Thursday, March 23, 2023
Hawaii Committee Shakes Up Presidential Primary Bill
Invisible Primary: Visible -- The Republican Race is Over?
Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...
The indictment of a former president is something new in American politics. Not in modern American politics, but in American politics, period. And that says nothing about how an indictment (or multiple indictments) would impact a former president seeking his party's presidential nomination for a third time. We do not have a clear understanding yet as to how any of that will impact the race. But that has not stopped folks from racing to conclusions or hypothesizing about the the effects without actually waiting for the hypothesis to be even minimally tested.
Count Tina Ngyuen from Puck News among them.
Look, FHQ noted earlier this week that "it's Trump's until it's not," but that is not anything new. The majority of invisible primary signals have been pointing in that direction for some time if not all along, but with the caveat that the former president's position in 2023 is not like it was in 2019 when Trump could lean on the advantages of incumbency. That is the story of the 2024 invisible primary on the Republican side: assessing where Trump's bid stands between the two poles of his previous two runs.
Any apparent momentum Trump has enjoyed in 2023, after the midterms were a drag on the former president at the tail end of 2022, buoys the notions that 1) things have improved for Trump in the near term and 2) that nudges him closer to his 2019 position than to where he was in 2015. Part of what buttresses the improved outlook for Trump 2024 (at least with respect to the Republican nomination process) is that his poll position had improved and was improving before "indictment watch" really heated up this week. And the fact that elite Republicans are rallying to the former president as formal criminal charges loom may or may not trickle down and resonate at the rank and file level among potential Republican primary voters (who will not start voting on the nomination for another nine months or so).
But first let's see and maybe test that again over time. Trump may win the 2024 Republican nomination, but that does not mean that a dynamic process does not lay stretched out before us. As has been said, the fun is in the journey. It may not exactly be fun, but the process very definitely has an impact on, if not the outcome of the nomination race, then how the party transitions to the general election. That is meaningful.
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Nevertheless, they persisted. Trump's position may have improved, but the other candidates and prospective candidates are still, well, acting like candidates and not like the race is over. In fact, the broader DeSantis 2024 effort scored a bit of a coup in the staff primary a day ago when an aligned super PAC, Never Back Down, brought former Ted Cruz campaign manager, Jeff Roe, on board. This is no small thing. Yes, the Roe-led effort to help boost Cruz to the 2016 Republican presidential nomination fell short, but it also won some significant victories along the way. And it probably punched above its weight by out-hustling Trump in caucus states and in exploiting the delegate selection process as well.
What is different now is that, while running a tight ship on the rules end in 2016 may prove a useful feather in the cap of the broader DeSantis presidential effort, Trump's 2024 team is more savvy than it was in 2015-16. State Republican parties are also littered with Trump-supportive if not Trump-aligned operatives. And the Republican rules are different in 2024 than they were in 2016. Exploiting the delegate selection process may be more difficult this time.
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If the support from outside of Jefferson City is any indication, then it looks like Missouri might get its presidential primary back for 2024. But the election was eliminated last year by the state legislature for a reason, and despite support from both the Missouri Democratic and Republican parties, getting the presidential primary reinstated through the state legislature may be easier said than done.
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On this date...
...in 1976, Jimmy Carter bested George Wallace in the North Carolina primary, winning a majority of the vote and handing the Alabama governor a second loss in a southern state he had won in 1972. Also in the Tar Heel state that day, Ronald Reagan notched his first primary victory of the cycle, edging out President Ford.
...in 2015, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) entered the Republican presidential nomination race.
...in 2020, both Alaska (Democrats) and Rhode Island delayed delegate selection events due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Wednesday, March 22, 2023
Alternate Kansas Bill Would Reestablish a Presidential Primary in March
Committee Hearing Demonstrates Broad Support for Effort to Reestablish Missouri Presidential Primary
The push to reinstate the Missouri presidential preference primary finally got its day before committee on Wednesday, March 22. The House Special Committee on Public Policy heard testimony on two identical bills to put back in statute code that was eliminated as part of omnibus elections legislation that passed the General Assembly and was signed into law in 2022.
