Earlier is Better (And not just during a presidential primary race -- After it too)

There's a lot of talk around these parts that the earlier your state's primary is, the more, I don't know, candidate attention your state will receive. That's certainly what FHQ has stressed in its discussions of this, but it neglects one other valuable asset in all of this: what a president is able to do for states after they've been elected.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas in Presidents as Candidates: Inside the White House for the Presidential Campaign shows that presidents exert their power through executive agencies to reward states and constituencies valuable to their reelection efforts. Iowa and New Hampshire receive, for instance, what Mayer and Busch (2004) call special policy concessions because of their privileged position at the front of the presidential primary queue. If a president running for reelection is able to secure added procurements for an early states, all the better for his or her chances.

Obviously, that's only part of this equation, though. What if states get rewards for picking the winning presidential candidate during the primary phase? Here is a constituency within a state or states that has been with a candidate the longest. And the later a state is, the easier the choice is as the candidate field is winnowed. Early states, then, have a tougher choice. From the presidential candidate's view it's, "Hey, you chose me all the way back then out of all those candidates." Under those circumstances, it could certainly be hypothesized that earlier states could get policy concessions and added procurements for their state simply by having chosen correctly in the primary phase. Well, that's exactly what Andrew Taylor has found. Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina can look for their check in the mail. New Hampshire, on the hand, can keep waiting since the Granite state opted for Hillary Clinton over Obama.

What Taylor finds evidence of is that...

"If the first state chooses the ultimately victorious presidential candidate in a competitive nomination ... it receives $35.29 more in procurement per capita than if it had picked a loser." In comparison, the benefit if the eighth state picks the eventual winner would be approximately $22.05 more in procurement per capita. Beyond the ninth contest, Taylor says, the benefits are no longer statistically significant.

So it isn't simply a matter of buttering up some valuable constituency for a reelection bid. It's also a matter of what have you done for me. Another way for Obama to keep score, I suppose.


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Blame Palin?

John Sides over at The Monkey Cage, freshly back from the Midwest Political Science Association conference over the weekend, has an interesting post* up this morning from a paper that was presented there. The paper by Richard Johnston and Emily Thorson uses the 2008 National Annenberg Election Study to examine the relationship between the candidates' poll standing over the last few months of the election, survey respondents' economic evaluations and the presidential and vice presidential candidate favorability ratings over the course of that period as well.

The weird thing? McCain's polls numbers, overall economic evaluations and Sarah Palin's favorability track almost exactly. As John says, "It's eerie."

It is and this is all interestingly suggestive, but is it possible that Palin was something of a reverse Obama during the campaign. No, I don't mean ideologically; that's fairly obvious. My angle here is that during Obama's emergence prior to the 2008 primaries, the then-senator from Illinois was still an unknown quantity. Those on the left paid more attention to the build up to the nomination race more and some on that side attached their hopes and dreams to Obama's run. Obama, say, would have had more movement in his support numbers when information emerged (negative or positive) than if something newsworthy broke on Hillary Clinton.

Well, Sarah Palin was that unknown quantity on the Republican side, but she was introduced during a much more hyper-partisan period than Obama. Folks -- on the right especially -- attached their hopes and dreams to her in a way similar to what Obama enjoyed over a much less partisan period and over a much longer length of time. But because of the general election environment in which she was introduced, folks on the left and some in the middle attached their negative feelings on the economy and the general state of things to her -- and apparently the McCain campaign -- as well.

Very interesting stuff. And what's more, the economic evaluations fluctuate more than what I glean from Tom Holbrook they did in the NES.

*Head on over and check out the graphs. Great visuals of the trend.


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The 2012 Presidential Primary Calendar (4/4/09)

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Presidential Candidate Emergence: An Alternate Measure

I had this link come into my inbox the other day and it really got me thinking about using this Google search data to track presidential candidate emergence during the invisible primary.

[Image Courtesy of irregulartimes.com. Click to Enlarge]

Now sure, Google itself warns against using their Labs-designated (read: not quite ready for primetime) Trends tool data for heavy duty research, which this isn't, so I couldn't help myself. The good folks at Irregular Times got the ball rolling on this in terms of tracking the 2012 Republican candidates' emergence in real time, but that only tells us a little bit of the story. Google Trends stretches back to January 2004 and that affords us the opportunity to track the fluctuations of the 2008 candidates on both sides as a baseline for comparison.

