Trump and the 2024 Delegate Allocation Rules

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• South Carolina is unique among states with state-run and funded presidential primaries. In some ways that helped elevate the Palmetto state to the first slot on the 2024 Democratic primary calendar. But quirkiness presents some challenges as well. All the details at FHQ Plus.

If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.

In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

...

Gregory Korte had a nice piece up at Bloomberg the other day concerning the delegate allocation rules and how the Trump campaign's efforts to massage them in 2020 may pay dividends for the former president in 2024. As he notes, however, there will not be a complete picture of the state-level delegate allocation rules until October 1. That makes it tough to game out the impact of the rules for next year. 

Moreover, the various campaigns are doing the same thing. They are currently trying to plan this out, but they are also simultaneously trying to affect what those rules are to lay the groundwork for advantageous allocation rules next year. And that makes for some potential, if not likely, cross-pressures with which state-level party officials/committees/conventions making these decision will have to deal. Together that makes for a challenging decision-making environment. FHQ talked about this in setting the 2024 Republican delegate allocation rules baseline back in March:

If decision makers in state parties across the country cannot see a clear advantage to an allocation change one way or the other, then it is more likely that the 2020 baseline method survives into 2024. That theoretically helps Trump. ...if he is the frontrunner. But if Trump is not the frontrunner once primary season kicks off, then any shift away from the 2020 baseline -- a baseline with the knobs turned toward incumbent defense (or frontrunner defense) -- may end up helping a candidate other than the one intended. 

Another factor adding to this uncertainty is how decision makers view a change playing with rank and file members of the party. If elected officials or other elites in the party are wary of endorsing one Republican candidate or another, then they may also be less willing to make an allocation change for fear that it would be viewed as helping or hurting Trump. In other words, it looks like they are putting their thumb on the scale one way or the other. That is the sort of view that augurs against change. And again, the status quo likely helps Trump (if current conditions persist). 

Basically, the bottom line is this. Allocation changes are tough. They are tough to make because there is uncertainty in the impact those changes will have. It is much easier to see the potential impact of moving a primary to an early date for example. It could help a favorite son or daughter candidate. But an earlier primary or caucus definitely better insures that the state influences the course of the nomination race. If a contest falls too late -- after a presumptive nominee has emerged and clinched the nomination -- then that contest has literally no impact. Some impact, no matter how small, is better than literally zero impact. The same is true with respect to the decision to conduct a primary election or caucuses. There are definite turnout effects that come with holding a primary rather than caucuses. And greater participation in primaries typically means a more diverse -- less ideologically homogenous or extreme -- electorate.

Things are less clear with allocation rules changes. 

There is much more in that post. FHQ will be drawing from it throughout the remainder of the invisible primary if not into primary season in 2024. Go read it. But in the meantime, a couple of additional things:

1. Yes, more truly winner-take-all states help Trump at this time. But they would help any frontrunner. These are, after all, frontrunner rules. They help build and pad a delegate lead once the RNC allows winner-take-all rules to kick in on March 15, entering 50-75 rule territory.
2. But Team Trump is likely looking toward (and looking to maintain) the other rules changes from 2020 for an earlier-on-the-calendar boost. An earlier (technical) knock out for a 2024 frontrunner may come from states earlier than March 15 with winner-take-all triggers. If a candidate wins a majority of the vote statewide and/or at the congressional district level, then that candidate wins all of the delegates from that jurisdiction (or all of a state's delegates available if the delegates are pooled). Alternatively, if no other candidates hit the qualifying thresholds (set to their max of 20 percent in most proportional states in 2020), then the winner is allocated all of the delegates in some states even if they do not have a majority. And the name of the game here is not necessarily winning all of the delegates, but maximizing the net delegate advantage coming out of any given state. All of the Republican campaigns are asking how much they can improve on a baseline proportional allocation, and picking spots on the map and calendar where they can do. Well, campaigns are doing that if they know what they are doing anyway.

...

In the travel primary, former Vice President Mike Pence will be back in New Hampshire on Tuesday, May 16. And it looks at if a super PAC has formed around his before the end of June presidential launch. The interesting thing is less the formation of an aligned super PAC and more about some of the staff primary hires the new group has made. There are folks from the orbits of a former Republican presidential nominee (Scott Reed, former campaign manager of the 1996 Dole campaign), a once talked-about possible 2024 aspirant who declined to run (Mike Ricci, former spokesman for former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan) and a still-talked about possible 2024 candidate who says he is not running (Bobby Saparow, former campaign manager for current Georgia Governor Brian Kemp). In total, that makes for an interesting mix of old school Republican politics and new school Trump resistance within the party. That may not represent a winning path in the Republican nomination race, but it is indicative of a unique course forward for Pence relative to his competition.

...

Endorsement Math. Yesterday, FHQ raised the sizable number of Iowa state legislative endorsements Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rolled out before his weekend trek to the Hawkeye state. And on Monday, Never Back Down, the super PAC aligned with DeSantis, released another 49 new endorsements from fellow early state, New Hampshire. [That is 51 endorsements minus the previously revealed support of New Hampshire House Majority Leader Jason Osborne and the double endorsement -- of both Trump and DeSantis -- from Juliet Harvey-Bolia.] Three of those DeSantis endorsements in the Granite state are from representatives who have supported Trump in the past.

