delegate selection plan to winner-take-all based on the primary result to prevent moderate Gov. Bill Weld (R) from being able to seat potential allies at the convention.
Now, Michael Scherer, Josh Dawsey and Maeve Reston mischaracterized the nature of the change, but it is indicative of the moves made by Trump's reelection effort. Massachusetts Republicans retained their previous proportional manner of allocating delegates based on the results of the presidential primary in the Bay state, but upped the qualifying threshold from 5 percent in 2016 to 20 percent in 2020. That meant that for a candidate to have received any delegates, he or she would have needed to clear 20 percent of the vote statewide, the maximum qualifying threshold allowed under Republican National Committee (RNC) rules. 

Furthermore, the state Republican Party in Massachusetts added a winner-take-all threshold in 2020. If a candidate cleared 50 percent of the vote statewide -- a level that a largely unopposed incumbent president should easily clear under most circumstances -- then that candidate would win all of the delegates from Massachusetts. That is not winner-take-all. Functionally, it is in a cycle with a popular incumbent. But in reality, it is the same proportional plan Massachusetts Republicans have used for years with the knobs turned toward "protect the incumbent's dominance." And those two thresholds are the keys. The qualifying threshold was set to its maximum and the winner-take-all threshold was set to its minimum (50 percent under RNC rules). 

And the moves in Massachusetts were indicative of the changes other state Republican parties made for 2020. Of the 26 states in 2020 that could have a qualifying threshold -- those with some form of proportional rules -- 18 of them set it to the maximum 20 percent. Just ten states of the 31 that could have a qualifying threshold had the maximum in 2016. The 20 percent maximum was by far the modal qualifying threshold for states in the 2020 cycle. 

Of course, that was just one type of tinkering that took place. Among his speculative allocation changes for 2024, Greenfield describes another:
By contrast, suppose New York Republicans are firmly in Trump’s corner. Trump might be confident he can win a significant portion of voters — but not a majority. So in a state like New York, his campaign might press to drop the 50 percent threshold and fight for a winner-take-all by plurality standard.
Well, New York Republicans already did that. The legislation that the New York State Assembly passed in 2019, codifying the delegate selection process for both state parties for 2020, shifted the Republican delegate allocation method back to winner-take-all in the Empire state for the first time since 2008. New York was not alone in adopting truly winner-take-all rules -- rules where a plurality winner statewide wins all of the delegates at stake -- for the 2020 cycle. There is a prohibition on truly winner-take-all allocation in the Republican process for states with contests before March 15, but of those states with contests after that point in 2016, just nine were truly winner-take-all. Collectively, those nine states accounted for 391 total delegates (or nearly 16 percent of the total number of delegates at stake in the process). 

The number of truly winner-take-all contests in 2020 ballooned to 19 states, more than double the number of that type of contests from four years prior. And those states represented 764 delegates, almost 30 percent of the total 2550 delegates at stake in 2020.

Finally, there were other moves that were also beneficial to an incumbent president seeking to portray a certain dominance in the nomination process. The number of states that pooled their delegates, combining the separate pools of at-large and congressional district delegates, increased from 25 in 2016 to 37 in 2020. The above shift toward truly winner-take-all methods explains a lot but not all of that. The subset of states that pooled their delegates and had a winner-take-all trigger -- as was the case in the Massachusetts example above -- doubled from six in 2016 to 12 in 2020. Those contests became functionally winner-take-all no matter where they were on the calendar, whether in the winner-take-all window or before it in the prohibited zone. That is a subtle change, but a meaningful one. 

And in total, all of that can be neatly filed into one category: incumbent defense, or this case, incumbent domination. Trump got that, and in the process, set the baseline from which any changes will be made for 2024. 


How common is rules tinkering on the state level in the Republican process anyway?
That depends.

Rarely does a cycle go by where some state party does not make some change, however small, to its delegate selection and allocation process. Although, often it is less about delegate allocation and more about positioning contests on the primary calendar. And that is a change that is initiated not by the state party but in the state government, the state legislature to be more precise. That entails quite a bit more wrangling on a playing field that potentially involves partisan division if not partisan roadblocks.

