Race to 1144: Santorum Tuesday (Colorado, Minnesota & Missouri*)

Source:
Contest Delegates (via contest results and rules, and RNC)
Automatic Delegates (Democratic Convention Watch)

Delegate breakdown (post-February 7 contests):
Romney: 91 delegates (New Hampshire: 7, South Carolina: 2, Florida: 50, Nevada: 14, Automatic: 18)
Gingrich: 32 delegates (South Carolina: 23, Nevada: 6, Automatic: 3)
Paul: 8 delegates (New Hampshire: 3, Nevada: 5)
Santorum: 4 delegates (Nevada: 3, Automatic: 1)
Unbound: (Iowa: 25, Colorado: 33, Minnesota: 37, Automatic: 7, Huntsman: 2)

A few notes on the delegates and delegate counts:
1. The Romney campaign was right Tuesday when it released its memorandum detailing essentially how inconsequential the contests that day were. There were no delegates directly on the line -- no delegates to the national convention anyway -- in any of the three contests. However, there were delegates selected in both Colorado and Minnesota to move on the next steps in their respective caucus/convention processes. And that is where the problem lies. If this was the Democratic Party process it would be much easier to track as the totals from one step to the next maintain -- minus some occasional rounding error to prevent fractional delegates -- the proportion of the candidates' vote shares from the first determining step of the caucus. If Obama receives 50% of the vote in a given caucus, Obama would be allocated approximately 50% of the delegates throughout and at the end of the process. Again, approximately.

But the Republican process isn't like that. There is no requirement from the national party that any part of the caucus process be proportional. And no step of the caucus process in any caucus state is proportional unless that is the preference of the state party as codified in either their state party rules, bylaws or constitutions. As such, delegates from those states cannot be allocated until, well, they are allocated. In Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado and over the weekend add Maine to the mix, that won't happen until the congressional district or state conventions.

Now, some will say that we have more information than that. We do, and I wholeheartedly agree with Jonathan Bernstein that the straw poll results at the precinct caucuses provide us with something of a baseline from which to project the eventual delegate allocation. It is a good baseline, but it is a flawed baseline for projection. The problem is that we have no idea how close or how far off that proportional estimate is. We know the straw poll results, but we don't have one iota of evidence one way or the other about the precinct caucusgoers who were either selected or volunteered to be county or district delegates. Nor do we have an accurate picture of their presidential preferences. Things like the following also give me some pause (from a press release from Paul national campaign manager, John Tate):

“We are thrilled with the yesterday’s results. Our campaign to Restore America continues to gain ground, and we are poised to pick up even more delegates from Minnesota and Colorado adding to our delegates in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada. 

“As people across the country view the results of  yesterday’s contests, it is important to consider a few facts that have not been clearly reported.  Not one single delegate was awarded yesterday, instead the caucuses in Minnesota and Colorado were the very first step in the delegate selection process. And there are still over 40 states left to go. The Ron Paul campaign plans to continue to vie for delegates nationwide. 

“There are a few significant takeaways from yesterday’s contests to remember: 

1) The Missouri primary means nothing. It was a non-binding beauty contest, and the contest that matters in the ‘show me’ state won’t take place for another month. The Ron Paul campaign is well positioned to win delegates in Missouri’s caucus a month from now. 

2) As in Iowa where not 1 of the 28 delegates has been awarded yet, in Colorado and Nevada the Paul campaign will do very well in the state delegate counts. We will have good numbers among the actual delegates awarded, far exceeding our straw poll numbers. 

3) In Minnesota where we have finished a solid second, we also have a strong majority of the state convention delegates, and the process to elect delegates has also just begun, the Paul campaign is well-organized to win the bulk of delegates there. 

“We are confident in gaining a much larger share of delegates than even our impressive showing yesterday indicates. As an example of our campaign’s delegate strength, take a look at what has occurred in Colorado:

• In one precinct in Larimer County, the straw poll vote was 23 for Santorum, 13 for Paul, 5 for Romney, 2 for Gingrich.  There were 13 delegate slots, and Ron Paul got ALL 13.
• In a precinct in Delta County the vote was 22 for Santorum, 12 for Romney, 8 for Paul, 7 for Gingrich. There were 5 delegate slots, and ALL 5 went to Ron Paul.
• In a Pueblo County precinct, the vote was 16 for Santorum, 11 for Romney, 3 for Gingrich and 2 for Paul. There were 2 delegate slots filled, and both were filled by Ron Paul supporters.