But the math is different across both of those waves of DeSantis endorsements from Iowa and New Hampshire. The 37 state legislative endorsements from the Hawkeye state accounted for more than a third of all of the possible Iowa Republican legislators -- House and Senate. In New Hampshire, those 50 endorsements, all from members of the state House, register differently. They make up just a quarter of the total number of possible endorsements from the lower chamber alone. Yes, that may be splitting hairs, but it is also a long way of saying the pool of endorsements is bigger in New Hampshire. Others will be vying for the support of the remaining 150 Granite state House members. 

...

On this date...

...in 1972, Alabama Governor George Wallace, a day after being shot campaigning in Maryland, won primaries in the Old Line state and in Michigan. 

...in 2000, long after becoming the presumptive nominees of their parties, George W. Bush and Al Gore won the Oregon presidential primary.

...in 2019, long shots, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Rocky de la Fuente, respectively entered the Democratic and Republican presidential nomination races. 

--

Recent posts:

DeSantis is not without Organizational Strengths in the Republican Nomination Race

Sunday Series: An Update on 2024 Presidential Primary Movement

[From FHQ Plus] About the California Republican Party Delegate Rules for 2024

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Post or subscribe by Email.

See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies. 

DeSantis is not without Organizational Strengths in the Republican Nomination Race

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• On presidential primary legislating, the Missouri General Assembly once again made Congress look functional. Still, there is one thing in the Show-Me state that just does not add up. And there may be a super penalty problem for a handful of states on the Republican presidential primary calendar. All the details at FHQ Plus.

If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.

In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

...

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was back in Iowa over the weekend. And some accounts detail how he impressed Hawkeye state Republicans, but as The New York Times noted...

And while Mr. Trump still leads in the state, according to the latest public polling, his team team had also so lowered the bar for Mr. DeSantis’s first outing with weeks of merciless mocking that by merely showing up and not committing any significant gaffes with crowds that were eager to check him out, he fared well.

Polls and mocking aside, the real coup for DeSantis in the home of the first-in-the-nation caucuses was pulling in a long list of state legislative endorsements -- endorsement primary -- in the state before he even touched down to flip burgers, visit barbecue joints or generally retail politick. More than anything else, that group of 37 endorsements speaks to the demonstration of a level of organization that has not been as apparent in recent weeks as the governor's fortunes have swooned according to some metrics. Yes, the aligned super PAC, Never Back Down, has been on the airwaves (continually in the upstate of South Carolina during the evening news hour FHQ can report) and there is plenty of money behind the nascent campaign, but that is a depth of endorsements that speaks to some underlying political strengths in the battle ahead. 

...once DeSantis formally enters the race. Are endorsement the same as organizing folks to come out to caucuses across the Hawkeye state? Not exactly, but it is a positive push in that direction. 

...

And now for something completely -- well, sort of -- different. Allow FHQ a moment to veer off into general election 2024 territory. Michael Scherer and Tyler Pager at The Washington Post report that President Biden's reelection team is targeting both Florida and North Carolina as possible pickup opportunities in 2024. First of all, if there are any potential flips out there, then Florida and North Carolina are likely the only ones to chase. They were the only two states that Biden lost by less than five points in 2020. However, incumbent presidents and incumbent parties have had a difficult time trying to expand the map in recent years. The Obama team trained its sights on Arizona and Georgia in 2011 before dropping them to focus their efforts on more competitive states as the 2012 election drew nearer. Similarly, the Trump campaign eyed both Minnesota and New Mexico in 2019 before it scaled operations back once the calendar flipped to 2020. Presidents may want to play offense during their reelection bids, but more often than not, they end up playing defense on the same ground they narrowly won during their initial, victorious bid. And often that is a function not of adding states to the fold, but of trying to hold together a winning coalition from the first time surpassing 270.

...

With the spotlight on Iowa over the weekend, it was nice to see some reporting that actually acknowledged that at this time there is no date for the Iowa caucuses. There is no date. There has been no date. Part of what has enabled both Iowa and New Hampshire to successfully defend their first-in-the-nation turf on the primary calendar over the years is that each is adept in their own ways at waiting until late in the year (if need be) to make a scheduling decision. When threats have arisen, waiting them out has tended to work at least in terms of fighting off threats from other states. National parties? Well, that is a different type of battle. With South Carolina Democrats locked into that February 3 date granted them by the DNC, Iowa and New Hampshire are more than likely, and barring something unforeseen and hugely unprecedented, going to end up in some time in January next year. 

...

On this date...

...in 1972, George McGovern bested his competition in precinct caucuses in a pair of Mountain West states, Colorado and Utah..

...in 1984, Colorado Sen. Gary Hart swept the Nebraska and Oregon primaries, extending his dominance in states west of the Mississippi River to that point in the race.

...in 2012, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney handily won late-season primaries in Nebraska and Oregon, increasing his delegate advantage and inching closer to an overall majority in the count.