A few things quickly became clear in the course of the hearing. First, but for one opponent and a handful of informational witnesses, everyone in a long list of those providing comments -- from voters to state and county party chairs to statewide and local elections officials to union lobbyists -- was in favor of the move. Rep. Rudy Veit (R-59th, Cole), the sponsor of one of the bills (HB 347) leaned heavily into the idea of caucuses disenfranchising military and government personnel (fire, police, etc.) relative to the options available in a state-run primary election. The sponsor of the other bill (HB 267), Rep. Cyndi Buchheit-Courtway (R-115th, Jefferson) mentioned that she got into politics with a simple slogan, "fighting for our voices to be heard," an idea she said was violated with no presidential primary.
Notably, the leadership of both state parties -- Chair Nick Myers and Vice Chair Leann Green of the Missouri Republican Party and newly elected Missouri Democratic Party Chair Russ Carnahan -- supported the effort. Carnahan went so far as to say that hurting voters' ability to participate in the presidential nomination process would further erode perceptions about the legitimacy of elections.
Second, the costs of such an election -- a stand-alone March presidential primary -- were repeatedly raised. Rep. Veit and others cited the estimated $10 million price tag, but shrugged it off, saying it was the price of democracy. Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R) in his testimony noted that the cost would not come out of one year of the budget but be spread across four.
And while Ashcroft did not speak for or against the legislation, he urged lawmakers to "pick one," caucuses or a primary. But he also made a point, talking about the presidential primary, to say that he was "philosophically" against holding a vote that does not matter. The secretary did not mean that the March election would fall too late in the calendar. Rather, he wrongly suggested that the primary has no bearing on either delegate allocation or selection in Missouri; that delegates are not bound.
[FHQ aside: Again, this is wrong. It is an impression that seems to have been forged during the 2012 cycle when Missouri lawmakers could not find a way to move or then cancel a primary that the Missouri Republican Party (who had the active nomination race that cycle) opted out of. The primary still occurred on the state's dime, but caucuses were where delegates were selected (and though unbound were largely committed to particular candidates). Missouri Republicans, however, did not operate in that manner during the last competitive cycle in 2016 (nor 2020 for that matter). The party allocated delegates based on the primary because RNC rules during that cycle mandated it and further backed up that binding in all states at the national convention.
Ashcroft also projects past Republican issues in Missouri onto Show-Me state Democrats, who do not and have not had those same problems as state Republicans because the process is more regulated at the national party level. But those problems have already been dealt with by the RNC.]
Finally, another theme that may end up affecting this legislation down the line was the idea of consolidating primaries. Elections officials in attendance and testifying described the difficulty of pulling off one presidential primary election in March only to have to turn around and do it all over again in April with nonpartisan local elections. But the same election administrators were cool to the notion of combining a partisan election with a nonpartisan election when it came up because of the impact it would have on correctly generating and distributing many different versions of a ballot to voters.
But if there is no state law requiring a primary, then none of this matters anyway. A state law would, of course, require elections officials, regardless of the burdens, to implement whatever state law calls for. And although a consolidated election may increase some headaches for elections officials across Missouri, it would both tamp down on the costs borne by the state and maximize turnout.
No votes were taken on either HB 267 or HB 347 in committee on Wednesday, but the hearing showcased some of the common tradeoffs involved in the presidential nomination process.
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Idaho Presidential Primary Inching Toward Move to May
The filing of a trailing bill last week to amend H 138 cleared the way for the original bill, intended to eliminate the stand-alone March presidential primary and merge it with the primaries for other offices in May, to move forward in the Senate. On Tuesday, March 21, H 138 came off of the purgatory 14th order calendar and was read again on the Senate floor for a second time. A third and final reading is all that stands in the way of Senate passage.
And S 1186, the amending bill to add the necessary legal infrastructure to the actually place the presidential line on the May primary ballot, cleared the Senate State Affairs Committee with a Do Pass recommendation and no dissenting votes. Both bills -- the entire package of which would end the separate March presidential primary and add it to the May general primary in Idaho -- are now ready to be considered on the floor of Idaho Senate.
Together, the package would save the state an estimated $2.7 million (from the eliminated extra primary), but the measures would also need to pass both the state Senate and head back (in the case of H 138) to the House in this likely final week of the regular legislative session. Idaho would be just the second state to change primary dates in 2023 and the first to move to a later date on the 2024 presidential primary calendar. Louisiana shifted back a few weeks for 2024 during the 2021 session.
