Ohio Presidential Primary Back to March? ...Again?

The presidential primary date -- and redrawn US congressional districts -- was (sort of) back before the Ohio state House today. Most of the furor will revolve around the tension between the Republican and Democratic caucuses in both Ohio chambers over the newly-drawn districts, but as is our custom, FHQ will focus on the implications of the proposed re-consolidation of the primaries in the Buckeye state.

HB 369 -- better summaries here and here -- would reverse the changes to the primary dates made in HB 319; moving the presidential and US House primaries from June 12 back to March 6 with the other primaries. If you are scoring at home Ohio has...

1. ...moved the primaries from March to May (HB 194)
2. ...returned them to March from May (HB 319)
3. ...moved the presidential and US House primaries from March to June  (HB 318)
4. ...proposed moving those two sets of primaries back to March (HB 369)

Got all that?

The new bill did not go much of anywhere in its short appearance on the floor today. The rules were suspended, and the bill is likely to be considered in committee next week -- the House is scheduled to hold committee hearings on Thursday, November 10. As far as attempting to game this decision out, assuming the committee -- to which HB 369 has not been referred as of yet -- is able to wrap up its consideration of the bill next week, the next opportunity the House has to pass the bill is on the next series of scheduled session days on November 15-16 and November 29. There is also December 6 session scheduled, but that comes just one day before the filing deadline -- one that would be reverted to if this bill passes -- for congressional and presidential candidates to file for a March 6 primary.

In other words, time is running out to cut a deal on redistricting that would allow Ohio lawmakers to eliminate the separate June primary for presidential and US House candidates.

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New Hampshire Primary Scheduled for January 10

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New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner this morning set January 10 as the date of the presidential primary in the Granite state. With New Hampshire in place -- behind the January 3 caucuses in Iowa and ahead of the Republican primary in South Carolina on January 21 -- the front of the 2012 presidential primary calendar is as set in stone as it will be. There may be some additional shuffling among a handful of states -- North Carolina and Massachusetts may move and Missouri Democrats may stick with the non-compliant February 7 primary -- but none will threaten the alignment that has now developed at the beginning of the calendar.

Tuesday, January 3:
Iowa caucuses 

Tuesday, January 10:
New Hampshire 

Saturday, January 21:
South Carolina Republican primary 

Tuesday, January 31:
Florida 

Saturday, February 4:
Nevada Republican caucuses

Notes:
Bill Gardner set the date of the 2012 primary three weeks ahead of the pace set in 2007. Thanksgiving eve -- the date on which the New Hampshire secretary of state set the date of the 2008 primary -- is three weeks from today.

Ten weeks from yesterday is January 10. That means there are 69 days until the New Hampshire primary. Set your itineraries accordingly, candidates.

December 2011 primaries or caucuses are now officially off the table. Not to worry. 2015 is right around the corner.

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Electoral Vote Counting 53 Weeks in Advance

FHQ doesn't know that any new ground was broken yesterday when both the RNC and an anonymous Obama administration official revealed at least some information about their likely target states for the 2012 presidential race. I say that simply because none of it is terribly revealing in the first place. A look at FHQ's Electoral College Spectrum -- particularly the middle column -- shows that the list below is predominantly comprised of states that were the most competitive in 2008.

Table 1: The Electoral College Spectrum1
HI-4 (7)2	ME-4 (153)	NH-4 (257)	GA-16 (166)	NE-4 (58)
VT-3 (10)	WA-12 (165)	IA-6 (263)	SD-3 (150)	KY-8 (54)
RI-4 (14)	MI-16 (181)	CO-93 (272/275)	ND-3 (147)	LA-8 (46)
MA-11 (25)	OR-7 (188)	VA-13 (285/266)	AZ-11 (144)	AR-6 (38)
NY-29 (54)	NJ-14 (202)	OH-18 (303/253)	SC-9 (133)	AL-9 (32)
DE-3 (57)	NM-5 (207)	FL-29 (332/235)	TX-38 (124)	AK-3 (23)
IL-20 (77)	WI-10 (217)	IN-11 (343/206)	WV-5 (86)	ID-4 (20)
MD-10 (87)	NV-6 (223)	NC-15+14 (359/195)	MS-6 (81)	UT-6 (16)
CA-55 (142)	PA-20 (243)	MO-10 (179)	TN-11 (75)	OK-7 (10)
CT-7 (149)	MN-10 (253)	MT-3 (169)	KS-6 (64)	WY-3 (3)
1 Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum. 2 The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, McCain won all the states up to and including Colorado (all Obama's toss up states plus Colorado), he would have 275 electoral votes. McCain's numbers are only totaled through the states he would have needed in order to get to 270. In those cases, Obama's number is on the left and McCain's is on the right in italics. 3 Colorado is the state where Obama crossed the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line. 4 Nebraska allocates electoral votes based on statewide results and the results within each of its congressional districts.  Nebraska's 2nd district voted for Barack Obama in 2008.