--

Recent posts:

Sunday Series: An Update on 2024 Presidential Primary Movement

[From FHQ Plus] About the California Republican Party Delegate Rules for 2024

Endorsements, Non-Endorsements, Unendorsements and Pre-Endorsements

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Post or subscribe by Email.

See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies. 

Sunday Series: An Update on 2024 Presidential Primary Movement

Back in March, FHQ had an initial glimpse at early legislation to move, establish or eliminate state-run presidential primary elections for the 2024 cycle. And the picture then was one of a fairly sleepy cycle for movers and shakers on the 2024 presidential primary calendar. In the two months since, things have changed, but the story has basically stayed the same. 

First of all, 2023 looks a lot like the other years immediately prior to a presidential election year during the 21st century. That is the year -- the legislative session -- in the cycle that sees the most activity. To most state legislators, there is more, or has proven to be more, urgency to establish and/or position state-run (and funded) contests at that point than at any other time. It is on their radars. 

The 2023 legislative session has not strayed from that trend, but two months further on into it, the activity has not necessarily remained sleepy. In fact, there are now more bills that have been introduced in state legislatures across the country to schedule or reschedule presidential primaries for 2024 than there were in all of 2019 ahead of the competitive Democratic presidential nomination race. Part of the reason for that is partisan. Despite Democratic gains in state legislatures in the 2018 midterm cycle, Republicans continued to control the bulk of state legislatures in 2019. Presidential primary positioning may have been on the minds of Republican majorities in state legislatures, but it was not the priority to them that it would have been to Democratic legislators. 

However, even with fewer bills introduced overall, 2019 saw a higher success rate -- primary scheduling bills signed into law -- than the 2023 session has seen to this point. Yes, more and more state legislatures are adjourning their regular sessions for the year, but 2023 is still young. Primary bills have passed and been signed into law in four states as of mid-May: Idaho, Kansas, Maryland and Michigan. But there are more in the pipeline that look poised to pass (Connecticut, Rhode Island) and others where legislation is likely to eventually move (Pennsylvania) or be introduced in the first place (New Jersey, New York).

And that particular subset of states -- those in the northeast and mid-Atlantic -- are all signaling (or potentially signaling) an alignment that will have some impact on the overall calendar. Most of those states have in recent cycles occupied spots on the calendar in late April. Yet, with Passover falling in that window in 2024, legislators in some of those states are looking at a point a little earlier in the calendar: April 2. If Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island all join Wisconsin on that first Tuesday in April, then it will likely serve as the backside bookend of the delegate sweet spot on the calendar. All at once, the winner-take-all window will open in the Republican process on March 19 and the number of delegates allocated will hit 50 percent and then 75 percent in quick succession by April 2.¹ And that would trigger the 50-75 rule that has so often been a guide to when Republican nomination races of the recent past have signaled the presumptive nominee. 

But all of that depends to some degree on what happens in that group of northeastern/mid-Atlantic states. Legislators actually have to do the hard work of legislating. And as both Idaho and Missouri have proven already in 2023, that endeavor is easier said than done. Regular sessions have ended in both states and neither has a state-run presidential primary option for 2024. Idaho eliminated their stand-alone March presidential primary and Missouri failed to reestablish their own. Yet, the door is not completely closed on either state. Revived pushes for a presidential primary option may come up in special sessions should they be called. That not only raises the possibility of primaries coming back, but also more bills to be added to the mix above both in terms of the overall number of primary bills and the success rate as well. 

Finally, note that none of the bills discussed or hinted at thus far are in any way threatening the beginning of the calendar. That is significant. Yes, that Michigan bill that was signed into law shifted the presidential primary in the Great Lakes state into the early window in the Democratic process, but that will have limited impact on how the beginning of the 2024 presidential primary calendar shakes out during the rest of 2023. Iowa Democrats appear to have found a way out of the penalties trap and New Hampshire continues to indicate its intention to go rogue, but how far into January Iowa Republicans and New Hampshire end up depends on what Nevada Republicans opt to do (and to a lesser extent how South Carolina Republicans react to that).

Many wondered aloud whether the Democratic National Committee decision to shuffle the primary calendar would set off a rush to the beginning of the calendar like in 2008. It has not. However, that decision has increased the level of uncertainty about the early part of the calendar. But the South Carolina Democratic primary being scheduled on February 3 means that there is a pretty narrow range of possibilities for the remaining undecided early states on the Republican side of the ledger. The big thing about the early calendar to internalize at this point is that neither Iowa nor New Hampshire are scheduled for early February. They never have been and will not be from the look of things at this point in 2023.

--

¹ A reminder: Just because the Republican winner-take-all window opens on March 15 does not mean that every state after that point will use winner-take-all rules. It just means that they all will have that option. 

--

Recent posts:

[From FHQ Plus] About the California Republican Party Delegate Rules for 2024

Endorsements, Non-Endorsements, Unendorsements and Pre-Endorsements

A reminder about Iowa Republican Delegate Allocation

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Post or subscribe by Email.

See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies. 

[From FHQ Plus] About the California Republican Party Delegate Rules for 2024

The following is a cross-posted excerpt from FHQ Plus, FHQ's new subscription service. Come check the rest out and consider a paid subscription to unlock the full site and support our work. 

