Monday, March 27, 2023
North Dakota Democrats Aim for April 6 Party-Run Primary in 2024
Invisible Primary: Visible -- Trump and Evangelicals in 2024
Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...
Tim Alberta had a nice piece up over at The Atlantic over the weekend about Donald Trump's current relationship with the broader evangelical movement. [Always read Alberta.] The takeaway? The former president seemingly burned some bridges with some Christian leaders after he cast blame on pro-life supporters for Republicans' (mis)fortunes in the 2022 midterm elections. It is a deeply reported story and it makes some sense in a climate in which others in the Republican presidential primary electorate are looking around at their options more than they did in 2019 when Trump was up for reelection.
But there were a couple of interrelated things that kept coming to mind as FHQ read through the story. First, the folks who were quoted in the piece were almost exclusively elites within the evangelical movement (and if not elites, then leaders in some capacity). And second, there was a divide in that segment of the Republican primary electorate in 2016. As Pew showed then, regular church attendees who identified as evangelical gravitated more toward Ted Cruz. Those who carried the same identity but who were less involved in congregations were more likely to side with Trump. While FHQ is not fond of the 2024 comparisons to the 2016 Republican nomination race, it is worth asking whether this same relationship among evangelicals exists in this current invisible primary.
In other words, does that 2016 divide persist? Is it being animated anew as the Republican presidential field takes shape for 2024? While church leaders and their most committed adherents may be looking around, put out with Trump after eight years, there may be a sizable pocket of evangelicals who are just as evangelical in their identities but less attuned (or not attuned at all) to leaders in the church who are looking to move on from Trump in the primary phase. It is those folks who may miss a unified(-ish) signal from elites in the evangelical movement. This is another one of those "is Trump closer to 2015 than to 2019" questions worth keeping an eye on as 2023 moves forward. [And it merits mention that evangelical leaders were not exactly breaking down the door to back Trump in 2015 and early 2016. But once the primary phase yielded to the general election campaign, the ties grew stronger.]
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It is not as if there had been a lot of chatter about Brian Kemp jumping into the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. There had been some, but the talk had seemingly never risen above the "plausible challenger, not seriously considering it" stage. Kemp has some of the conventional characteristics of a presidential aspirant: he's a twice-elected governor (in a swing state, no less), he is a proven fundraiser, and (in the eyes of handicappers in and out of the political media) he fits into the anti-Trump "lane" after his tussle with the former president over the 2020 election results. But, as local media had recently pointed out, while the door was not closed, Kemp was not doing the things that prospective presidential candidates do. There were no trips to Iowa, no national speeches, no new books to hawk.
That door now appears closed. Kemp on Friday in an interview with the Wall Street Journal was quick to dismiss any chances of a run for 2024. So scratch Kemp's name from the list. The field, real or imagined, winnows.
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Despite some of the "Desantis is doomed" talk last week (and it entered the vocal doubt phase over the weekend), the broader effort to support the Florida governor's nascent bid for the Republican nomination added to its ranks. Having already brought on Jeff Roe as an adviser last week, Never Back Down, the super PAC aligned with the DeSantis effort hired a former communications hand from the Trump 2020 campaign. And Erin Perrine was already spinning polls over the weekend.
At first blush, it may look as if Perrine's move to DeSantis is a defection from Trump. But when one considers that Republican campaign operatives had few choices at the presidential level in 2020, and that the party as a whole was firmly behind the former president in the last cycle, the story becomes one more about this cycle than a departure from the last. After all, Perrine, like Jeff Roe, has been aligned with Ted Cruz in the past. And their collective move to Never Back Down and DeSantis may tell us a lot more about a candidate not running this cycle (Cruz) than a former president who is. Regardless, these are important signals in the staff primary as the hiring wars continue.
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On this date...
...in 1984, Gary Hart won the Connecticut primary completing his sweep of states in the northeast..
...in 1988, Michael Dukakis won the North Dakota Democratic caucuses.
...in 2019, Utah joined Super Tuesday for 2020.
...in 2020, the Ohio primary shifted because of covid to a vote-by-mail primary that would conclude in April. Hawaii Democrats did the same in their party-run primary process. And the Pennsylvania primary was moved to June 2, also because of the pandemic.