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Invisible Primary: Visible -- Where are all the delegate selection plans?
Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...
May 3 is fast approaching. That date may carry less significance in 2023 because the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination process looks to be only nominally competitive at this time. But that does not mean that May 3 does not matter at all.
What is the big deal about May 3? That is the date by which state Democratic parties must have submitted draft delegate selection plans (DSPs) for 2024 to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) for review (and ultimately approval in some form).
But May 3 is still more than a month away.
It is. But part of the submission process is that a state party's draft DSPs must be made public for comment for a period of 30 days before they can be submitted. In other words, if one does the backward math, then 30 days before May 3 falls on April 2, a little more than a week away. And so far anyway, there has not been a rush to get these draft DSPs in front of the public. Just seven states, territories or other jurisdictions of 57 have posted them at this point asking from public comment: Arkansas, Democrats Abroad, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington, DC. [Apparently there is some urgency in O states.]
None of this is hugely important ten months out from any votes being cast, but it does offer a glimpse into a few things. State laws dictate when most primaries will be held and lock in those dates until a legislature opts to change them. Some state legislatures across the country are considering their calendar options, but for caucus states or other states with 2024 question marks, the DSPs provide some insight into the plans of state parties (where state laws are not involved).
For example, there is no official date for the North Dakota caucuses at this point. The DSP will give us the first indication of where the contest will end up on the 2024 presidential primary calendar. The same is true for, say, Iowa as well. And that is kind of the point here. Iowa Democrats do not have a protected spot atop the Democratic calendar for 2024 as the state has for the entire post-reform era. The Iowa Democratic DSP will give some of the first clues as to whether the party will relent to the DNC calendar changes this cycle or buck the national party and hold unsanctioned caucuses earlier than allowed.
That goes for New Hampshire too. And Democrats in the Granite state posted their draft DSP earlier this week. In most cycles, New Hampshire Democrats would simply parrot the adopted DNC rules and give the date the national party had carved out for them with a simple parenthetical appended: (date subject to change). The message there from New Hampshire Democrats? "We will hold our primary on the date set aside for us unless some other state jumps in front, in which case the secretary of state will bump our primary up to protect our first-in-the-nation position."
Of course, 2024 is not going to be a normal cycle for New Hampshire Democrats. There is only a guaranteed early slot for the party if they follow the new DNC mandate and conduct a primary on February 6, 2024. And all signs have pointed toward an earlier position on the calendar. Earlier than February 6, anyway. The state party has basically signaled since December that it would follow the state law and the New Hampshire secretary of state, following said law, will likely take that primary into January 2024.
But now, New Hampshire Democrats have put a more official stamp on that sentiment. The newly released draft DSP specifies no date, a break from the past protocol. Additionally, it says what New Hampshire Democrats have been saying for months:
The “first determining step” of New Hampshire's delegate selection process will occur on a date to be determined by the New Hampshire Secretary of State in accordance with NH RSA 653:9, with a “Presidential Preference Primary.” The Republican Presidential Preference Primary will be held in conjunction with the Democratic Presidential Preference Primary.
The key there is the solidarity with Republicans in New Hampshire. In other words, there will be no break up, no severing of the two parties' processes. That would seemingly eliminate some alternative routes for the New Hampshire Democratic delegate selection process. It would also open the state party to penalties from the DNC. But this is just a draft after all. Consider it New Hampshire Democrats' official counter to the 2024 calendar rules the DNC adopted in February. There will be further back and forth as the New Hampshire plan goes through the review process, including representatives of the state party defending the current plan before the DNCRBC. There will be more clues to come, and probably some penalties from the look of it.
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In the travel primary, maybe Ron DeSantis is just heading to Michigan next month. Or maybe the Florida governor is trekking to a state with a late February primary in 2024. Michigan Republicans (and the Republican National Committee) still have some decisions to make on that front.
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In a busy week for committee hearings on presidential primary (movement) bills, there are updates on Connecticut's possible move up to early April and Ohio's potential push back to March.
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On this date...
...in 1980, Jimmy Carter swept the Virginia caucuses, garnering more than 80 percent of the vote on his way to a contentious Democratic (re)nomination.