--

From Evening Digest 5/11/23:

Seema Mehta at the LA Times had a nice piece up today on Republican delegate allocation in California for 2024. The premise was that the winner-take-all by congressional district rules would grant greater voice to the small number of Republican voters in large urban areas compared to the more conservative areas of the state.

And sure, under the Republican National Committee (RNC) delegate apportionment scheme every congressional district — red, blue or purple — counts the same: three delegates each. As Mehta put it:

It doesn’t matter if it’s former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco-based district, home to 29,150 registered Republicans, … or current House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s district centered in Bakersfield, where 205,738 GOP voters live.

Mathematically speaking, it makes some strategic sense for campaigns to chase the districts with the smaller number of partisans. Very simply, the return on investment is greater. And there was some evidence of this in the 2016 race as FHQ noted in Invisible Primary: Visible earlier this year. 

But here is the thing: California will have a Super Tuesday primary next year. And that March 5 date is prior to March 15 when the winner-take-all prohibition under RNC rules ends. As a result, California Republicans utilizing a winner-take-all by congressional district delegate allocation method before March 15 would be in violation of those national party rules and cost the party half of their 169 delegates under Rule 17(a). 

How did it come to this? Is the California Republican Party deliberately flaunting RNC rules? It does not really look that way. 

To start, the baseline set of national convention delegate allocation rules is a winner-take-all by congressional district method. That has not changed in recent years. What did change in 2019 was that the party adopted a set of allocation rules that were more proportional for 2020 and complied with RNC rules for that cycle. But they sunset in 2021.1 That means that the baseline winner-take-all by congressional district rules are the rules for 2024. 

…for now.

But that will likely change and FHQ bases that on a couple of factors. First, nothing dealing with national convention delegates was even on the March state convention agenda with respect to bylaws changes. Of course, nothing had to be. There is a baseline set of allocation rules in place already that snapped back into action once the 2020 rules expired. 

Second, however, this is setting up just like 2019 when California Republicans faced the same dilemma heading into September ahead of their fall state convention that year. Staring down the prospect of RNC penalties if the party did not change the winner-take-most rules, California Republicans at the late September 2019 state convention adopted the proportional allocation scheme that sunset in 2021, a more proportional set of rules. 

And California Republicans have a September 2023 state convention lined up right before the RNC deadline to submit rules for the 2024 cycle to the national party on or before October 1. 

The question that emerges from this is why did the 2020 California allocation rules have to expire at all? It makes sense from the state party’s perspective to sunset the proportional rules if there is even an outside shot that the RNC would change its requirement for proportional rules during the early part of the calendar. But the RNC held steady and mostly carried over the same 2020 rules to the 2024 cycle when it finalized the rules package in April 2022. There is no evidence that the national party has subsequently made any additional changes (and could not after September 30, 2022 anyway under the restrictions on further rule amendments in Rule 12).

Look, San Francisco Republicans may dream of a bigger voice in 2024, but they are unlikely to get it if the state party wants to have its full voice at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in summer 2024.

--

Recent posts:

Endorsements, Non-Endorsements, Unendorsements and Pre-Endorsements

A reminder about Iowa Republican Delegate Allocation

The National Parties and the Sanctioning of Presidential Primary Debates

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Post or subscribe by Email.

See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies. 

Endorsements, Non-Endorsements, Unendorsements and Pre-Endorsements

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• California Republicans have a problem with their allocation rules (and it may cost them delegates next year), Missouri legislators snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on the presidential primary bill in the Show-Me state and more. All the details at FHQ Plus.

If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.

In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

...

For an established politician, Donald Trump is almost uniquely adept at having it both ways. No, not on everything, but as a rare defeated former president to return for a third try at a nomination in the post-reform era, it would be easy, if not natural, to assume such a candidate would be considered "the establishment." And in many ways the former president is just that, the establishment. After all, at the moment he has a commanding lead in the current 2024 polling, does not lack for resources and has so far lapped the field in endorsements, both in quantity and quality. 

Still, this is not 2019 when the Republican Party was in lockstep behind the president as he set out to defend the White House. Republicans responding to surveys are looking around at and supporting alternatives and big money donors within the Republican Party network are doing the same. And while Trump has high-profile endorsements, elites and elected officials are not all with the president. So, on the one hand, Trump can both demonstrate that he is the establishment of a sort, but also that there are potential cracks in the armor, that this is not 2019. He can lay claim to endorsements from, for example, one fifth of the Republican caucus in the Senate, but that also means that the remaining 80 percent are not yet on board. 

And that is an important distinction at this point in the 2024 invisible primary. Trump can suggest that he is the establishment -- that he is inevitable -- but at the same time run against a party that is not behind him in the same way that it was in 2019-20. That is a valuable mixed signal to be able to send to Republican primary voters and it has an impact on those elites and elected officials who are not yet aligned with the former president (or anyone else). 