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Recent posts:
Sunday, March 26, 2023
California Bill to Change Primary Date Amended
In fact, the original version of that bill -- SB 24 -- struck the entire section of the California code dealing with various aspects of the primary, leaving the date unspecified. In brief, the introduced bill described the legislation like this:
This bill would change the date of the presidential primary and consolidated statewide direct primary described above to an unspecified date.
As it turns out, however, that was a change meant to serve as a placeholder while the particulars of the intended bill were worked out. The newly amended version of SB 24 was released on Monday, March 20 and revealed that the date of the presidential primary would remain unaffected moving forward. In its place, grander language to put a public financing (of elections) system before the voters of California was inserted.
California, it seems for now, will remain one of the anchors of Super Tuesday alongside the primary in Texas.
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Recent posts:
Saturday, March 25, 2023
Bill Eliminating Idaho Presidential Primary Ready for Governor
But that did not happen.
Instead, the state Senate dragged through another legislative day at a glacial pace as the state House stood by, finished with its work and awaiting further action from the upper chamber.
One matter the Senate was able to dispense with was defining the parameters around which the presidential primary will operate for the 2024 cycle. Those bills -- one to eliminate the stand-alone March presidential primary (H 138) and one to consolidate that election with the mid-May primaries for other offices (S 1186) -- were passed on Thursday, March 23. And since the former bill had earlier passed the state House in it current form, the bill was signed by the requisite parties in both chambers and enrolled, ready to be transmitted to the governor for consideration.
But again, that bill merely ends the separate March presidential primary. It does not build the necessary infrastructure into state code to add a presidential line to the May primary for other offices. That amending action is contained in the trailer bill, S 1186. If the amending bill does not also get a thumbs up from the House, then there would simply be no presidential primary in Idaho for 2024. However, that was not the intent of the original bill, incomplete though it may have been. And that likely is not the intent of legislators in the lower chamber either.
Nonetheless, S 1186 is not yet on the House calendar for when it is due to reconvene on Tuesday, March 28. New to the chamber, the bill would first have to go through committee, and although it has been referred to House State Affairs, S 1186 is not yet on the panel's docket. FHQ is not suggesting that the trailer bill will not be dealt with. It likely will be. The delay is only a function of the end-of-session logjam.
But what is interesting is that the state Republican Party opposes the primary's shift to May, and it retains the ability to opt for earlier caucuses as a means of assessing presidential preference among Republicans in the state in 2024. Should the governor sign H 138, then proponents of the bill will have gotten at least part of what they wanted out of the 2023 regular session: they will have eliminated the separate presidential primary and saved the state more than $2 million. But the second part of this -- adding the presidential line to the May primary ballot -- becomes superfluous if the state Republican Party ultimately opts to caucus instead of using the later primary.
The legislative delay at the end of this session, then, may provide legislators (if not the Idaho Republican Party) some time to consider those options in a way that may affect further progress on S 1186. In other words, that action could be saved for a special session (should one be called) after the Republican state central committee makes any decisions on its 2024 delegate selection process. The party may not want to conduct caucuses, but it also does not want such a late presidential primary. It would appear to be a bit of a lose-lose proposition for state Republicans at the moment.
Yet, that is all speculative. The state legislature will answer some if not all of these questions as it presumably wraps up its regular session work in the week ahead.
Related:
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Recent posts:
Friday, March 24, 2023
Kansas Committee OKs Amended Presidential Primary Bill
During a working session Friday morning, March 24, the state Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee (FSA) convened to markup SB 321, the bill to create a one-off presidential primary election for the 2024 cycle in Kansas.
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Recent posts:
Invisible Primary: Visible -- National Scrutiny has Arrived for DeSantis
Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...
There have been hints of this nestled in all the changing tides stories about Donald Trump's fortunes in the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race, but it has come into clearer focus of late. Governor Ron DeSantis is "trending downward." After riding high as the clearest and best-positioned alternative to the former president, DeSantis was due for an inevitable down cycle in coverage.
And those types of stories are starting to trickle out as indictment watch whips itself into a froth.
Again, all of this was inevitable. Recall that, until now, there was a steady stream of caveats to DeSantis' top challenger status. And they all collectively warned that the Florida governor had not been tested on the national stage. He had not been scrutinized. Well, that was going to come and this may be the first clear wave of it. The crux of it all is that it was going to happen, but how DeSantis responds -- or probably more accurately weathers -- this and subsequent waves of scrutiny and/or the slumping news cycle or two will likely define whether he is able to maintain his perceived positioning as the invisible primary marches on.