...in 2007, FHQ was born with a simple mission to gather (and share) anecdotal evidence around presidential primary movement ahead of the 2008 primaries. Things blossomed from there.
...in 2016, there were contests in American Samoa (Republican caucuses), Arizona (primary), Idaho (Democratic caucuses) and Utah (caucuses). It was a microcosm of the processes in both parties that cycle as Sanders and Cruz won caucuses (except in American Samoa) and Clinton and Trump won the Arizona primary. There were exceptions throughout primary season, but in general the two eventual nominees performed better in primaries than in caucuses.
...in 2017, legislation funding the Utah presidential primary was signed into law. After not funding the election in either 2012 or 2016, forcing caucuses, the legislature ponied up the funds necessary to switch back to a primary for 2020.
...in 2020, the Wyoming Democratic Party nixed in-person voting for the upcoming caucuses due to Covid, shifting to a completely vote-by-mail structure, the window of which was also extended.
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Tuesday, March 21, 2023
Ohio Bill to Move Presidential Primary to May Has Second Committee Hearing
The Ohio legislation to shift the presidential primary in the Buckeye state from March to May had a second hearing before the House Government Oversight Committee on Tuesday, March 21.
The hearing was short and sweet. Testimony on just three bills was heard and the panel made quick work of them. That included HB 21, the bill introduced by Rep. Daniel Troy (D-23rd, Willowick) to make May the uniform primary position in Ohio regardless of election year. Troy spoke on the measure in late February, but this time, it was Gail E. Garbrandt of the Ohio Association of Elections Officials who gave testimony on behalf her bipartisan group in support of the legislation.
Garbrandt echoed many of the points Troy made in the February hearing, espousing the virtues of "election processes and procedures [that] are uniform, consistent, and easily understandable for our voters." But she also made the case about further reducing the burdens on taxpayers and election administrators. The March primary increases costs because the filing deadline falls during the holiday season at the end of the preceding year when overtime pay is often required in order for election officials to meet state-mandated deadlines.
The committee once again failed to pose any questions to the lone witness, and it remains unclear whether the case has been successfully made to the committee for moving the primary in presidential years. That silence could mean a lot of things. However, it is worth acknowledging the fact that Ohio has managed to pull off primary elections every March since 1996. Proponents of the change push back on the idea of Ohio being a big draw in any of those seven cycles. And while that may be the case, it is also true that seven cycles have created a measure of consistency in the Ohio election calendar that bill supporters would interrupt in order to establish a "uniform, consistent and easily understandable" primary permanently scheduled for May in all years. That may or may not be convincing to the members of Government Oversight.
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Connecticut Parties Behind Effort to Move Presidential Primary
The Connecticut Joint Committee on Governmental Administration and Elections convened on Monday, March 20 to conduct initial public hearings for a number of bills, HB 6908 among them. That legislation would shift up the date of the presidential primary in the Nutmeg state to the first Tuesday in April starting in the 2024.
No votes were taken on the measure, but the testimony given offered insight into the motivation behind the bill. Testifying together, the chairs of the two major state parties supported the move and indicated that it was the potential for greater influence in the presidential nomination process that prompted them to cooperatively help craft the legislation. Nancy DiNardo, the Connecticut Democratic Party chair noted that the change would give the state a "stronger voice in choosing a presidential candidate" and was furthermore "proud to say this legislation is bipartisan."
Connecticut Republican Party Chair Benjamin Proto said that an earlier primary would give Connecticut "more influence within the presidential nominating system as well as to provide voters more engagement within their party and with candidates."
Nowhere in either the oral or written testimony did either mention the current primary date's conflict with Passover in 2024. Instead, the parties were motivated by potential influence rather than that conflict in moving the primary. However, the move would shift the Connecticut presidential primary out of a conflict with the tail end of Passover.
None of this is groundbreaking news. State legislators consider presidential primary bills every year (but particularly in the year before a presidential election) to move contests around. And frequently among the top stated reasons for the legislation being introduced is the quest for more influence in and resources from the presidential nomination process. Often it is a fool's errand because the states that draw that kind of influence are the (protected) earliest states and the next wave is a cluster of contests within which states -- especially smaller ones like Connecticut -- often get lost.