The result is this melange of endorsements, non-endorsements, unendorsements and pre-endorsements. Trump's endorsements are clear enough. But Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) became an early unendorsement of the former president on Thursday, May 11. Young did not jump to one of the Trump alternatives. Instead, he just made clear he was not behind Trump for 2024. And Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SC) hinted at reservoir of support in the Senate for Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC). No, it was not a pre-endorsement, per se, but that story also is not new. Rounds was very careful with his wording, saying that "[a] lot of us that are holding back on looking at anybody else until Tim makes up his mind." But it was suggestive of a potential change when and if the junior South Carolina senator enters the race. 

However, that says a lot. The careful wording, the praise but non-endorsement. Trump may have the bulk of the high-profile endorsements at this time, but he does not have all of them. Most are still sitting on the sidelines. And the question moving forward is whether they stay that way. Given Trump's current position in the race and standing as a former president, 2024 is less likely to be a situation like 2016 when a number of Republican elites did not throw their support behind any candidate until after the primaries or caucuses in their states. The pressures and incentives will be different. Trump can make the inevitability case, but can also publicly other those who may dissent by opting for other candidates. And as long as it stays like that, Trump can straddle the line, boasting to be an establishment of his own while simultaneously running against the "other" Republican establishment who opposes him. 

But how long can that persist? Just as the burgeoning field of 2024 candidates could not be frozen forever, neither likely can endorsements, well, non-endorsements. 

...

Elsewhere in the endorsement primary. Ahead of his trip to first-in-the-nation Iowa this weekend (travel primary), Florida Governor Ron DeSantis reeled in a pair of important state legislative endorsements from the Hawkeye state. Both Senate President Amy Sinclair and Iowa House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl threw their support behind the nascent DeSantis presidential effort. 

...

And in the staff primary. Bloomberg's Christian Hall has the latest on Tim Scott's efforts: 

The Republican senator from South Carolina has tapped Targeted Victory, a consultancy, to aid the campaign’s fundraising, and brought on board three advisers: Jon Downs, Trent Wisecup and Annie Kelly Kuhle from FP1 Strategies. That firm will serve as the campaign’s political advertising firm, the person familiar said.

...

On this date...

...in 1988, President Ronald Reagan endorsed Vice President George H.W. Bush for president a few weeks after Bush had secured enough delegates to clinch the nomination (and when it was apparent that all other candidates were out).

...in 1992, President Bush and Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton handily won primaries in Nebraska and West Virginia.

...in 2020, former Vice President Joe Biden won the Nebraska primary on his way to the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

--

Recent posts:

A reminder about Iowa Republican Delegate Allocation

The National Parties and the Sanctioning of Presidential Primary Debates

The Early Primary Calendar Gauntlet in 2024

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Post or subscribe by Email.

See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies. 

A reminder about Iowa Republican Delegate Allocation

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• Missouri's presidential primary comeback remains in limbo and Pennsylvania could be a primary calendar wildcard deep into 2023. All the details at FHQ Plus.

If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.

In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

...

FHQ is not going to make much of poll of potential Republican caucus-goers in Iowa eight months away from the lead off caucuses. But I will do that thing that I do as a reminder. Trump's 54 percent to 24 percent advantage over DeSantis in the poll would net him just more than half of the delegates available in the Hawkeye state in 2024. Trump hypothetically pulling more than half of the support of those caucusing would not trip a winner-take-all trigger in a state that is strictly proportional with no official qualifying threshold to win delegates. 

But recall that under current Republican Party of Iowa rules, those delegates are only proportionally allocated during primary season. If there is only one name placed in nomination at the national convention in Milwaukee next year, then all of the delegates from Iowa will be bound to that candidate on the first ballot. That caveat makes the Iowa delegate allocation -- or the binding of those delegates, really -- akin to the National Popular Vote plan that would award a state's electoral college votes in the presidential election to the national winner rather than the state winner. But again, that is only if there is just one name placed in nomination for the roll call vote as has become the custom. If there is a break in that trend, and more than one candidate makes the ballot, then the proportional allocation from primary season would carry over to the roll call vote. 

File that one away for later.

...

Harry Enten puts Trump's advantages at the moment into perspective:

There are very few candidates, of either party, in nonincumbent races who were near or north of 50% in the national primary polls this early on. Those included Republicans Bob Dole in 1996 and George W. Bush in 2000, and Democrats Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. All of those candidates won their party’s nominations, and none of those races were particularly close.

The interesting extension of that is what an early prohibitive favorite for a nomination does to the resulting field of candidates. Bush, Clinton and Gore all avoided a great number of opponents, viable or otherwise. Dole may have held an early lead in 1995 but that Republican nomination race drew more than a few candidates into the competition who had the conventional characteristics of successful nominees even if they did not ultimately take off (Phil Gramm or Lamar Alexander, for example). 

But as with many other things, Trump is unique. The former president's legal wranglings create just enough doubt about 2024 as to lure some folks that might otherwise pass on a run against an internally (intra-party) popular former president into the race. Just yesterday I drew a parallel between the size of the 2016 Democratic field and that of the emerging 2024 Republican field. And while there is some truth to that, it will likely not be a field that is quite as small as the 2016 Democratic group or without conventionally qualified competition. The 2024 Republican presidential nomination race is likely to feature a field of candidates that is smaller than the 2016 Republican race, but with more concentrated quality (a former vice president, a former governor/UN ambassador, a well-funded senator and a popular governor and rival from the same state as Trump) than existed on the list of 1996 Republican aspirants. 