Now, just as the Romney memo above was setting the expectations low on Tuesday, the Paul campaign may have cherrypicked a few instances where Paul supporters were able to dominate the county/district delegate selection. The thing is, we don't know. And that is the problem. If, on the one hand, we have a straw poll for a rough estimate of support of those in attendance at the caucuses, then on the other, we have also have some evidence that organization is potentially playing a role in if not taking all the delegate slots then flipping the tables and taking more than would be proportionally allocated to a particular candidate based on the straw poll results. The straw polls favored Santorum in Colorado and Minnesota, but did that enthusiasm to vote for Santorum or against Romney stretch into the delegate selection process or is that where organization -- mostly from Paul, but to a lesser extent from Romney -- picked up and took over? [Actually, Paul supporters likely have a combination of both things: organization and enthusiasm.] The answer is likely somewhere in the middle as opposed to one extreme or the other. And that is enough to make FHQ wary of pushing any delegate toward any one candidate based on the straw poll alone.

The state parties are unlikely to provide a breakdown of those delegates' preferences at any step in the caucus process and in the end they all technically go to the convention unbound anyway.

One thing to eye throughout the race as it moves forward is -- and I mentioned this in the Missouri rules post Tuesday night -- what the dynamics are in the race when the district and state conventions roll around in the caucus states. If the race is competitive, the ultimate delegate allocation may trend toward  something more proportional. If, on the other hand, one candidate has broken from the pack in the delegate count and is either approaching 1144 or has established a margin that would be difficult to overcome given the remaining delegates available (and allocation), then the caucuses may end up doing what they usually end up doing regardless of the initial precinct caucus straw poll: side with the presumptive nominee heading into the convention anyway.

2. FHQ likes being on the conservative end of the spectrum on these things; whether it is a delegate count or an electoral college projection.

3. The results:

a. Colorado

b. Minnesota

c. And just for the fun of it, Missouri's non-binding caucuses (which have absolutely nothing to do with the delegate allocation in the Show Me state. That process begins with precinct caucuses on March 17.)

4. This whole delegate counting process is easier in primary states with defined rules and binding mechanisms.

Recent Posts:

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2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Missouri

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Minnesota

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Northern Marianas Republicans Set for March 10 Convention

Republicans in the Northern Marianas have settled on a date for their delegate selection. The territory's Republicans will hold a convention on Saturday, March 10 for the purposes of allocating delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Of the nine delegates at stake, six will be selected at the convention. The remaining three delegates are the territory's automatic delegates.

Guam now is the only state or territory without a date on the presidential primary calendar (...that is not also mired in a dispute over congressional district boundaries affecting a presidential primary date).

Thanks to Tony Roza at The Green Papers for sharing the news.

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2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Missouri

This is the ninth in a multipart series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation by state.¹ The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2012 -- especially relative to 2008 -- in order to gauge the impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. As FHQ has argued in the past, this has often been cast as a black and white change. That the RNC has winner-take-all rules and the Democrats have proportional rules. Beyond that, the changes have been wrongly interpreted in a great many cases as having made a 180º change from straight winner-take-all to straight proportional rules in all pre-April 1 primary and caucus states. That is not the case. 

The new requirement has been adopted in a number of different ways across the states. Some have moved to a conditional system where winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon one candidate receiving 50% or more of the vote and others have responded by making just the usually small sliver of a state's delegate apportionment from the national party -- at-large delegates -- proportional as mandated by the party. Those are just two examples. There are other variations in between that also allow state parties to comply with the rules. FHQ has long argued that the effect of this change would be to lengthen the process. However, the extent of the changes from four years ago is not as great as has been interpreted and points to the spacing of the 2012 primary calendar -- and how that interacts with the ongoing campaign -- being a much larger factor in the accumulation of delegates (Again, especially relative to the 2008 calendar).

For links to the other states' plans see the Republican Delegate Selection Plans by State section in the left sidebar under the calendar.


MISSOURI

Missouri Republicans will caucus on March 17. It will be the first time since 1996 that the party has held caucuses as a means of allocating delegates to the national convention instead of a primary. Note that FHQ will spend very little time discussing the non-binding primary that is taking place this evening. In the delegate count, it is meaningless as compared to the other two contests in Colorado and Minnesota today. The latter two bear the distinction of having voters -- caucusgoers -- actually cast votes in a process that will ultimately choose delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

[The very short version of why the primary became non-binding and the caucus came to be is that a deep division within the Republicans in the majority in both houses of the Missouri General Assembly over whether to maintain a non-compliant February primary or move back to a compliant March primary kept the caucuses in both the state House and Senate at loggerheads all year in 2011. The one bill they were able to pass -- to move the primary to March 6 -- also contained a provision that stripped Governor Jay Nixon (D) of the appointment power that allows the Missouri governor the ability to fill vacancies to statewide office. That bill got a veto and the special session efforts thereafter to either move the primary back or cancel the primary outright failed. That was the very short version!?! As short as I could make it. For the full story click on the "Missouri" label here or at the bottom of the post and scroll down, down, down through all of the 2011 Missouri posts.]