That the RNC is going on offense in traditionally close states and states that flipped to Obama and the Democrats in 2008 is no real surprise. Nor is it a stretch to consider that Obama is staring down the reality of playing more defense in 2012 as a known quantity -- as an incumbent. The only target for offense mentioned in the Obama administration official's thoughts was Arizona. But let's have a look at the states listed in the RNC strategic memo:

Table 2: 2012 RNC/DNC Targets -- Presidential Battleground States
State	EVs	Red to Blue in '08?	Traditionally Blue?	Traditionally Red?	2004 Margin1	2008 Margin2
NC	15	√			12%	~1%
IN	11	√			21%	1%
FL	29	√			5%	3%
OH	18	√			3%	4%
VA	13	√			9%	7%
CO	9	√			5%	9%
IA	6	√			~1%	10%
NV	6	√			2%	12%
NM	5	√			~1%	15%
NH	4		√		1%	9%
PA	20		√		3%	10%
WI	10		√		~1%	14%
MI	16		√		3%	16%
WA	12		√		7%	17%
AZ	11			√	11%	8%
Total	185
1 Source: Leip's Atlas 2 Source: Leip's Atlas

Note that, as is the custom in this time of the cycle, the RNC has cast its net widely. That is not to suggest that the DNC is not also considering states Obama may or more appropriately may not win next November, but it is usually the party on offense that can be and actually is a bit more aggressive in terms of the states it is considering. There were times in 2008, for instance, when the polling looked not necessarily good but promising in states like the Dakotas, Montana, Georgia and even Alaska before Palin was added to the Republican ticket in the late summer. Did that mean that Obama would have won those states after all was said and done on election day? Probably not, but there comes a time in every general election campaign where the tough decisions have to be made about which states to focus on. North Carolina, Virginia and Colorado were much more realistic to Obama than, say, Georgia or Arizona. In the same way, the RNC is able to throw a few states on the board that the eventual nominee may not win, but are intriguing possibilities nonetheless.

[Note also that the fifteen states in the table immediately above are ordered roughly in terms of how close the margin was between Obama and McCain in 2008. Another way of thinking about this is that the closer a state was in 2008, the hypothetically easier it will be for the Republican candidate to flip it in 2012. Those states moved largely in line with the national average shift in the vote from 2004 to 2008.]

Some states, however, are more or less intriguing than others. The "Red in 2004, Blue in 2008" states at the top of the table are more realistic targets for the GOP than some of the "lean blue" states that may be close in a more competitive presidential election year but crested above a 10% margin in Obama's favor in 2008. Are they pie in the sky states for Republicans? Perhaps, but they are steeper climbs for the Party of Lincoln than they are for Obama and Democrats to maintain. If the average shift in the vote is large enough they may shift too, but that would require a larger shift.

History is not always the best predictor -- Obama did win longstanding red states like North Carolina, Indiana and Virginia in 2008 -- but the states at the bottom of Table 2 are states a Republican candidate has not won in most cases in over 20 years. New Hampshire flipped to George W. Bush in 2000, but has been reliably Democratic since Clinton carried the Granite state in 1992. Michigan and Pennsylvania have been fairly close in some election cycles over the last generation but both been in the Democratic column in the time since George H.W. Bush won the Keystone and Wolverine states in 1988.  For Wisconsin and Washington, one has to go back to Reagan's 1984 landslide to find the last time a Republican carried either state. And on the other side of this, Arizona voted for Bill Clinton in 1996, but for the last time the Grand Canyon state went blue, one has to go all the way back to 1948.

That said, those are all macro views that may fail to capture trends on a more micro level: that for instance Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania (not to mention New Hampshire) saw large Republican gains in offices across the states in the 2010 midterm elections. [Is that a function of something growing at the grassroots for Republicans or was it attributable to Obama not being on the ticket?] All this is to say that this is a big list of swing states (185 total electoral college votes). There will be additions and subtractions over the course of the next year, but the list will contract more than it will expand. The contraction is more likely to include Arizona and Pennsylvania on one end of the list and Indiana and North Carolina on the other than it will for more traditionally volatile states like Ohio and Florida.