And some of those same obstacles seep into the delegate allocation process as well. At least that is the case in states where state law defines delegate allocation stemming from a state-run presidential primary. The 10 percent qualifying threshold New Hampshire Republicans use, for example, is one defined in state law. 

But on the whole, most of that is set by state parties. And more often than not, state parties are loath to change delegate allocation rules. They are averse to straying from traditional methods because it is difficult to game out the impact those possible changes will have a year or so into the future when conditions may be completely different. It is one thing to project what a shift toward winner-take-most or winner-take-all rules will have in a cycle when an incumbent president is running for renomination as Trump was in 2020. Those rules are intended to and often do help incumbents. But in a competitive cycle with some measure of uncertainty, that is a more difficult call. 

As Greenfield noted, Ohio Republicans shifted toward a truly winner-take-all plan in 2016 with Governor John Kasich (R) in mind. And Kasich did win the primary in the Buckeye state six months later. The change panned out. But with a favorite son involved, there was perhaps a bit more certainty among state party decision makers in how the move would play out once primary season went live. The less a sure thing it is, the more likely it will be that the status quo delegate allocation method will persist into the next cycle. 

That is an important point. If decision makers in state parties across the country cannot see a clear advantage to an allocation change one way or the other, then it is more likely that the 2020 baseline method survives into 2024. That theoretically helps Trump. ...if he is the frontrunner. But if Trump is not the frontrunner once primary season kicks off, then any shift away from the 2020 baseline -- a baseline with the knobs turned toward incumbent defense (or frontrunner defense) -- may end up helping a candidate other than the one intended. 

Another factor adding to this uncertainty is how decision makers view a change playing with rank and file members of the party. If elected officials or other elites in the party are wary of endorsing one Republican candidate or another, then they may also be less willing to make an allocation change for fear that it would be viewed as helping or hurting Trump. In other words, it looks like they are putting their thumb on the scale one way or the other. That is the sort of view that augurs against change. And again, the status quo likely helps Trump (if current conditions persist). 

Basically, the bottom line is this. Allocation changes are tough. They are tough to make because there is uncertainty in the impact those changes will have. It is much easier to see the potential impact of moving a primary to an early date for example. It could help a favorite son or daughter candidate. But an earlier primary or caucus definitely better insures that the state influences the course of the nomination race. If a contest falls too late -- after a presumptive nominee has emerged and clinched the nomination -- then that contest has literally no impact. Some impact, no matter how small, is better than literally zero impact. The same is true with respect to the decision to conduct a primary election or caucuses. There are definite turnout effects that come with holding a primary rather than caucuses. And greater participation in primaries typically means a more diverse -- less ideologically homogenous or extreme -- electorate.

Things are less clear with allocation rules changes. 

Look at the last four cycles -- 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020. In particular, take note of the doughnut graphic in the corner of each map charting the distribution of delegates by allocation type. Those are four different cycles run under different conditions and with different rules. But look at the combined share of the distribution that the hybrid and proportional with winner-take-all trigger states comprise.1 Despite the differing conditions and despite the differing rules, somewhere between 51-53 percent of the total number of delegates were allocated in one of those two hybrid fashions. The states changed some at the margins, but the percentage of delegates allocated in that manner remained virtually unchanged. 

And the only reason for the spike in proportional states in 2012 was the RNC's institution of the (truly) winner-take-all ban for the first time that cycle. States overreacted in response and were more proportional than necessary under the 2012 rules. But states parties adapted over time, learning the nuances of the winner-take-all ban and moving over the 2016 and 2020 cycles toward methods that conditionally triggered a winner-take-all allocation.


What changes might state parties make for 2024?
The above exploration of the minefield that state party decision makers wade into when considering allocation rules changes is a cautionary tale. It suggests that, while there may be some changes, there are reasons to think that they will be minimal. And the Washington Post story buttresses that view. If Team Trump is having powwows with state party officials and sending envoys out to them, then that is most likely to preserve what they have in place. As of right now, the 2020 baseline rules help Trump. That could change but such a shift may not occur until after a decision on the rules has already been made (before October 1). 