But here's the thing: I actually prefer the Google data over the Cafe Press search data. Yes, Irregular Times makes the point that Google search data pulls in all the search data regardless of whether you were looking up John McCain in 2006 in the context his 2008 presidential bid or some legislative work he was doing on the Hill. I can buy that. And while the benefits of using the Cafe Press search data (searching for actual candidate-related merchandise) are that we are gaining strength of attachment, the drawback is that we are potentially losing out on data concerning searches that while not as strong, are still related to these candidates in terms of the presidency. In other words, I'd like to take the larger view and try to narrow the scope somehow than narrow things unnecessarily right off the bat and miss something important.

[Fine FHQ, what's the point?]

This actually settles quite nicely into the realm of political science. The very first thing I thought of when I saw this data was issue evolution. The classic model constructed Carmines and Stimson (1981) looked at issue changes (such as on racial issues during the 20th century) on two planes. First, issue stances change over time, but secondly, their evolution takes place at the elite level within the party (in terms of perception and actions in Congress) and works its way down to the mass level affecting perceptions on the issues there.

This obviously has a link to the invisible primary period we are in now ahead of 2012. No, it isn't terribly active right now. Not at the mass level, at least. But there's no doubt there is jockeying going on at the elite level and that ultimately finds its way down to the masses. This approach has already seen some attention within the literature. Cohen, et. al (2003, 2005, 2008) have examined this at the elite level, tracking candidates' efforts to woo donors and high-profile endorsements. It strikes me, though, that this Google Trends data is an interesting means of tracking the level to which this permeates the masses. Now granted, the Cohen argument is that the system is set up in a way to allow for party autonomy over the nomination decision, but this data seems like an alternate means of investigating this as opposed to focusing on polling (which may have some endogeneity issues with internet searches) or waiting for vote outcomes in the primaries.

This week, then, we'll be focused on this relationship (among other things). Ideally I'd be able to roll this out in one big post, but I don't have the time tonight (and I suppose I've been sitting on this for a couple of days already anyway) to put it all together. We all may be better served having it broken down into its component parts. Regardless, this should be fun to look at.


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Georgia in 2012: Back to March?

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The 2012 Presidential Primary Calendar (4/4/09)

For the most up-to-date version of this calendar see the left sidebar under the 2012 electoral college projection or click here.

With a bill having been introduced to move the presidential primary in Georgia, another 2012 Presidential Primary Calendar update is in order. Here again are the rules from the last update:

1. Caucus states are italicized while primary states are not.
2. States that have changed dates appear twice (or more) on the calendar; once by the old date and once by the new date. The old date will be struck through while the new date will be color-coded with the amount of movement (in days) in parentheses. States in green are states that have moved to earlier dates on the calendar and states in red are those that have moved to later dates. Arkansas, for example, has moved its 2012 primary and moved it back 104 days.
   
3. You'll also see that some of the states on the calendar are live links. These are links to active legislation that would shift the date on which that state's presidential primary would be held in 2012. That allows us to track the status of the legislation more easily (in the states that allow you to link directly to the bill status).
4. For the sake of tracking relevant legislation dealing with presidential primaries generally, but not the dates directly (ie: Minnesota potentially switching from caucus to primary), FHQ will include links in parentheses next to such states (H for House action, S for Senate action).
   

New Additions: Georgia

2012 Presidential Primary Calendar

Monday, January 16, 2012: Iowa caucuses*

Tuesday, January 24: New Hampshire*

Saturday, January 28: Nevada caucuses*, South Carolina*

A note on the placement of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

Tuesday, January 31: Florida

Tuesday, February 7 (Super Tuesday): Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois (H / S), Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma (H), Tennessee and Utah

Saturday, February 11: Louisiana

Tuesday, February 14: Maryland, Virginia

Tuesday, February 21: Wisconsin

Tuesday, February 28: Arizona**, Michigan***

Tuesday, March 6: Massachusetts***, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont

Tuesday, March 13: Mississippi

Tuesday, March 20: Colorado caucuses****

Tuesday, April 24: Pennsylvania

Tuesday, May 8: Indiana (S), North Carolina and West Virginia

Tuesday, May 15: Nebraska, Oregon

Tuesday, May 22: Arkansas (-104), Idaho, Kentucky

Tuesday, June 5: Montana, New Mexico***** and South Dakota

*New Hampshire law calls for the Granite state to hold a primary on the second Tuesday of March or seven days prior to any other similar election, whichever is earlier. Florida is first now, so New Hampshire would be a week earlier at the latest. Traditionally, Iowa has gone on the Monday a week prior to New Hampshire. For the time being we'll wedge Nevada and South Carolina in on the Saturday between New Hampshire and Florida, but these are just guesses at the moment. Any rogue states could cause a shift.