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Note: Shockingly -- or not so shockingly -- enough, no one seems to be saying much of anything about former bellwether, Missouri.

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In Nevada, If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again

The first time at the front in the presidential nomination limelight in 2008 did not go as well as planned for the Nevada Republican Party. Ray Hagar from the Reno Gazette Journal has the story on what the NVGOP is doing in 2011 to right the ship in 2012.

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Gardner to Set New Hampshire Primary Date Wednesday

Save the date:

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January 10 is wide open for the taking, and all signs, with the Nevada Republican caucuses now out of the way, point toward New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner taking it.

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In Massachusetts, Talk of Primary Election Consolidation Increases

New Hampshire may or may not be the last state to set the date of its presidential primary.

That is because, for the second straight cycle, the Massachusetts legislature may decide toward the end of its year-round session to shift the date of the presidential primary in the Bay state. Four years ago, and in the week after New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner set the date of the Granite state primary, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (D) signed into law a measure temporarily bumping the Massachusetts presidential primary from the first Tuesday in March to the first Tuesday in February.¹  Unlike 2008, however, the move in Massachusetts this time around would not be forward, but back.

As FHQ has previously discussed, Massachusetts is an example of a state that is feeling some cross-pressure in 2011 concerning the scheduling of not only its presidential primary but its primaries for state and local offices as well. Compounding the issue are the budgetary constraints facing the Bay state. Since there are financial considerations here and since the state is likely going to be forced to shift the late date on which it holds its primaries for state and local offices,² there is some pressure on the state to shift up its primaries for state and local offices from September to June to be consolidated with the presidential primary which would be moved from March back to June. And the combined elections would save the state millions of dollars in the process.³

Now, there is legislation (H 1972) to consolidate the primaries that is active and has been since it was introduced in January. However, it has been stuck in committee since then, only having had one hearing on the bill in May. In terms of a timeline moving forward, if the presidential primary is to be consolidated with the primaries for state and local offices, the move would likely have to be made during the closing days of the current 2011 session. The filing deadline for the presidential primary is set for 60 days prior to the primary -- during the first week in January -- which is a point that overlaps with the time that the legislature will reconvene in 2012. Time will be short, in other words, on a presidential primary move. The General Court would have more time if the objective is only to move the September primary to June, leaving the presidential primary where it is.

There are a lot of ifs accumulating here, but if that move is to be made it would start in the Joint Committee on Election Laws and then move on to the two chambers for consideration. That committee is set to meet on Wednesday, November 2, but H 1972 is not on the agenda.

Again, there is only some chatter of support behind the idea of consolidating the primaries out there right now. Nothing official has surfaced. But New Hampshire may not be the last state to make a decision concerning the date on which its presidential primary will be held. Massachusetts may weigh in later as it did four years ago,  but it will not in any way disrupt the front of the calendar. The back end of the calendar, maybe, but not the front.

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¹ The first Tuesday in February was the earliest the national parties were allowing states to hold contests during the 2008 cycle and Massachusetts joined nearly 25 other states on that date. The change of law in late 2007 only moved the presidential primary up for the 2008 cycle; meaning that the date reverted to the first Tuesday in March for 2012 and any subsequent cycles.

² The guidelines put in place by the MOVE act -- a law protecting military personnel overseas -- require a 45 day window between the completion of the nomination process and the date of the general election. That would include the primary election and any recounts or challenges beyond that. In turn, that means that the Massachusetts primary for state and local offices in September would be in violation of those guidelines.

³ Secretary of State William Galvin asked the state legislature for an additional $3.5 million during the budget discussions earlier in the year just to ensure that the presidential primary could be adequately funded.

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Delegate Allocation Rules Hinged on Date of Presidential Primary in Ohio

With the Ohio legislature having passed in quick succession last week a plan to create a separate primary for US House and presidential nominations in June the rules are back in the picture. Earlier this month the Ohio Republican Party voted to alter the method by which it will allocate delegates in the 2012 Ohio presidential primary. At the time the change -- one made to comply with the new restrictions on winner-take-all allocation in contests prior to April 1 -- was heralded as one that would bring candidates into a vital general election battleground state:

"Those people are going to have to come in here and make a pitch to the voters," [Ohio Republican Party Chair Mike] DeWine said in a meeting with reporters to explain the new setup, which will be sent to the presidential campaigns Friday. "We will play a significant role for the selection of a presidential nominee."