February diversion aside, then, how exactly will the Missouri Republican caucuses work next month? Well, it won't be unlike what has happened in Colorado and Minnesota tonight. Missouri Republicans were apportioned 52 delegates by the Republican National Committee. Here is how those delegates breakdown and how they are allocated to the convention in Tampa:²

• 25 at-large delegates: At-large delegates will be selected at the Missouri Republican state convention on June 1-2. As has been the case in most of the other caucus states thus far with the exception of Nevada, there are no rules dictating the method in which delegates are selected from one step of the process to the next. There is no proportional. There is no winner-take-all. There may be some of each in some precincts with the former more likely in competitive precincts and the latter more prevalent in less competitive precincts or in precincts where caucusgoers committed to one candidate or another stick around not only for the presidential preference straw poll vote but for the actual selection of delegates to the county level as well. Unlike what has happened in Iowa or Colorado, the at-large delegates in Missouri are bound for one ballot at the national convention to the candidate they pledged to at the state convention.
• 24 congressional district delegates: Similarly, the congressional district delegates -- 3 for each of the 8 Missouri congressional districts -- are allocated and pledged based on the selection during the April 21 congressional caucuses across the Show Me state. 
• 3 automatic delegates: The Missouri Republican call for convention also contains two other lines about the actions to be taken at the state convention relevant to the automatic delegates from the state: 1) "Pledging all delegates and alternates to support a Republican Presidential Candidate as provided in this Call to Convention." and 2) "Electing a man and a woman to serve as members of the Republican National Committee from the state of Missouri." What that means is that all the delegates will be bound and that two of the automatic delegates -- the national committeeman and national committeewoman will be elected at the state convention. The only possibility -- and FHQ isn't really suggesting that this is anything remotely approaching a reality -- for a free agent is the state party chairman and that position would seemingly be covered by the binding mechanism described above. [What party chair would cross the rules and an entire convention?]

The interesting thing about all of these non-binding precinct caucus states moving forward is going to be not when the precinct caucuses are but when the district and state conventions are and more importantly what the dynamics of the race are at those times. Colorado has a very early state convention in April and the race could be ongoing at that point. This is far different than the caucus situation on the Democratic side of the ledger where proportionality is rigorously observed throughout the process with some rounding error at the margins that may differ from the precinct level results. That layer is missing on the Republican side. There is no guide for how this will progress once the later stages of the caucus process take place. In the hyper-frontloaded era (200-2008), and perhaps even stretching back into the 1990s, the formula in Republican caucus states was fairly simple: hold a non-binding precinct caucus and then line up behind the presumptive nominee at the district or state convention when all the other candidates have withdrawn from the race or no longer remain viable (if they were to begin with). 2012 is different. Mock all you like, but there is a reason the Paul folks are competing in these caucuses. No, they may not be winning the straw poll votes on presidential preference, but as Dr. Paul himself said this evening, they are winning the votes to push Paul delegates on to the next rounds. Throw in some Santorum delegates and things might be interesting at some of these district and state conventions. The more competitive it ends up being the more likely the ultimate allocation is likely to be approximately proportionate to the precinct level vote.

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¹ FHQ would say 50 part, but that doesn't count the territories and Washington, DC.

² Below is the call to the Missouri Republican convention spelling out the rules of delegate allocation:
Missouri Republican 2012 Call to Convention

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2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Minnesota

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Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Minnesota

This is the eighth in a multipart series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation by state.¹ The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2012 -- especially relative to 2008 -- in order to gauge the impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. As FHQ has argued in the past, this has often been cast as a black and white change. That the RNC has winner-take-all rules and the Democrats have proportional rules. Beyond that, the changes have been wrongly interpreted in a great many cases as having made a 180º change from straight winner-take-all to straight proportional rules in all pre-April 1 primary and caucus states. That is not the case. 

The new requirement has been adopted in a number of different ways across the states. Some have moved to a conditional system where winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon one candidate receiving 50% or more of the vote and others have responded by making just the usually small sliver of a state's delegate apportionment from the national party -- at-large delegates -- proportional as mandated by the party. Those are just two examples. There are other variations in between that also allow state parties to comply with the rules. FHQ has long argued that the effect of this change would be to lengthen the process. However, the extent of the changes from four years ago is not as great as has been interpreted and points to the spacing of the 2012 primary calendar -- and how that interacts with the ongoing campaign -- being a much larger factor in the accumulation of delegates (Again, especially relative to the 2008 calendar).

For links to the other states' plans see the Republican Delegate Selection Plans by State section in the left sidebar under the calendar.