...

Quick hits:

• In the travel primary, yes, Trump and DeSantis will both be in Iowa this weekend, but travel to the Hawkeye state is intensifying in frequency. 
• Illinois is not the general election battleground that Wisconsin is, but it will be another example of a delegate-rich state positioned deeper in the primary calendar that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is visiting in the coming days. [And bear in mind that the Prairie state is one of those where delegates are directly elected on the primary ballot. Winning there in the delegate game requires a particular brand of know-how, if not direct experience.]
• DeSantis is not the only prospective candidate visiting states beyond the early ones on the calendar. Former Vice President Mike Pence was in Ohio earlier this week. And what was late last month a presidential announcement to come "well before late June" is now just "before the month of June is out" for Pence. So June for an official announcement. [But Pence has been running for 2024 for some time.]

...

On this date...

...in 1976, as a marker of how different the early cycles of the post-reform era were, contests remained competitive in both parties nomination races. President Gerald Ford and former California Governor Ronald Reagan split primaries in Nebraska and West Virginia. Reagan took the former, the only seriously contested primary of the day. On the Democratic side, former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter narrowly won caucuses in Connecticut, but lost to Idaho Senator Frank Church in Nebraska and to favorite son, Senator Robert Byrd in West Virginia. 

...in 2004, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry swept the primaries in Nebraska and West Virginia. 

...in 2011, former Speaker Newt Gingrich officially joined the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

--

Recent posts:

The National Parties and the Sanctioning of Presidential Primary Debates

The Early Primary Calendar Gauntlet in 2024

The Lessons of the 2016 Republican Presidential Nomination Process, Redux

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Post or subscribe by Email.

See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies. 

The National Parties and the Sanctioning of Presidential Primary Debates

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• Efforts are under way during the final week of the 2023 General Assembly to resurrect the presidential primary in Missouri for 2024. All the details at FHQ Plus.

If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.

In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

...

It was not necessarily hidden yesterday, but the news that the Republican National Committee (RNC) was floating tentative debate criteria for the first presidential debate this coming August quickly got shunted to the side in the wake of civil trial decisions and upcoming New Hampshire town halls. But the basic outlines of a debate qualifications regime from the RNC offered a glimpse into the continually evolving role the national parties play and have played in sanctioning primary debates over the last several cycles. 

After all, it was not that long ago that debates had already started at this point in earlier cycles. Democrats debated during the first week in May in 2003. Republicans did the same in 2007 and also held a debate with a truncated group of candidates during the first week in May 2011. However, it was that cycle, the 2012 cycle, that served as the straw that broke the camel's back. In all, there were 20 Republican presidential primary debates that cycle, highlighted by two debates from New Hampshire on successive days in January 2012 before the primary in the Granite state. There were a lot of debates and both during and after the general election of 2012, the sense was that all of that exposure had not necessarily helped the party's cause. That sentiment was borne out in the party's Growth and Opportunity Project report -- the so-called Autopsy. It cited the need for national party oversight of the debates process; that state parties, competing with one another for candidate attention, were partnering with media outlets to schedule debates. In turn, that led to a proliferation of the forums.  

The result was that the RNC empaneled a standing committee devoted to the sanctioning of presidential primary debates for the 2016 cycle. And that committee cut down on the number of sanctioned debates, prohibited candidates from participating in any unsanctioned debates and further scrutinized media partners for those debates. But because so many candidates threw their hats in the ring in 2015, the standing committee that cycle also had to wrestle with the various formats to present all of those candidates. The size of the field demanded some qualifications but also balancing that against the need to at the very least appear inclusive to any and all candidates with demonstrated support in public opinion polls. The initial solution was to hold two debates, a main event for candidates with 3 percent or more support in polls and an undercard for those under that threshold. 

Fast forward to the 2020 cycle and it was the Democratic Party that was faced with similar issues. Like Republicans four years earlier, the Democratic National Committee (DNC)  had a wide open nomination race that attracted a slew of candidates. And like their Republican counterparts, the party was coming off a general election defeat in the previous and dealing with complaints about the debate process during the primaries that cycle. While the Democratic nomination race was open in 2016, there was a prohibitive favorite and the incentives to develop a structure similar to what the RNC had devised were not as apparent. However, seeking to avoid a repeat in 2020, the DNC adopted a debates qualifying strategy similar to but modified from the 2016 RNC process. 

The innovation the DNC added for the 2020 cycle was to tweak the qualifications. Not only did the party initially set a polling threshold that candidates had to hit (an average of at least one percent in DNC-approved surveys), but to further, or more clearly, demonstrate widespread support, candidates also had to have at least 65,000 individual donors across at least 20 states (minimum 200 donors from each). However, the supply of candidates, even at those thresholds, was still sufficiently large enough to force two debates. Yet, rather than an undercard and a main event series of debates on the same night, the DNC instead split the debates across two nights and randomly selected participants from the entire qualified pool. 