**In Arizona the governor can use his or her proclamation powers to move the state's primary to a date on which the event would have an impact on the nomination. In 2004 and 2008 the primary was moved to the first Tuesday in February.

***Massachusetts and Michigan are the only states that passed a frontloading bill prior to 2008 that was not permanent. The Bay state reverts to its first Tuesday in March date in 2012 while Michigan will fall back to the fourth Tuesday in February.

****The Colorado Democratic and Republican parties have the option to move their caucuses from the third Tuesday in March to the first Tuesday in February.

*****The law in New Mexico allows the parties to decide when to hold their nominating contests. The Democrats have gone in early February in the last two cycles, but the GOP has held steady in June. They have the option of moving however.

A note on the Minnesota caucuses.

Notes:
The Green Papers is also getting in on the 2012 act now. They've got a nice delegate projection up for the Democrats in 2012 and what they're calling a primary calendar for them as well. Sure, it amounts to applying the 2008 rules to 2012 in terms of when Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina will be, but that would mean that Nevada would be ahead of New Hampshire on the calendar and I just can't buy into that. There is no way New Hampshire is going to allow Nevada to slide into the period between Iowa and New Hampshire. It just won't happen unless the parties try and do away with the Iowa and New Hampshire exemption. As long as they allow both to be exempt, though, New Hampshire is only going to let Iowa go before it. Case in point: Just look at the law that has been proposed in the Granite state General Court. That is meant to deal specifically with the possible encroachment of another caucus; namely Nevada. So no, I'm going to leave Nevada behind New Hampshire on this projection of the calendar. But the Green Papers did make me think twice about it.


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Georgia in 2012: Back to March?

First Florida and now Georgia.

Regional policy diffusion is the name of the game and in the lead up to 2012, it looks as if the backloading of presidential primaries may be an idea that is spreading. Of course, a bill being introduced is far different than it becoming law, but there is currently an active bill in both chambers of the legislature in Florida and now one in Georgia that would shift the 2012 presidential primaries in each to later dates not earlier ones.

There's a reason that I mentioned the distinction between bill introduction and a bill becoming a law, though. Sure, Florida and Georgia are following the lead of Arkansas -- which has already moved back -- but the circumstances are different in Arkansas than in Florida/Georgia. In the Natural state, the move to February in 2008 was a costly one. It meant having to fund an all new election for the presidential race (one separated from the May primaries for state and local offices). And that cost was just too high when Arkansas legislators looked back on it. Arkansas has done this before; moving up in 1988 to coincide with the other southern states and moving back to May in 1992.

The situation in Florida and Georgia, though, is quite different. Both states have essentially institutionalized a separate presidential primary. First, it is difficult to comply with national party rules on presidential delegate selection when your other primaries are in July (Georgia) and August/September (Florida). It forces both states to hold a separate presidential primary unless the state government opts to move the primaries for state and local offices. But with that Florida and Georgia have a bit more freedom to move that presidential primary having established the contest as a free-standing event.

So the Sunshine and Peach states are home free and can shift back to later dates in 2012, right? Well, they could if the majority of the state legislature was in a favor of the move. But that isn't the case in either state. HB 848 in Georgia and the two bills in Florida (House and Senate) are bills sponsored and introduced by Democrats (Rep. Billy Mitchell in Georgia) in Republican-controlled legislatures (not to mention governments considering both states have Republican governors) and partisanship is likely to stand in the way of these moves. With the Republican nomination at stake in 2012, Republican legislators are going to be much less inclined to shift their state back and into potential irrelevance on the matter unless required to by the national party.

And thus far in the positioning for 2012 (or at least in terms of the current bills that propose primary movement before 2012), that has been the mark of legislative efforts: They are being proposed by a member(s) of the out-party.

• In Florida and Georgia, Democrats are pushing backward shifts of presidential primaries in Republican-dominated states.
• In North Carolina, the situation is reversed (times two). A group of Republicans are sponsoring a bill to move the Tarheel state's primary up to the first Tuesday in February in a Democratic legislature. The story in Oregon is the same.
• In New Jersey, a Republican has called for an Arkansas-like repeal of the separate presidential primary that would place the contest on the same June date as the state's other primaries. But the bill there is a hold over from the 2008 session.
  

I've pretty much dismissed any of these moves taking place during this legislative cycle; the conditions just aren't right. And that likely won't change until the national parties force the states' hands or these bills gain some measure of bipartisan support.