MINNESOTA

It gets old typing "just see the Iowa post for how the delegate allocation works in caucus state X". Yet, with some variation from caucus state to caucus state, that really is pretty much how things are. That said, there are some noteworthy differences in how the caucus system works for Minnesota Republicans. The RNC apportioned 40 delegates (of the 2286 total delegates nationally) to Republicans in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Here is how they break down:

• 13 at-large delegates: At-large delegates are selected at the Minnesota Republican Party state convention and according to the rules governing the delegate selection process in the party constitution may be bound for up to one ballot at the national convention.² The decision on whether to bind at-large delegates is made at the state convention on May 18-19.
• 24 congressional district delegates: Like Colorado and Iowa, the Minnesota congressional district delegates -- 3 in each of the 8 Minnesota congressional districts -- will be allocated at the congressional district conventions. None of these delegates are bound, but are selected from among the pool of delegates who are selected at the precinct, then county, then legislative district caucuses. Again, there is no direct transference of presidential preference from one step to the next, and there are no rules governing which delegates get chosen and how. Also, there is no requirement that there be either winner-take-all or proportional allocation at the precinct level and onward. It may ultimately end up that way, but it may be that those who are committed to staying long enough and/or are committed to being delegates get chosen to move to the next step in the process. [This is why any premature projection of delegates from these non-binding contests is so ridiculous, but I digress...] The bottom line is that there may some underlying presidential preference that emerges through the process -- the precinct caucus straw polls serve as a baseline -- but these congressional district delegates, and more than likely the at-large delegates will go to the Tampa convention unbound.
• 3 automatic delegates: The three automatic delegates are also technically unbound, but are free to endorse whomever they choose. To this point only one Minnesota automatic delegate, Jeff Johnson, has weighed in on the race. The Minnesota Republican National Committeeman has endorsed Newt Gingrich.

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¹ FHQ would say 50 part, but that doesn't count the territories and Washington, DC.

² The relevant section is in Article V, Section 5:

Election and Terms of Delegates.  

A. All state, Congressional District, BPOU, and Delegates and Alternates shall be elected in general election years and shall hold office for a term of two years or until their successors are elected, or upon adoption in their respective BPOU constitution, they may elect Delegates and Alternates to the Congressional District and state conventions annually in the same manner as provided in the general election year, and these Delegates and Alternates elected under this option shall hold office for a term of one year, or until their successors are duly elected.  

B. All affiliate Delegates and Alternates shall serve a two year term or until their successors are elected. Affiliate Delegates and Alternates shall not hold the same office for consecutive terms. An affiliate Delegate or Alternate may not be a regular party Delegate or Alternate to the same convention. Affiliate Delegates and Alternates to Congressional District conventions must reside in the Congressional District and must be elected by the affiliate members who reside in the Congressional District and will be legally qualified voters in the next general election. 

C. In compliance with the rules of the Republican National Convention, no Delegate or Alternate may be an automatic Delegate or Alternate. Each Delegate or Alternate must be elected by his/her respective convention. No Delegate to the Republican National Convention shall be bound by party rules or by state law to cast his/her vote for a particular candidate on any ballot at the convention except that the state convention may bind the Delegates whom it elects to the National Convention of the Republican Party on the first ballot to vote for a candidate for the office of President of the United States, unless they be released by said candidate.

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Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Colorado

This is the seventh in a multipart series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation by state.¹ The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2012 -- especially relative to 2008 -- in order to gauge the impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. As FHQ has argued in the past, this has often been cast as a black and white change. That the RNC has winner-take-all rules and the Democrats have proportional rules. Beyond that, the changes have been wrongly interpreted in a great many cases as having made a 180º change from straight winner-take-all to straight proportional rules in all pre-April 1 primary and caucus states. That is not the case. 

The new requirement has been adopted in a number of different ways across the states. Some have moved to a conditional system where winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon one candidate receiving 50% or more of the vote and others have responded by making just the usually small sliver of a state's delegate apportionment from the national party -- at-large delegates -- proportional as mandated by the party. Those are just two examples. There are other variations in between that also allow state parties to comply with the rules. FHQ has long argued that the effect of this change would be to lengthen the process. However, the extent of the changes from four years ago is not as great as has been interpreted and points to the spacing of the 2012 primary calendar -- and how that interacts with the ongoing campaign -- being a much larger factor in the accumulation of delegates (Again, especially relative to the 2008 calendar).

For links to the other states' plans see the Republican Delegate Selection Plans by State section in the left sidebar under the calendar.