But just as in the legislative process, uncertainty breeds conflict. Conflict leads to indecisiveness. And indecisiveness yields to the status quo. The same is true in rules changes. Actors, therefore, are going to be more inclined to move toward certainty; changes that yield more certain impacts. Trump opponents are reportedly playing catch up on these matters and may not hit the ground running either effectively and/or quickly enough to make a dent in allocation rules changes. 

But if Trump and Trump allies are looking to shore up their defenses, it may not be in the realm of delegate allocation rules. Instead, they may train their sights on the primary versus caucus decision. And there are some unique opportunities on that front. For the most part, state parties may balk at transitioning out of a state-run primary for a party-run contest of some type. The latter is funded out of state party coffers and that money may be better spent elsewhere. 

Still, some states may be conflicted. Take Michigan. The WaPo story notes how the Michigan Republican Party is stuck between a rock and a hard place. And they really are. Democrats in control of state government moved the primary to a spot on the primary calendar that is sanctioned under new DNC rules but is noncompliant under RNC rules. One logical alternative is for Michigan Republicans to schedule caucuses at a compliant point on the calendar. That is a potentially messy route. But it could be done. And that smaller, more extreme electorate is likely to tip more toward Trump than to his opponents. 

Likewise, there is no indication that any of the states at the end of the calendar are making any moves, not even the Republican-controlled states. And all of those June contests are noncompliant under RNC rules on timing. One alternative may be for the state parties to opt out of the late and noncompliant primaries in those states and conduct earlier caucuses. Similarly, the Trump campaign is reportedly not enamored with the possible shift to a later primary in Idaho. Seeing a pattern here? Shift to an earlier caucus. And Maryland is likely to change the date of its primary because it conflicts with Passover in 2024. If Democrats in control of state government move the contest too early (before March 15), then Old Line state Republicans would be unable to keep the winner-take-all allocation method the party adopted for 2020. And if winner-take-all allocation is that important to the party, then they, too, could opt to hold caucuses in a spot on the calendar that preserves it. 

And that offers a kind of double whammy. A switch to a caucus and a preservation of (or move to) winner-take-all rules in those states. Admittedly, those are paths with a lots of twists and turns. But they are all examples of states that because of one conflict or another may be forced into those decisions. There is still some path dependency there, but the likely impacts are more certain for decision makers. 

But to be able to look ahead, one needs a baseline. And as the 2024 invisible primary kicks into high gear and changes are considered in the coming months, this baseline is going to be important. 


--
1 In the 2008 and 2012 graphics, the hybrid and proportional with winner-take-all trigger states are rolled into one big category of states that were not truly winner-take-all nor truly proportional. 

Wednesday, June 17, 2020

2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: CONNECTICUT

CONNECTICUT

Election type: primary
Date: August 11
    [April 28 originally and then June 2]
Number of delegates: 75 [14 at-large, 6 PLEOs, 40 congressional district, 15 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (post-coronavirus)


--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.

That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.

Neither the state of Connecticut or Democrats in the Nutmeg state, however, did much to alter the regular methods for selecting or allocated delegates for the 2020 cycle. Not before 2020 and the coronavirus in any event. But once the calendar flipped to 2020, the primary process began and the global pandemic intervened, changes were made necessary by both the state and the political parties in the state.

The state government initially moved the April 28 primary away from its Acela primary position to June 2. But that did not prove to be enough time for elections officials to adequately prepare for a different type of election much less be out of the shadow of the coronavirus before any in-person voting in the early June primary. That forced Governor Ned Lamont (D) and Secretary of State Denise Merrill (D) to act again, consolidating the presidential primary with those primaries for other offices on August 11.

That primary, if it continues as planned, will be the latest presidential primary in the post-reform era and one that comes just days before the Democratic National Convention is set to commence. [More on state party changes to the delegate selection process below.]

Yet, the move to August does buy the state's elections officials time to implement a predominantly vote-by-mail system where one did not exist before. All registered voters in the state will receive an absentee ballot application, but in-person voting will remain an option for voters who do not take advantage of the remote alternative.

All absentee ballots are due to town clerks' offices before polls close on Tuesday, August 11. 