However, what was noteworthy about the testimony of DiNardo specifically was that she noted that shifting the Connecticut presidential primary to early April would align the election with the primary in New York. Now, either that was a mistake or there have been conversations among Democratic state parties about coordinating a landing spot for the two neighboring states' primaries. There are efforts to move the New York primary. However, none of them target an early April date. Plus, the standard operating procedure in New York for setting the primary date is for that work to be done in the late spring (in the year before a presidential election) in consultation with the state parties in the Empire state.
Nonetheless, this potential cooperation makes sense. But for Covid, the Connecticut and New York primaries would have coincided in two of the last three cycles. And that sort of subregional cluster of contests would potentially be a bigger draw to candidates than if either state were to go it alone. On the Republican side, an early April position would also allow both Connecticut and New York Republicans to retain their current variations of the winner-take-most rules.
Of course, both efforts have to make it through the legislative process first. And the Connecticut push has only just begun. In New York, they are not even that far along.
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Invisible Primary: Visible -- Pence's Predicament
Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...
McCay Coppins at The Atlantic peeks into some recent focus groups looking at Pence 2024:
Organized by the political consultant Sarah Longwell, the groups consisted of Republican voters who supported Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020. The participants were all over the country—suburban Atlanta, rural Illinois, San Diego—and they varied in their current opinions of Trump. In some cases, Longwell filtered for voters who should be in Pence’s target demographic. One group consisted entirely of two-time Trump voters who didn’t want him to run again; another was made up of conservative evangelicals, who might presumably appreciate Pence’s roots in the religious right.
Look, one should never put too much trust in focus groups -- especially a handful of them at one snapshot in time -- but when they are chosen to test a candidate out with groups that should be favorable to the candidate, well, the results should be okay. These were not. And they confirm some priors for those who may be skeptical of a Pence run for the 2024 Republican nomination. It is revealing, then, even if not generalizable (pending future data). The association with Trump and the perceived failings of Pence to act in accordance with the former president's wishes on January 6 is to Pence what imminent death syndrome was to characters in that old Mr. Show bit. It puts him in an awkward position. And that is not the place to be with Republican primary voters at this time.
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Donald Trump will likely be an interesting test of a number of hypotheses as the invisible primary continues and ultimately yields to primary season next year. Among those hypotheses will be whether actions and not words carry the day for Republican primary voters. FHQ is quick to preach actions during the invisible primary, but when rubber meets road and voters are pulling (or not pulling) the lever for Trump in 2024, the actions of four years in the White House may mean less. In the context of abortion, more happened on the former president's watch than under any Republican administration, yet Trump's comments about how the issue hurt Republicans in the 2022 midterms, not to mention his general avoidance of the issue, weigh on the minds of evangelicals in and outside of Iowa. But that segment of those caucusing early next year in the first contest in Iowa will not be insignificant. Nor, however, are they monolithic.
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FHQ has not said much about announced Republican presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy, and that probably says a lot. However, in the month since the entrepreneur formally declared, he has raised nearly $500,000 from 10,000 donors, many of them first-timers, across all 50 states. That is nothing to sneeze at, but by comparison, Trump hauled in ten times as much at the tail end of 2024, and DeSantis is sitting on a fortune left over from his gubernatorial reelection bid last year (in addition to what he continues to bring in). Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley has yet to report any figures. Longshot though he may be, Ramaswamy demonstrates how effective the online fundraising infrastructure combined with a steady stream media hits can be.
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On this date...
...in 1972, Edmund Muskie won the Democratic primary in Illinois, the Maine senator's final primary win of the cycle. Muskie also won the earlier New Hampshire primary.
...in 2019, SB 445 was signed into law, moving the Arkansas presidential primary back to March.
...in 2020, New York cancelled its Republican presidential primary after President Trump was the only candidate to qualify.
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Monday, March 20, 2023
Invisible Primary: Visible -- It's Trump's until it's not
Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...
Strategizing about the when, where and how to best defeat Donald Trump is not a new thing. In fact, it has not always been a particularly partisan thing. After all, just seven years and a day ago, the New York Times ran a story about Republican efforts to chart a course forward toward an alternative. That was not the first such story and it certainly was not the last. There are likely more on the way.