COLORADO

As unique as the Nevada caucuses were -- in terms of being the rare binding caucus -- the Colorado caucuses represent a different atypical attribute. The rules behind most caucuses are within the domain of the state parties, but in Colorado -- and as we will see later today, Minnesota as well -- the basic structure of the presidential precinct caucuses is derived from state law. While that state law dictates the date (or dates) on which the caucuses can be held, who can participate and where caucuses can be held among other requirements, the state parties are not without influence over the process. The Colorado state parties just have slightly less control over every aspect of the process than most of the remaining caucus states.

On the Republican side, the Colorado Republican Party has some latitude in allocating the 36 delegates apportioned to it by the RNC. The four step caucus process starts with the precinct caucuses tonight -- the only event other than the state convention on one uniform date -- and moves through county assemblies (February 17-March 28) and then congressional district assemblies (March 29-April 13) before finishing at the state convention on April 14. Delegates are chosen in the precinct caucuses to move on to the county caucuses, and so on through the remaining steps of the process.

• 21 of the national convention delegates from those who have moved on to that step will be selected at the congressional district assemblies (3 delegates for each of Colorado's seven congressional districts). 
• 12 of the remaining 15 delegates -- the at-large delegates -- are chosen at the state convention from among the delegates who have been selected to attend the state convention. 
• The final three delegates are the Centennial state's automatic delegates (the state party chair, the national committeeman and the national committeewoman). 

A few notes on the delegate selection process in Colorado:

1. Technically, the delegates selected throughout the process and more importantly those selected to go to the Republican National Convention in Tampa are unbound to any candidate. 
2. However, and this is an important point that is not receiving much attention today, if a delegate has pledged support for a candidate, then that pledge is valid until the candidate to whom that delegate is pledged withdraws from the race, releases his or her delegates or is not nominated.² 
3. Not to repeat what we said in the post on Iowa delegate allocation, but there are no formalized rules for selecting delegates at the precinct level to move on to the county assemblies. In other words, the number of delegates moving out of any given precinct caucus, may be proportionate to the vote for the candidates, but it is not required. It may be that those county assembly slots go to the folks that hang around at the meeting the longest. [This is the part that causes so many to say that organization matters in caucuses. Being organized enough to contact and make sure that your supporters claim those spots is a big deal.]
4. Due to the above, as FHQ has said in the past, it is naive to think that there is no transference of presidential preference from one caucus step to the next. But for Colorado, as was the case in Iowa, there is no requirement that it be proportional or winner-take-all.
5. Finally, the whole process will be complete and delegates will be selected to go to the national convention by April 14. That is a fairly big deal when taken with the "National Delegate Intent Form". Though Colorado delegates are unbound, not all are likely to be unpledged. No, FHQ doesn't want to get mired in a discussion of semantic, but those two -- unbound and unpledged -- are terms that can and often are (accurately) used interchangeably. The only truly unbound delegates from Colorado are the three automatic delegates and those unpledged delegates who emerge from the congressional district conventions.

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¹ FHQ would say 50 part, but that doesn't count the territories and Washington, DC.

² The catch here is that delegate preference is not necessarily known the night of the precinct caucuses. Delegate candidates can chose to run pledged to a particular candidate or unpledged, but that preference has to be made official 13 days prior to either the congressional district assemblies (in the case of congressional district delegates) or the state convention (in the case of at-large delegates). The Colorado Republican Party keeps tabs on this by requiring each potential national convention delegate file a "National Delegate Intent Form".

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Virginia House Passes Bill to Allow Write-Ins on Primary Ballot

No, don't get your hopes up, Gingrich supporters. It won't take effect if passed by the state Senate and signed into law in time for the March 6 presidential primary in the Old Dominion. But silver linings folks: The groundwork is potentially being laid for future candidates who have difficulty making the Virginia primary ballot.

On Friday, February 3, the Virginia House of Delegates by the narrowest of margins (50-49) passed HB 1132, bill that would allow a write-in line on primary ballots. The majority Republicans made up the bulk of those voting aye, but it was far from the unanimous position within the caucus. The bill has subsequently moved on to and been read in the state Senate.

Thanks to Richard Winger at Ballot Access News for passing along the news.

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NOTE: Great point from Frank Leone on HB 1132 in the comments:

"Note that the fun part is the parties get to decide if write-ins are available as well as getting to decide if voters have to sign a pledge. So if both parties have a primary the same day (say in 2016), write ins and pledges could be allowed in both, neither or one or the other primary. Let's see if we can make this any more confusing. "

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Race to 1144: Nevada Caucuses

I don't know that I have too much to add to what has already been said about the Nevada caucuses Saturday night. Nothing that happened was all that unexpected. On Saturday Romney basically outperformed to the expectations set by the scant polling conducted in the Silver state in the lead up to the caucuses and left with a greater than 2:1 delegate advantage over his nearest rivals. Yes, the count took a long time and yes, the turnout was down relative to 2008, but neither is particularly noteworthy.