Just as was the case for Republicans in 2016, the Democratic Party in 2019-20 had to devise a system aimed at a moving target. In both cases, the parties felt compelled to set minimum qualifying standards for debates, but did not want to set them so high as to prevent candidates with some support (and some likelihood of catching on with the voting public in the future) from participating. For better or worse, everyone having a shot in the process is a notion that both parties have nurtured throughout the post-reform era. And that dovetails nicely with primary scheduling as well. Both parties like what the Growth and Opportunity Project report in 2013 called the "on-ramp" to the heart of primary season (basically a lead up to Super Tuesday). The idea of the little guy being able to compete in and do the sort of grassroots-building retail politics in small states that can potentially lead to primary wins (and maybe the nomination) is an ideal that is part of the fabric of the process in both parties. 

Moreover, it is also something that is layered into the proposed RNC debate qualification rules for 2024 that are now making the rounds. Initially, those levels would be set quite low, just one percent support in polls and 40,000 unique donors. Left unanswered at this stage is whether the RNC, like the DNC in 2019-20, will approve the polls that determine qualification or if a candidate's donor base has to be dispersed across a set minimum of states. It also goes without saying that those barriers to debate entry are lower than what the DNC utilized just four years ago. 

And there is a reason for that. The field is different. In many ways the 2024 Republican field is akin to the 2016 Democratic field in that there is a clear frontrunner -- a former president, no less -- who has had some impact on the number of prospective candidates willing to enter. Now, clearly the field looks poised to grow in the coming weeks, so there will likely be supply for a robust debate, but perhaps not enough to require a second debate (on the same or subsequent night). Very simply, Trump is gobbling up too large a share of support (at this point) for the number of qualifying candidates to create a need for a second debate, undercard or otherwise.

But that is the moving target with which the national parties have to contend. They not only have to balance the need to be inclusive to candidates with some measure of support, but they also weigh thresholds that to create a robust debate without opening up the floodgates. Yet, this is a role the national parties have taken on in recent cycles when it took on the responsibility of sanctioning presidential primary debates in the first place. But first thing first, the RNC has to formalize the debate qualifications for 2024.

...

DeSantis quick hits: 

• In the endorsement primary, DeSantis picked up another congressional endorsement from Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), someone Never Back Down (the DeSantis-aligned super PAC) founder Ken Cuccinelli called "one of the 'first five' that got us great rules in the House..." Good was in fact one of the McCarthy holdouts in the January speaker election. And as an aside, that group has been fairly active in the endorsement primary. Of the 20 who, on one speaker vote or another, opposed McCarthy, 11 have endorsed in the presidential race. Eight of those are behind Trump with two more counted as DeSantis supporters. Nikki Haley rolled out a Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) endorsement on launch day. 
• Never Back Down also won the support of former Trump adviser, Steve Cortes. Together, the staff primary and endorsement primary continue to offer evidence of an erosion of Trump support, but only to a point. As always, the former president in 2023 is behind the pace he set as an incumbent in 2019 but well ahead of where he was in 2015. 
• In a signal of what may soon be coming in terms of a presidential run, the Florida governor also on Tuesday decoupled from Friends of DeSantis. It is a move that is likely a precursor to freeing up the money in the committee for use in a presidential bid. 

...

Viewed through one lens, it is curious that Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) would call on President Biden to break the DNC rules for 2024 and file to be on the New Hampshire primary ballot even if, as expected, the state goes rogue and holds a primary too early next year. If Khanna is behind the president, as he suggests he is, then why not call on New Hampshire Democrats to come up with an alternative to selecting delegates through a rogue primary? However, viewed through a 2028 lens, the reason may become more apparent. Khanna is not wrong that the Biden-driven calendar rules changes may hurt the president in New Hampshire in the general election, but the question is whether the damage has already been done or if it will take the president not being on the ballot (in a largely uncompetitive race) to fully push enough New Hampshire supporters away. FHQ is dubious. Clearly, Khanna is betting that New Hampshire will be there (early) in 2028, and that is no sure thing. 

...

On this date...

...in 1988, Vice President George H.W. Bush and Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis both handily won the Nebraska and West Virginia primaries.

...in 2016, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders won the West Virginia primary. Trump also won in Nebraska. [Democrats in the Cornhusker state had caucused earlier in the year. Delegates were allocated based on that contest despite there being a beauty contest primary in Nebraska.]

--

Recent posts:

The Early Primary Calendar Gauntlet in 2024

The Lessons of the 2016 Republican Presidential Nomination Process, Redux

Sunday Series: There's no budding feud between Iowa and New Hampshire, but the Democratic parties in each are approaching 2024 differently. Here is how.

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Post or subscribe by Email.

See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies. 

The Early Primary Calendar Gauntlet in 2024

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• A look at the week ahead for presidential primary legislation in state legislatures and why April 2 may be growing in importance on the 2024 presidential primary calendar. All the details at FHQ Plus.

If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.

In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

...

Around here, FHQ often talks about the delegate rules and the count of delegates in each candidate's column as primary season progresses. And while all of that is important to the evolution of the presidential nomination process, it is not the only thing. In many respects, the delegate count is a lagging indicator of a candidate's fortunes, the measure of which may have been written on the wall well before votes are cast or delegate allocation from the results tallied. 