What is difficult for DeSantis and others vying for the Republican nomination is that the indictment circus is likely to take up a lot of the oxygen in the near term, keeping the focus on Trump and less on those seeking to challenge him. It is tougher to counter flagging coverage when most eyes are elsewhere.
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Actions not words in New Hampshire. Focus less on the repetition of the same tired lines from the Granite state governor and more to what the New Hampshire Democratic Party is now doing as 2024 -- and a likely rogue New Hampshire primary -- approaches.
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It has been one of those mid-session weeks in state capitals across the country. Legislation, generally, is moving, but presidential primary legislation is moving in particular. Hawaii, Idaho and Kansas have been active this week in shifting or establishing presidential primaries.
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On this date...
...in 1992, Jerry Brown narrowly beat Bill Clinton in the Connecticut primary, starting a short streak of small state victories to end March and start April (the last of his wins that cycle). President George H.W. Bush coasted to victory on the Republican side.
...in 2012, Rick Santorum scored the last of his victories before dropping out in early April with a win in the Louisiana primary. The delegate allocation Pelican state Republicans used that cycle was (and is) a good reminder of the variation that can and does exist across states in the Republican allocation rules.
...in 2020, it was to have been the date of the Georgia primary, a departure from what had become a string of Super Tuesday primaries. But the coronavirus pushed the election in the Peach state back to June 2020. This was also the date on which the Delaware presidential primary was delayed due to the pandemic.
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Recent posts:
Thursday, March 23, 2023
Idaho Presidential Primary Bills Pass Senate
The two bills that would eliminate the stand-alone March presidential primary in Idaho and merge it with the May primaries for other offices passed the state Senate on Thursday, March 23.
Related:
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Recent posts:
Kansas Presidential Primary Push Faces Friday Deadline
The Kansas state Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee convened on Thursday, March 23 to conduct a hearing on the newly introduced SB 321. Brought forth formally just one day prior, the measure would establish a presidential primary election in the Sunflower state for the 2024 cycle.
The Thursday hearing was revealing for several reasons:
1. This bill is going to move fast if it is going to move at all. Across the legislature, committees face a deadline of Friday, March 24 to complete work on certain bills. SB 321 is among those certain bills. It faces a very quick trip from introduction one day to public hearing the next and finally followed by a working session after which there will be action to either pass the bill on to the Senate floor for consideration or leave it in committee. That working session will fall on deadline day and is still awaiting a fiscal note being delayed by counties who have been asked to quickly ascertain how much an additional election would cost at the local level.
2. The principal driver behind the effort to reestablish the Kansas presidential primary is the state Republican Party. The state Democratic Party was unaware of the possible change.
3. While the state Republican Party entertained an earlier Super Tuesday date for the primary, March 19 -- the first Tuesday after March 15 -- was chosen in order for the party be able to allocate delegates in a winner-take-all manner. March 15 is important because that is the date before which truly winner-take-all allocation methods are prohibited by Republican National Committee rule. [This is something FHQ raised on social media earlier.]
4. The sponsor of the competing Senate bill to reestablish the presidential primary but pair it with the primaries for other offices spoke in favor of the new legislation. But Senator Caryn Tyson (R-12th, Anderson) urged the committee to consider consolidating the primaries to cut down on the total costs associated with carrying out nominating elections. [The Kansas secretary of state's office at the hearing roughly estimated -- again, without full input from the counties -- that the price tag would come in around $4.5 million. That expenditure may or may not be an issue for legislators.] Tyson continued that her bill was intended as a conversation starter on shifting to a primary and that the first Tuesday following the first Monday in May date was a suggestion based on how little it would overlap with the legislative session. A consolidated primary any earlier would have legislators campaigning and raising funds during the legislative session, a conflict of interest issue that often pops up in states when consolidated primaries are discussed. The cost savings may be tempting to legislators but the campaigning conflict may offset it. The bottom line with respect to Tyson's bill (SB 290) is that it is not going anywhere and the May timing may or may not be workable. One thing consolidation would do would be to permanently schedule all the primaries for a particular time.