UPDATE: Mitchell's bill in Georgia is apparently in response to a resolution adopted at the Democratic convention last August that closes the window in which non-exempt states can hold delegate selection events to points during or after the first Tuesday in March. [The Georgia General Assembly won't address the issue until 201o anyway because today -- April 3 -- is the final day of the Assembly's session.] This sets up a conflict if the Republicans don't follow suit and eliminate February contests as well. The Democratic Party's task of getting states into compliance with that March call would be complicated in Republican-controlled states by the fact that those Republicans may have no desire to move unless compelled to by the national party. I'm assuming this idea will be discussed at some point during the Democratic Change Commission's meetings because it is a problem in February (2008) states like Arizona*, Florida, Georgia and Utah, where the state government is controlled by Republicans, or in Alabama (governor), California (governor), Connecticut (governor), Louisiana (governor), Michigan (Senate), Missouri (House and Senate), Oklahoma (House and Senate), Tennessee (House and Senate) and Virginia (House), where some portion of the government is Republican-controlled. That's an extensive list of states where partisanship could prove preventative to presidential primary date shifts that could bring a state into compliance with just one party's rules.

The Democratic Change Commission does have some wiggle room on this. The resolution that created the body states:

"...and that in making its recommendations, the Commission consider any revision of the Rules of the Republican Party of the United States adopted by the 2008 Republican National Convention regarding the scheduling and sequence of presidential nominating events."

Some of this, then, rests with the as yet unfilled Temporary Delegate Selection Committee that is charged with a similar task to the DCC's for the GOP. But if that group only offers up minimal alterations, the DCC will have to seriously consider dropping the "no February contests" portion of that resolution. And the commission can change that. That ability to change the rules mid-cycle is what has separated the Democrats from Republicans in that regard in past cycles.

*In Arizona, the governor -- currently a Republican -- can set the date of the presidential primary by proclamation if the set late February date is deemed to be too late to have an impact on the nomination process.

A big shout out to Matt from DemConWatch for the heads up on the bill.


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Championship Set in NPR's 2012 Bracket

...and I don't know that this is what the folks at Political Junkie had in mind.

[Click Bracket to Enlarge or HERE to Vote in the Championship Round]

Ron Paul vs. Jim DeMint. Ron Paul vs. Jim DeMint? Well, Newt Gingrich's warning that a third party might rise in 2012 if the GOP doesn't right its ship seems to have come true. Somehow I don't think he meant within the current GOP structure.

And now that this tournament is almost complete, I can just see GOP caucus and convention participants from a year ago shaking their heads right now saying, "See, this is what happened to us last year. We got hijacked!" And they did, but McCain already had the nomination clinched. Speaking of using caucus rules to your advantage, I wonder if the GOP Temporary Delegate Selection Committee will address some of those caucus concerns when the group's ranks are filled and meetings begin? It was arguably a bigger (though quieter) problem on the GOP side than it was for the Democrats. [Clinton supporters may object.]

Head over and vote now. Ron Paul has already opened up a significant lead. Final results will be revealed on Tuesday.


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Whither Campaign Finance? The Fair Elections Now Act

It's funny that campaign finance came up here yesterday; the same day that a bipartisan group of senators and representatives announced a new piece of legislation to provide public financing of congressional elections.

For starters the system being proposed by Senators Durbin (IL-D) and Specter (PA-R) and Representatives Jones (NC-R), Larson (CT-D) and Pingree (ME-D) does not address presidential campaign finance at all. Yes, after Obama became the first presidential candidate to opt out of the federal matching funds system in the general election, that leaves a pretty big elephant (er, uh donkey?) in the room. Still this legislation is notable because it severely cuts back the cap on individual contributions for congressional candidates wanting to qualify for federal funding.

How does one qualify, you might ask?
In the House, for a candidate to receive access to $900,000, he or she must raise at least $50,000 dollars from 1500 contributors ($33/contributor) in amounts no greater than $100. 40% of that $900,000 can be spent in the primary campaign while the remainder is left for the general election.

In the Senate, things are slightly different because of the greater disparity in terms of numbers of constituents per senator. Senators can collect $1.25 million plus $250,000 for each of his or her state's congressional disticts by raising money (Again, in amounts no greater than $100.) from 2000 contributors and an additional 500 others from each congressional district. In this case, one-third of the federal money could be used in the primary campaign with the remainder left for the general election campaign.

Additional money can be raised in amounts up to $100 from home state residents and matched at a 4:1 rate by the government.

This is a novel idea (one that has been tried at the state level), but there are obviously some questions that would arise should this be attempted at the national level.