With the former president mounting his third bid for the Republican presidential nomination, the strategizing Trump's downfall industry his whirred back to life. And that is not without reason. It is spurred on by the relatively weaker hand Trump has in 2023 minus the incumbency advantage the then-president carried with him four years ago. And there are possible indictments looming over Trump in Manhattan, Georgia and the nation's capital. The terrain is both more different than it has been during the Trump era and all too familiar (at least in the ways that various actors, including Trump, are reacting and how the race is being covered).
Those weaknesses -- real or perceived -- are a lens through which the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination is being viewed. But the underlying mindset is akin to giving folks a hammer: They are going to go looking for nails and probably "find" them. For example, Trip Gabriel of the New York Times had a recent dispatch from Des Moines, where all eyes -- Trump's and his rivals' -- are on the first nominating contest of 2024. And understandably so: the caucuses in Iowa are the first contest.
“I don’t see a formula where Trump loses Iowa and it doesn’t really wound him and his chances as a candidate,” said Terry Sullivan, who managed Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Or maybe New Hampshire will be Trump's demise. Republican strategist Susan Del Percio sees unaffiliated voters, who are allowed to participate in the presidential primary in the Granite state, as a key potential buffer against extremists lining up behind Trump.
[As an aside, a Trump loss in Iowa would be less a signal about Iowa specifically and more one stemming from the fact that it is a caucus state. If Trump is losing among low turnout caucus electorates then that will say much about his institutional support within the party among a more motivated slice of the overall primary electorate. And that says nothing of the blow that would strike to the former president's organizational strength. As for independents in New Hampshire, maybe 2024 will be different. But Trump ran ahead of his statewide support in New Hampshire among independents in 2016. That may not be what starts the ball rolling against Trump in 2024.]
Of course, both of those visions are a bit more forward-looking into a future that has not accounted for the events that will transpire during the remainder of the invisible primary between now and when votes begin to be cast. Perhaps it will be in the courtrooms across the country where a Trump slide (or a resurgence!) begins. Seth Masket throws some water on that notion:
All this is to say that him being indicted will likely not harm him much in the presidential contest — his supporters will not turn against him — but nor will it help him. “Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters will support him enthusiastically if X happens” has been proven true time and again for eight years but doesn’t really tell us very much.
In the end, there are at least nine months left in the invisible primary. Things will happen. Needles will move. Candidates' fortunes will rise and fall. But right now, Trump is very much in the same position Jeb Bush was in 2015. That is not to suggest that the outcome will be the same for Trump as it was for Bush nor that the signals are not pointing more forcefully in Trump's direction now than they ever did for Bush then. But the majority of the invisible primary signals one looks at -- polls, fundraising, hiring, endorsements, organizational strength, etc. -- point in Trump's direction at this time. That may not continue to be the case as the invisible primary progresses, but it is the case now.
That is why FHQ has been saying a variation on something in recent days that we often said back in 2015. Then it was "it [the 2016 Republican nomination] is Jeb's until it's not." Now, it is "it [the 2024 Republican nomination] is Trump's until it's not." In other words, the signals one relies on to tell one anything about the state of the race are pointing toward Trump. But that may not continue to be the case once indictments come down, or DeSantis enters the race, or a poor fundraising quarter is reported, or well on down the line, once votes begin to be cast in Iowa and New Hampshire. For now, however, it is Trump's until it's not.
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How will public opinion react to a possible Trump indictment? Natalie Jackson says to look at the polling on January 6.
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Harry Enten digs into recent CNN and Quinnipiac polls and finds that support among voters of color is part of what sets Trump apart from his competition for the Republican presidential nomination.
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Michigan Republicans are still "in a pickle" over whether to go the primary or caucus route in 2024.
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On this date...
...in 1984, Walter Mondale edged Gary Hart in the Illinois primary, winning a small plurality victory on his way to the Democratic nomination. The Illinois primary ended up fairly closely resembling the popular vote breakdown in the contest nationwide at its conclusion.
...in 2012, Mitt Romney scored a double digit win over Rick Santorum in the Illinois primary, but dominated the former Pennsylvania senator in the congressional district delegates directly elected by a more than three to one rate.
...in 2020, the Indiana presidential primary was pushed back from May to June because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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