The reason the chair of the Ohio Republican Party said that was because the new rules added an element of proportional allocation to a typically winner-take-all or winner-take-most formula. The only problem is that, as has been the case elsewhere, the extent of the change then is being as overstated as the change back to winner-take-all is now. Let's look at this more closely.

In 2008, the Ohio delegation comprised 88 total delegates on the same first Tuesday in March date the primary was scheduled for in 2012. And though John McCain won all 85 of the non-automatic delegates that was not directly attributable to a statewide win. No, instead, Ohio like about a third of all Republican contests falls somewhere in between a truly winner-take-all and a truly proportional delegate allocation method. The party divides its delegate allocation up based on both the statewide vote and the congressional district vote.

Recall that the RNC formula for delegate apportionment grants states:

• a base 10 delegates (5 for each US Senate seat)
• 3 delegates per congressional district
• 3 automatic delegates
• a slate of bonus delegates based on a state's voting history/loyalty to Republican candidates

In Ohio in 2008, then that came to a total of 88 delegates

• 10 base delegates
• 21 bonus delegates
• 3 automatic delegates
• 54 district delegates

And yes, with the exception of the three automatic delegates, McCain won all 85. McCain won the statewide by virtue of which the Arizona senator received the 31 base and bonus delegates and he won in each of the 18 congressional districts, pulling in the remaining 54. [The three automatic delegates went to the St. Paul convention unpledged.]

In the time since, however, the RNC rules for delegate allocation have changed. States can no longer allocate all of their apportioned delegates winner-take-all if that state has a primary or caucus with delegates actually on the line before April 1.¹ States can continue to allocate their delegates winner-take-all on the congressional district level. Only those base and bonus delegates are required to be allocated proportionally. If those rules were used in 2008, the allocation would have looked a little different. McCain would have received the same 54 congressional district delegates, but would have split the other 31 with Mike Huckabee (21 to McCain and the remaining 10 to Huckabee). That would have slightly shifted things in Huckabee's direction, but the deficit would have been 75-10 instead of 85-0.

Now, it should be noted that the circumstances are different in 2012. There would have been far fewer contests ahead of Ohio if the primary had been kept in March. Now in June, only Utah holds a primary later than Ohio. But the state has also lost delegates in the time since 2008. Part of that is due to a loss of two congressional districts in the post-census reapportionment process, but part of it is also due to an erosion of bonus delegates. The congressional district delegates are not all that important to the underlying point here [Regardless of date, there is absolutely no change to how those delegates will be allocated.], so allow FHQ to focus on the comparatively small number of bonus/base delegates in Ohio. What that means -- a total of 31 in 2008 is now an estimated 15 in 2012 -- is that there are less delegates to be divvied up proportionally assuming a March primary. FHQ questions how much the candidates would be clambering to fight over 15 proportionally-allocated delegates.

What would have been more likely is that if the race was still competitive by the time it got to March 6, the candidates would be drawn to Ohio because it would have been a unique contest on that date without a natural candidate. It isn't a southern contest and it isn't a northeastern or western contest. It would have been a unique -- regionally -- contest on March 6 that would entice candidates to come campaign; not for 15 delegates but for the prospect of winning in certain areas/congressional districts in the Buckeye state.

However, now that the primary has been shifted back to June, not only has the competitive element likely been lost in an effort to buy more time in the redistricting process, but the switch back to a winner-take-all allocation of the base and bonus delegates -- something that was probably of little consequence in the first place -- has been rendered largely meaningless. It depends entirely on the campaign being active at that point.

There continues to be an awful lot of talk out there about these delegate allocation rules and their implementation, and FHQ urges a great deal of caution when attempting to examine them. [Yes, the news out of Florida, too.]

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¹ The exception allowed in the RNC rules is that a state can be winner-take-all if a candidate receives a majority (not merely a plurality) of the vote.

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Housekeeping: South Carolina Democrats Bump Presidential Primary Up to January 28

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FHQ has just confirmed with the South Carolina Democratic Party what the Nevada Democrats revealed over the weekend in moving back the date of their caucuses.¹ Mainly, the South Carolina Democrats will hold a contest (presidential primary and precinct reorganization meetings) on January 28 -- a week after the Nevada Democratic caucuses and three days before the primary in Florida.