As inept as the Nevada Republican Party has/has not seemed in the last two presidential caucuses -- and by all accounts, it is the former -- there was no way they were going to take any chances on having another Iowa on their hands. The party erred on the side of caution and took their time. It helped that the outcome -- who had won in particular -- was never in doubt. Things could have been dicey (Iowa-like) between Gingrich and Paul for second, but it never came to that.

FHQ is with Jon Bernstein on the turnout comparison. Don't read too much into that drop from 2008 to 2012. Turnout is a funny business anyway, but it is a particularly strange animal in caucus states.  2008 had the novelty (and chaos) of being Nevada's first time under the early state spotlight, and it had competitive races in both parties. Of course, the 2008 Nevada caucuses were largely ignored as most of the candidates focused on the South Carolina primary occurring on the same January 19 date. What we are left with, then, is a comparison between a secondary contest in 2008 that saw little in the way of candidate attention/campaign effects versus a 2012 contest that was viewed as a Romney firewall and saw increased attention but only in the few days after Florida. It is a flawed comparison ladened with caveat after caveat.

Both the count and the turnout were the stories in a contest that lacked them. The former will certainly be pushed from everyone's minds as soon as the next seemingly big procedural deal arises.

One other issue that has been raised in the fallout of yet another quirky caucus is the likelihood of a switch -- in Nevada -- from a caucus to a primary. Jon Ralston has been tweeting about this on and off today, and I've got to say that I'm skeptical of a switch. 2016 is approximately 23 quadrillion political lifetimes away  -- which is to say a lot can happen. However, far more will be forgotten between now and when that decision is made. That said, there are a few things to bear in mind.

• First, the economics of the situation matter. Will a state bearing quite a load in the current economic environment be either willing and/or able to pay for a separate presidential primary? I don't know. 
• Second, are the parties willing to make the switch? Often, state parties will opt for the cost savings -- to the party itself --  of taking a state-funded primary over state party-funded caucuses. That isn't always the case though. In some cases, the state party prefers the relative control over the process a closed caucus provides as opposed to a more open (in terms of higher turnout) primary. The last thing the Nevada state legislature will want to do in 2013 or more likely 2015 is create a primary election that neither party will opt into or even only one party will opt into. Look to the state parties on that one. 
• Finally, what will the national parties do with Nevada and its position at the front of the queue? More importantly, perhaps, will we see some divergence between the two national parties on how they designate Nevada in the process (ie: the Democrats allowing Nevada to retain the third spot and the Republicans moving another state into the slot).

All of those things factor into a decision on the mode of delegate allocation, and it certainly isn't clear -- though certainly brought into sharp contrast immediately after the caucuses -- what impact any of the events of the weekend will have on the ultimate decision on the 2016 contest.

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Source:
Contest Delegates (via contest results)
Automatic Delegates (Democratic Convention Watch)

And what about the delegate count post-Nevada?

Since the Florida primary, there have been 28 contest delegate slots allocated and one additional automatic delegate has endorsed. Of those 29 delegates:

• Romney won 14 (from Nevada)/88 total
• Gingrich won 7 (6 from Nevada and one automatic delegate from Minnesota)/31 total
• Paul picked up 5 (from Nevada)/8 total
• Santorum received 3 (from Nevada)/4 total 

NOTE: Iowa has yet to allocated any of its 28 delegates. One of the three automatic delegates has endorsed (Santorum) and the remaining 25 will be allocated at the June state convention and go to Tampa unbound. As such they are factored into the "unbound" category (29 total delegates) in the graphic above.

Interestingly, of the 21 automatic delegates to have endorsed, very few come from states that have participated in the process thus far. One Iowa automatic delegate (Santorum), two of the Maine automatics (both Romney) and one Minnesota automatic (Gingrich) have weighed in. [NOTE: As Matt astutely pointed out in the comments below, this is for a very good reason (...and more than just me having a long day). The early states with the exception of Iowa either bind their automatic delegates or lost them as part of the penalty for holding a non-compliant contest.]

Less than 5% of the total 2286 delegates have been allocated and there are only 6.25% of the total delegates in the first five states.

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Pennsylvania Presidential Primary on the Move?

The redistricting process may claim another victim on the presidential primary calendar.

The ongoing battle to set congressional district boundaries in Pennsylvania -- now in the courts -- may push the April 24 presidential primary in the Keystone state back on the calendar. From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Saturday:

Also, without knowing how long it would take a new plan to become final, Mr. Pileggi said lawmakers will need to consider whether they should delay the primary contest. 