1. If the balance constitutionally is between free speech and potential undue influence of money, does a $100 limit contributions not overprotect against the latter at the expense of the former? This would be a major issue in any challenge to this legislation if it were to become law. But to even get to that point it will likely have to survive the journey through two chambers packed with incumbents that would be lukewarm to the idea on average.

2. The constitutional questions are answered to some extent by the voluntary nature of the system. If it were a requirement that all candidates for congress adhere to these rules, the shouts of opposition would be much louder. But honestly, who is opting into this system if it isn't required?

3. What happens to the money in the event that a candidate runs unopposed in either (or both) the primary or general election? Is that money automatically forfeited or can primary money be carried over to the general election? (This one comes with an assist from occasional commenter, Greg.)

4. Timing. The timing of this announcement isn't the best. But you can't wait on the economy to turn around when reform is at stake necessarily. Still, more taxpayer money to politicians isn't something very many people/voters want to hear about at the moment. There's a reason fewer and fewer people check that $3 box on their tax forms every year.

This will be an interesting test case to follow because the other shoe is really going to drop when and if this process or something similar is extended in some way, shape or form to the financing of presidential campaigns.

UPDATE: Politico has more on the newly dubbed Fair Elections Now Act.


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All Eyes on NY-20

NPR's 2012 Bracket Results (3rd Round) Are Now Up

[Click Bracket to Enlarge or HERE to Vote in the Final Four Round]

It may be indicative of the anti-climatic nature of the contest, it may be that I was busy, or it may be that I forgot, but here are the third round results for NPR's Political March Madness. I'll say this: Ron Paul may be coasting to victory in this thing (Hey, organization matters!), but there is some serious South Carolina power represented in the Final Four. Both Jim DeMint and Mark Sanford claim one of those spots. Something tells me the selection committee would try to have these two face off to avoid the "splitting the early South Carolina primary vote" problem. But who could have seen this Final Four coming?

The championship pairing will be revealed on Friday, April 3.


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All Eyes on NY-20

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NY-20: Does a Tie Mean the Nation is Brutally Divided?

If a Tedisco win meant the beginning of a Republican comeback nationally and a Murphy win meant the nation is on-board with the Obama administration, what does a 65 vote margin with 610 of 610 precincts reporting (and a few thousand absentee ballots to be counted) mean?

[Click for Election Results via The Saratogian]

There's only one answer to that: elections are fun!

UPDATE: As per Jack, via The Saratoagian, it's now down to a 25 vote Murphy edge in NY-20.

[Click to Enlarge]

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All Eyes on NY-20

[Click Map to Enlarge]

FHQ has been quiet on this one, which is unusual for an elections site. But special elections are nice. For elections nerds like myself, they are a welcome respite from the dark period between regularly scheduled elections. However, it is difficult to apply lessons learned from past special elections to any new one that comes along simply because the circumstances from one special election to the next (or from a general election to a special election) vary so widely.

The congressional special elections in the winter and spring of 2008 were nice in that all of them were conservative districts that broke toward the Democrats. There was something of a trend that could be parsed from that; a trend that culminated with Obama winning the White House and Democrats increasing their majorities in Congress. But it's easy to read too much into these specials. For one thing, they aren't always successfully nationalized. Often they hinge on state or local quirks. Scott Murphy is attempting to nationalize the NY-20 special by linking Jim Tedisco to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and George W. Bush. And Tedisco, for his part, is running away from national Republicans despite leaning on NRCC money. In the context of decreasing poll numbers, that's never really a good sign.

Can we extrapolate anything from those poll numbers, though? Given that there have only been six polls* conducted (three of them partisan), there isn't a whole lot of information out there. What those polls do tell us is that the trend has been toward Murphy. He has gained 8 points from poll to poll in the Siena sequence of polls and has a lead that is right around the margin of error to slightly above it.

But drawing anything anymore substantive than that from those numbers is a fool's errand. [Just look back to the Georgia Senate runoff for one such example.] Specials always come down to turnout. And with this race being so closely scrutinized on the national level, polling could either energize Republicans (in a Republican-leaning district) to head out to their nearest polling station or it could, given the current trend and the potential perception of reality, keep them away. For Democrats, it is a question of whether they are still as motivated as they were in November when Obama won the district by three points and incumbent Democratic congresswoman (turned senator), Kirsten Gillibrand, took over three-fifths of the vote.

But, does the tide wash a little further up the beach or has it already begun receding? That's what the media will be talking about tonight when the polls close at 9pm, but in special elections it is rarely that black and white. The results will do a better job of telling us whether Murphy was able to successfully nationalize this race.

*You'll have to back out to Pollster's front page to see the information on the sixth poll; the third one conducted by the DCCC.


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