5. On a similar note, as mentioned in the post about the introduction of SB 321, this is a one-off action for 2024. That there would just be a presidential primary in 2024 was confirmed in the course of the hearing. Kansas would revert to a system in which the parties run the process in 2028 and beyond. The consolidation path would avoid that drawback.
6. The state Democratic Party was not present to comment on the bill or whether they would opt into a primary, if available. Kansas Democrats held a party-run primary by mail in 2020.
Given the haste with which this measure has already moved, it is likely that it will come out of committee in some form after the working session on March 24. There may be some changes, but it seems unlikely that any of the thornier issues like consolidation will be addressed. It would open a can of worms in a process that has already been maximally streamlined and can afford no delays given the deadlines facing the committee.
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Recent posts:
Hawaii Committee Shakes Up Presidential Primary Bill
Invisible Primary: Visible -- The Republican Race is Over?
Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...
The indictment of a former president is something new in American politics. Not in modern American politics, but in American politics, period. And that says nothing about how an indictment (or multiple indictments) would impact a former president seeking his party's presidential nomination for a third time. We do not have a clear understanding yet as to how any of that will impact the race. But that has not stopped folks from racing to conclusions or hypothesizing about the the effects without actually waiting for the hypothesis to be even minimally tested.
Count Tina Ngyuen from Puck News among them.
Look, FHQ noted earlier this week that "it's Trump's until it's not," but that is not anything new. The majority of invisible primary signals have been pointing in that direction for some time if not all along, but with the caveat that the former president's position in 2023 is not like it was in 2019 when Trump could lean on the advantages of incumbency. That is the story of the 2024 invisible primary on the Republican side: assessing where Trump's bid stands between the two poles of his previous two runs.
Any apparent momentum Trump has enjoyed in 2023, after the midterms were a drag on the former president at the tail end of 2022, buoys the notions that 1) things have improved for Trump in the near term and 2) that nudges him closer to his 2019 position than to where he was in 2015. Part of what buttresses the improved outlook for Trump 2024 (at least with respect to the Republican nomination process) is that his poll position had improved and was improving before "indictment watch" really heated up this week. And the fact that elite Republicans are rallying to the former president as formal criminal charges loom may or may not trickle down and resonate at the rank and file level among potential Republican primary voters (who will not start voting on the nomination for another nine months or so).
But first let's see and maybe test that again over time. Trump may win the 2024 Republican nomination, but that does not mean that a dynamic process does not lay stretched out before us. As has been said, the fun is in the journey. It may not exactly be fun, but the process very definitely has an impact on, if not the outcome of the nomination race, then how the party transitions to the general election. That is meaningful.
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Nevertheless, they persisted. Trump's position may have improved, but the other candidates and prospective candidates are still, well, acting like candidates and not like the race is over. In fact, the broader DeSantis 2024 effort scored a bit of a coup in the staff primary a day ago when an aligned super PAC, Never Back Down, brought former Ted Cruz campaign manager, Jeff Roe, on board. This is no small thing. Yes, the Roe-led effort to help boost Cruz to the 2016 Republican presidential nomination fell short, but it also won some significant victories along the way. And it probably punched above its weight by out-hustling Trump in caucus states and in exploiting the delegate selection process as well.
What is different now is that, while running a tight ship on the rules end in 2016 may prove a useful feather in the cap of the broader DeSantis presidential effort, Trump's 2024 team is more savvy than it was in 2015-16. State Republican parties are also littered with Trump-supportive if not Trump-aligned operatives. And the Republican rules are different in 2024 than they were in 2016. Exploiting the delegate selection process may be more difficult this time.
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If the support from outside of Jefferson City is any indication, then it looks like Missouri might get its presidential primary back for 2024. But the election was eliminated last year by the state legislature for a reason, and despite support from both the Missouri Democratic and Republican parties, getting the presidential primary reinstated through the state legislature may be easier said than done.
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On this date...
...in 1976, Jimmy Carter bested George Wallace in the North Carolina primary, winning a majority of the vote and handing the Alabama governor a second loss in a southern state he had won in 1972. Also in the Tar Heel state that day, Ronald Reagan notched his first primary victory of the cycle, edging out President Ford.
...in 2015, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) entered the Republican presidential nomination race.
...in 2020, both Alaska (Democrats) and Rhode Island delayed delegate selection events due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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