"Without control over that length of time, it's hard to come to a final conclusion," [Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader] Mr. Pileggi said in a teleconference with reporters. "But certainly the April 24th date is in jeopardy." 

Democrats said that moving the primary is unnecessary because the Supreme Court has said the decade-old map remains in effect until a new one is approved. 

"A new plan should not be rammed through the process without due consideration for what the court has said about redistricting," said Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills.

There is a hearing today on the Republican-led request to delay the primary from happening. 

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What does that mean for Pennsylvania within the context of the presidential primary calendar? 

First of all, any time a primary is shifted or is forced to shift back the date on which its primary is held, it runs the risk of losing influence over the process. The discussion around this Republican nomination race has refocused lately on the delegate count, but even before the contests started, that April 24 regional primary date -- where Pennsylvania is currently scheduled -- was seen as a possibility for where (presumably) Mitt Romney might push past the 1144 delegates necessary to lock up the nomination. At the very least, that cluster of contests would conceivably push the former Massachusetts  governor to a delegate lead that may be too steep for his opponents to overcome. To move back beyond that date, then, would mean Pennsylvania would potentially be pushed out of the window of decisiveness in this race. 

But there is a caveat to that. Texas may also -- for similar reasons -- be forced to hold a later presidential primary. And Texas, along with potentially Pennsylvania moving back, shifts a lot of delegates -- 227 total delegates -- further back in the process. That may affect the delegate counting calculus at that point. Of course, the March contests will go a long way toward determining how detrimental a move back for Pennsylvania would be.

...or if it is consequential to the the process determining a presumptive nominee by that point.

A tip of the cap to Tim McNulty at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for passing this news along.

Recent Posts:

Race to 1144: Florida Primary

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Nevada

Florida May End Up "Proportional" But It Won't Be Proportional

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Race to 1144: Florida Primary

The numbers keep changing daily with the vote tabulation in Florida -- see, it has already changed¹ -- but FHQ will go ahead and post this today in the interest of making a few points about the overall delegate count. However, the vote total will be changed -- and folks, it is only changing slightly and will in no way affect the outcome -- when and if the Division of Elections within the Florida Secretary of State's office adds, or in some cases, subtracts votes from a candidate's total.

Now, about those delegate counts...

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Source:
Contest Delegates (via contest results)
Automatic Delegates (Democratic Convention Watch)

FHQ wants to get out ahead of as much of this delegate count talk as possible because most of it is very, very wrong. In fact, an NPR story this morning -- one FHQ was quoted in -- incorrectly stated that Ron Paul is fourth in the delegate count. That statement followed a clip of Paul correctly stating that he was in third. He is according to the RNC.

As such, FHQ will call its delegate count the RNC+ delegate count. The Republican National Committee stated this week that it had the delegate count at Romney: 59, Gingrich: 23, Paul: 3, Santorum: 0 and there are 30 unbound delegates. Let's dig into that.

• Romney: 59 (50 Florida delegates, 7 New Hampshire delegates, 2 South Carolina delegates)
• Gingrich: 23 (23 South Carolina delegates)
• Paul: 3 (3 New Hampshire delegates)

Yes, that's right. Santorum has 0 delegates according to the RNC.

But we do have additional information. We also have automatic delegates, technically unbound, who have stated preferences for one candidate or another. That adds fifteen delegates to Romney's total, two to Gingrich's total and pushes Santorum's count from zero to one.

You will also notice that the Huntsman column from previous "Race to 1144" posts has disappeared and been replaced with an "Unbound" column. This brings up a couple of additional points. First of all, the two delegates Huntsman won in the New Hampshire primary have not been officially released. The RNC is counting them among the unbound delegates. The remaining unbound delegates are the 28 delegates at stake in Iowa. Remember, none of those delegates has been allocated yet. That will happen at the Iowa state convention in June and even after that point, those delegates will head to Tampa unbound. That said, one of those Iowa delegates, Kay Lehman, the Iowa Republican Party national committeewoman, has come out in support of Rick Santorum. That's Santorum's lone delegate. What that means for those keeping track at home is that two of those unbound delegates are Huntman's two contest delegates from New Hampshire while the remaining 27 unbound delegates are Iowa's 25 contest delegates and the remaining two Iowa automatic delegates who have yet to endorse a candidate.

[NOTE: Due to the fact that New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida were all penalized for holding their primaries too early, they lost their 3 automatic delegates according to the RNC delegate selection rules.]


The Nevada caucuses this weekend will add no unbound delegates to the equation. All 28 delegates are bound according to the results of the precinct caucuses on Saturday. The delegate allocation in the Silver state will be completely proportional.

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Changes to the delegate count since South Carolina:

• Romney added 50 delegates from Florida.
• Romney gained the support of Puerto Rico automatic delegate, Luis Fortuno.
• Gingrich added the support of Puerto Rico automatic delegate, Carlos Mendez.