For a look at the South Carolina Democratic Party delegate selection rules -- or a version of it prior to the date change -- look here. An updated version is expected to be posted at scdp.org sometime today or tomorrow.

That leaves unclear only the Missouri Democratic delegate selection (Will the party use the non-compliant February 7 primary or a later and compliant caucus?) and New Hampshire as the last states to officially fill in on the 2012 presidential primary calendar.

Find the updated dates in the 2012 presidential primary calendar.

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¹ The following is the release from the Nevada Democratic Party on Saturday concerning the caucuses date change:

"We are pleased to announce that the Nevada and South Carolina Democratic parties will protect our states' place in the presidential nominating calendar by beginning the delegate selection process on January 21st in Nevada and January 28th in South Carolina. 

This announcement ensures that the West and Southeast both will continue to play important roles in determining the President of the United States.  Next year, we are pleased to stand firmly behind President Barack Obama as he continues fighting to create good paying jobs,protect Medicare and Social Security and help families struggling to keep a roof over their heads."

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Housekeeping: Caucuses for Both Nevada Parties Moved Back

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The major political parties in Nevada over the weekend opted to shift back the dates of their presidential caucuses. Both the Democratic and Republican parties in the Silver state moved back from the January 14 date each settled on earlier this month. The Nevada Republican State Central Committee voted in a Las Vegas meeting on Saturday, October 22 to move the caucuses back beyond the Florida presidential primary on January 31 to a Saturday, February 4 date. The move, triggered by pressure not only from Iowa and New Hampshire, but the RNC as well, splits Nevada Republicans off from the other three "carve out" states -- Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina -- in January. But that allows the party to remain compliant with Republican National Committee rules restricting those four states to February dates. Florida fell on the Tuesday before Super Tuesday in 2008 with no contests between it and  the 25+ state logjam on the first Tuesday in February during that cycle. Assuming the Republican candidates pay attention to the Nevada caucuses, the contest does stand some chance of either piggybacking on the result in Florida or directly rebutting it.

Nevada Democrats -- with nothing on the line (There is no active nomination race in the Democratic Party) -- opted to maintain a position ahead of Florida along with Iowa and New Hampshire at the front of the line in January. Nevada Democrats will hold January 21 caucuses; just a week later than the date the party moved to last week in an effort to show Silver state solidarity with its Republican counterparts.

Find the updated dates in the 2012 presidential primary calendar.

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2012 Missouri Presidential Primary Will Not Be Eliminated

The Missouri Senate today adjourned its special session sine die, effectively ending any chance of either moving or eliminating altogether the Show Me state presidential primary in 2012. As it stands, the 2012 Missouri presidential primary on February 7 will be non-binding in terms of its impact on the allocation of delegates to either party's convention. Missouri Republicans have already put in place plans to hold caucuses starting on March 17 as a means of allocating the party's delegates. Show Me state Democrats have yet to formally switch to caucuses but would face the same sort of penalty -- a 50% reduction in the number of delegates to the Democratic National  Convention in Charlotte -- if it opted to decide its delegate selection through the non-compliant February 7 primary.

This has all arisen due to the failure of the legislature to come to any consensus in a special session as to what to do with the presidential primary once Governor Jay Nixon (D) vetoed the original plan.¹ The House passed a bill moving the primary to March with little or no difficulty, but the plan got bogged down in the state Senate. The upper chamber could not reach any agreement on what to do -- whether it meant eliminating the primary or moving it to a later and compliant date. That last ditch effort to eliminate the primary and save the state $8 million will die in the House committee to which it was referred before. The Senate will not get to it during this calendar year. The legislature does reconvene in January and could at that time -- prior to the primary itself -- eliminate the primary, but it is unclear if that will actually be a consideration at that point.

For future cycles, this means that -- as FHQ stated earlier -- Missouri will start out at the front of the line on the 2016 presidential primary calendar. [Yes, some of us are already looking at that.] For those keeping track, the current law would place the Missouri presidential primary on February 2 -- the first Tuesday after the first Monday in February. Mark your calendars accordingly.

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¹ The governor vetoed the bill passed during the regular session earlier this year not because of the shift of the presidential primary from February 7 to March 6, but because the bill also contained a provision stripping the governor of his power to make appointments to fill US Senate and other statewide office vacancies.

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