Overall, the Democratic delegation in Connecticut changed by four delegates from 2016 to 2020. New York rejoining the Acela primary group of states reconnected Connecticut and Rhode Island to the regional primary, opening both up to not only timing bonuses but clustering bonuses as well. Connecticut Democrats saw their district delegate total increase by four delegates and the at-large number grow by two. Those gains were offset to some extent by a one delegate decrease in the PLEO delegate category.


[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specifically to the delegate selection process.]


Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.


Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.

See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.


Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Connecticut's 40 congressional district delegates are split across five congressional districts and have no delegate variation across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Democrats in the Nutmeg state are using based on the results of the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 8 delegates
CD2 - 8 delegates
CD3 - 8 delegates
CD4 - 8 delegates
CD5 - 8 delegates

*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates.


Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.

[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]


Selection
An originally post-primary process for the selection of Connecticut's 60 pledged delegates has been replaced by a pre-primary process because of the coronavirus. The new pre-primary process will pre-slate delegates who will then fill in delegate slots allocated in the August 11 presidential primary.

The 40 district delegates will be selected in virtual congressional district caucuses on June 30. Under the initial delegate selection plan, it was the campaigns who were charged with organizing and carrying out these caucuses (similar to California Democrats' process) on May 27, but that task will be handled by congressional district delegates to the Connecticut Democratic state convention now. The delegate candidate filing and candidate campaign review will happen from June 19-26 according to the new plan. All of that leads up to the virtual vote on June 30.

The statewide delegates will similarly be selected before the August 11 presidential primary. A virtual meeting of the state party committee will select PLEO and then at-large delegates on July 8. Delegate candidates selected for each presidential candidate will then be chosen from those slates based on the results of the primary. The working plan from which Connecticut Democrats were operating before the coronavirus set selection of the statewide delegates for a June 10 state party committee meeting.

Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. This applies less in the case of Connecticut for at least a couple of reason. First, Sanders has already dropped out of the race which will have some negative impact on his likely vote share in the primary in the Nutmeg state. That said, Senator Sanders did cut a deal with the Biden campaign to keep any statewide delegates won in the remaining contests. Second, delegates will be selected before the primary rather than after it. Delegates can only be allocated from the pre-selected slates based on the results of the primary in such a situation.

Saturday, June 6, 2020

2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: PUERTO RICO

PUERTO RICO

Election type: primary
Date: July 12
    [March 29 originally and then April 26]
Number of delegates: 58 [11 at-large, 7 PLEOs, 33 congressional district, 7 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional primary
Delegate selection plan (post-coronavirus)


--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.

That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.

For years Puerto Rico Democrats have maintained their early June position on the presidential primary calendar. But with a competitive race and multi-candidate field on the horizon for the 2020 cycle the legislature in the island US territory opted in mid-2019 to move the election up more than two months to the end of March.

Although, as with so much else in 2020, the best laid plans for an earlier contest and consequential impact on the race were scuttled by the outbreak of the coronavirus in mid-March. And with that late March contest, Puerto Rico was very much in the crosshairs, more immediately in need of a change to the date of the contest and/or the method by which it would be conducted. The initial legislative response to the coronavirus was to shift the primary to a later date, one month later on the last Sunday in April. And that option wisely provided a fallback option to postpone the Democratic presidential primary and have the party, in consultation with the elections commission, choose a different and later date. The coronavirus's spread forced the issue soon thereafter in early April, and the Puerto Rico Democratic Party indefinitely delayed the primary. The contest was not rescheduled again until late May when the party selected a July 12 date for its presidential primary (a calendar position that had been hinted at during a DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) meeting).

As with other states that have technically broken the DNC rules on the timing of delegate selection events after June 9, Puerto Rico Democrats also had to seek a waiver from the DNCRBC in order to move forward with a contest on the new July date. That waiver was granted.

While the date of the primary has changed, little else has. Early and absentee voting remain very limited on the island, and unless the laws are changed before the primary, the contest will be predominantly in-person.

--

Overall, the Democratic delegation in Puerto Rico changed by nine delegates from 2016 to 2020. Since the primary in the territory moved from June in 2016 to March in 2020, Democrats in Puerto Rico lost their timing bonus and saw their district delegates decrease by seven and their at-large delegate pool shrink by two delegates. The PLEO and superdelegate totals remained the same in 2020 as they were in 2016.