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¹ The vote totals seem to have stabilized on February 6. The vote totals in the graphic above reflect the numbers as they were as of then.

Recent Posts:

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Nevada

Florida May End Up "Proportional" But It Won't Be Proportional

Visual Representation of the Argument from Non-Romneys, Post-Florida

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2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Nevada

This is the sixth in a multipart series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation by state.¹ The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2012 -- especially relative to 2008 -- in order to gauge the impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. As FHQ has argued in the past, this has often been cast as a black and white change. That the RNC has winner-take-all rules and the Democrats have proportional rules. Beyond that, the changes have been wrongly interpreted in a great many cases as having made a 180º change from straight winner-take-all to straight proportional rules in all pre-April 1 primary and caucus states. That is not the case. 

The new requirement has been adopted in a number of different ways across the states. Some have moved to a conditional system where winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon one candidate receiving 50% or more of the vote and others have responded by making just the usually small sliver of a state's delegate apportionment from the national party -- at-large delegates -- proportional as mandated by the party. Those are just two examples. There are other variations in between that also allow state parties to comply with the rules. FHQ has long argued that the effect of this change would be to lengthen the process. However, the extent of the changes from four years ago is not as great as has been interpreted and points to the spacing of the 2012 primary calendar -- and how that interacts with the ongoing campaign -- being a much larger factor in the accumulation of delegates (Again, especially relative to the 2008 calendar).

For links to the other states' plans see the Republican Delegate Selection Plans by State section in the left sidebar under the calendar.


NEVADA

FHQ has been fond of saying that the rules in the January and February primary and caucus states are no different in 2012 than they were in 2008. But we always say that in the context of the winner-take-all/proportional discussion. On that front, the statement is true, but in terms of the overall delegate selection rules, there is one state with one significant rules change: Nevada. No, the Nevada caucuses are still proportional as they were in 2008. For 2012, however, the Nevada Republican Party altered the binding mechanism within the Silver state caucuses. Instead of the Nevada Republicans being allocated based on what transpires at the state convention, delegates coming out of the state will now be bound to candidates based on the results of the precinct caucuses on Saturday night (February 4). [The ultimate delegate allocation will be proportional based on the precinct caucus vote.]

The reason for the change is twofold:
1) First of all, the first step of the caucus process in Nevada is binding and not non-binding like the vast majority of other caucus states. What will happen Saturday night, then, is not simply a straw poll vote on top of electing delegates to move on to the next step of the process. That is unique among this group of January and February caucus states (and the other caucus states too). The Nevada GOP made the decision last year as a means of drawing candidates into the state; something that did not happen in 2008 when the Nevada caucuses shared the same date as the South Carolina primary.² Of course, when that change was made Nevada was supposed to have been the third contest on the calendar. Florida's move into January and the subsequent Nevada spat with New Hampshire for calendar positions pushed Nevada back to the fifth slot just four days after Florida. That's a small window of time, but the candidates are out there this week, though they are splitting time there with time in the February 7 caucus states (Colorado and Minnesota).

2) The second reason for the move is not being talked about, but is fairly obvious. The early stage binding of the delegates is a means to an end. It heads off the problems that beset the Nevada caucus process in 2008: that Ron Paul delegates essentially derailed the convention and forced the State Executive Committee to select the delegates. By binding delegates based on the results of the precinct caucuses, the party heads off at least some of that problem (...though Ron Paul delegates will still make it through to the next stage).

But of course, there are some worries about whether the Nevada GOP can improve on their 2008 performance.

What does all of this mean for Saturday night? Well, the Nevada caucuses will be more than the straw polls we have witnessed in Iowa and will witness in most other caucus states. The results are binding -- more like a primary -- and unlike, again, most other caucus states, where the delegates will go to the convention unbound, the Nevada Republican delegates will be bound. This includes not only the at-large and congressional district delegates, but the automatic delegates as well (all 28 total Nevada delegates).

[NOTE: Nevada's Republican caucuses are closed to only registered Republicans. The final day to register prior to the caucuses was January 20.]

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¹ FHQ would say 50 part, but that doesn't count the territories and Washington, DC.

² Incidentally, that Las Vegas Review-Journal article was the link the Nevada Republican Party provided on its own website to explain the shift. That was true until just last month when all caucus-related links on the party's page got automatically sent to the new 2012 caucus site. Anyway, if it was good enough for the party before...

Recent Posts:

Florida May End Up "Proportional" But It Won't Be Proportional

Visual Representation of the Argument from Non-Romneys, Post-Florida

Newt's Challenge & Problem: Becoming Huckabee+

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