[Please see below for more on the post-coronavirus changes specific to the delegate selection process.]


Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.


Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.

See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.


Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Puerto Rico's 33 congressional district delegates are split across eight senatorial districts and have a variation of just one delegate across districts. There is no measure of Democratic strength based on past elections because Puerto Ricans are not involved in presidential general elections. The party, then, apportions delegates as follows...
District 1 (San Juan) - 4 delegates
District 2 (Bayamon) - 4 delegates
District 3 (Arecibo) - 5 delegates*
District 4 (Mayaguez) - 4 delegates
District 5 (Ponce) - 4 delegates
District 6 (Guayama) - 4 delegates
District 7 (Humacao) - 4 delegates
District 8 (Carolina) - 4 delegates

*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates.


Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.

[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]


Selection
The selection of delegates in Puerto Rico was not fundamentally affected. While the timing was pushed back as with the primary itself, the mechanics of delegate selection have not been changed all that much. District delegates will continue to be directly elected on the July 12 presidential primary ballot just as they would have been on either March 29 or April 26 before.

Both PLEO and then at-large delegates will be chosen at the state convention on July 26. The voting members of the convention who will select PLEO delegates include the central committee and the district delegates (to the national convention) elected on the July 12 ballot. At-large delegates will then be chosen by the same central committee members and district delegates plus the just selected PLEO delegates.

None of that -- other than the timing -- is different from what was planned before the coronavirus.


Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in mid- to late July when the Puerto Rico statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the mid-July primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out.  This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain statewide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent statewide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the statewide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified statewide vote.

Friday, June 5, 2020

2020 Democratic Delegate Allocation: GUAM

GUAM

Election type: territorial caucuses
Date: June 6
    [May 2 originally]
Number of delegates: 13 [7 at-large delegates, 6 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional territory-wide
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: territorial caucuses (proportional)
Delegate selection plan (post-coronavirus)


--
Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.

That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.

Changes have not exactly been plentiful in Guam over the years with respect to how Democrats in the US territory allocate and select their delegates to the national convention. After all there are only so many ways to conduct that process with a small number of people and with only seven at-large delegates to allocate and select.

But the coronavirus forced Guam Democrats out of their comfort zone and out of the party's first Saturday in May calendar position; the one typically set aside for presidential caucuses. Some time during March or April the territorial party made the decision to indefinitely postpone the caucuses due to the spread of the pandemic. And it was not until June 3 that the party submitted and had approved by the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee a revised delegate selection plan.

That plan basically looks like a normal Guam Democratic Party delegate selection plan. The party will caucus on June 6, gauge presidential preference and allocate delegates in proportion to the share of the qualified vote (15 percent or more) each candidate receives. Given the time available, the party indicates in the plan, it will not be able to conduct any mail-in voting. The Saturday, June 6 caucuses, then, will be an in-person affair among registered Guam Democrats. [Prospective voters can registered at the caucuses.] Additionally, a drive-thru option will be available in some caucus locations.


Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies territory-wide for the allocation of the seven at-large delegates.


Delegate allocation (at-large)
To win any at-large delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the territory-wide vote in the caucuses. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the allocation of those delegates.

See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.


Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
There are no congressional districts or other subdivisions within Guam and as such there are no district delegates to allocate in the June 6 caucuses.


Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.

[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]


Selection
The seven at-large delegates to the national convention from Guam will be selected at the June 6 territory-wide caucuses. Delegate candidates were to have filed by May 30 and will be selected in proportion to the vote of qualifying candidates in the caucuses.

Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of territory-wide delegates, then any territory-wide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. However, given the simultaneity of the allocation and selection on June 6 in Guam, that means that there is no real potential for reallocation of those territory-wide delegates. This reallocation would only applyi if a candidate has fully dropped out.  This is less likely to be a factor with just Biden left as the only viable candidate in the race, but Sanders could still gain territory-wide delegates by finishing with more than 15 percent territory-wide. Under a new deal struck between the Biden and Sanders camps, Biden will be allocated (or reallocated) all of the territory-wide delegates in a given state. However, during the selection process, the state party will select Sanders-aligned delegate candidates in proportion to the share of the qualified territory-wide vote.