A presidential nomination race can be about reaching a magic number of delegates to make one candidate the presumptive nominee, but often it does not get that point. That is because the presidential nomination process is one of exhausting the opposition. Raising more funds, hiring more and better staff, gathering endorsements. Basically, it means out-organizing the competition in order to outlast them once votes begin to be cast. That is why laying the groundwork during the invisible primary is of such import to the various campaigns. 

And those efforts ultimately split the campaigns into three basic groups:

1. those who do not make it to an event
2. those who make it to
3. those who make it through

FHQ's insistence on talking about candidates running for 2024, but not necessarily running in 2024 has always hinted at the distinction between the first two categories. There will some candidates who drop out of the race before Iowa's Republican caucuses early next year. Others will make it to Iowa but not necessarily through Iowa. And a smaller subset will press (or be able to press) on past Iowa to New Hampshire. Then the cycle repeats again as New Hampshire transitions to South Carolina and so on. 

And along the way the pressure mounts for surviving candidates to, and this borrows a phrase recently uttered, put up or shut up. In other words, candidates constantly have to make the case that they continue to belong in the race. Winning helps make that case. Having the resources, staff and organization also does not hurt in insulating (to a point) a candidate against calls to withdraw. And it is also true that any candidate can make it to an event, but they may have been effectively winnowed out of viability (think John Kasich from 2016) or were never particularly viable in the first place (think Ron Paul in 2012).

At this stage of the invisible primary it is not exactly easy to assess where candidates will be eight months from now, how they will be positioned relative to one another as Iowa's caucuses are conducted. But there are signals.

Candidates set up to make it through Super Tuesday:

Donald Trump: The former president is the current frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and is arguably better-positioned now than he was in 2015-16, when he won the party's last competitive nomination race. He has a more seasoned staff and organization, a better understanding of the process and is not lacking for resources. Any uncertainty about Trump's prospects comes not from those measures but from the legal troubles in which he currently finds himself ensnared. 

Ron DeSantis: Say what one will about the flagging support the Florida governor has found in opinion polls in recent weeks, but Team DeSantis -- the governor and aligned super PAC -- has the resources and is building (or projecting that it is) a campaign organization that stretches deeply into the primary calendar. The AP is reporting just today about Never Back Down's hiring in states through Super Tuesday. And the governor has strategically dropped in for events in states that fall beyond the proportionality window on the calendar and approaching April. Of course, building for something and actually getting there are two separate things, but DeSantis is in a better position to argue during primary season that he should remain in the race even if the wins are not immediately there. 

Candidates set up to make it to...

Well, this is everyone else at the moment. That is the nature of the build out for most candidates at this point in the invisible primary. Some are newly in the race. Others have yet to join. But the jury is still out on whether any of them will be able to make it to [fill-in-the-blank] event. The first debate? The end of the year? Iowa? Beyond? These are the candidates about which one can mostly likely say they are running for 2024, but may not be running in 2024.

Anyway, this will evolve as the invisible primary does, but FHQ will revisit this categorization as it does and as primary season itself progresses.

...

The Palmetto state candidates: The Washington Examiner has a nice review of where Nikki Haley's money is coming from in the money primary. And on the travel primary side, Tim Scott did not get rave reviews in New Hampshire after a town hall there yesterday. "Low key, low energy" is not the description anyone wants. 

...

Rules season: The North Carolina Republican Party is bringing in DeSantis, Pence and Trump for its state convention in Greensboro next month. Yes, the Tar Heel State will have a Super Tuesday primary (and borders another early state, South Carolina), but this is the setting in which the delegate rules for the coming cycle have been adopted by North Carolina Republicans in years past. I know. I know. Just saying. 

...

On this date...

...in 1972, former Vice President Hubert Humphrey won the West Virginia primary as Sen. George McGovern was winning the presidential primary in Nebraska.

...in 2000, Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush both swept the Nebraska and West Virginia primaries.

--

Recent posts:

The Lessons of the 2016 Republican Presidential Nomination Process, Redux

Sunday Series: There's no budding feud between Iowa and New Hampshire, but the Democratic parties in each are approaching 2024 differently. Here is how.

[From FHQ Plus] A Curious Decision on the Georgia Presidential Primary

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Post or subscribe by Email.

See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies. 

The Lessons of the 2016 Republican Presidential Nomination Process, Redux

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• An update on some maintenance to the 2024 presidential primary calendar, primary-related legislation is moving in New Hampshire and Rhode Island and delegate selection plans keep trickling in on the Democratic side. All the details at FHQ Plus.

If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.

In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

...

There are a couple of inter-related themes that FHQ has revisited in this space with respect to the 2024 invisible primary. One is attempting to assess where former President Trump is (in 2023) on a scale of Trump 2015 to Trump 2019. In other words, across an array of measures -- fundraising, endorsements, organization, etc. -- is the former president closer to where he was in 2015 as a first-time candidate or 2019, when he carried the advantages of incumbency and the Republican Party infrastructure behind him? 

The other theme focuses on lessons various actors involved in the Republican presidential nomination process have learned from and since the last competitive nomination cycle in 2016. One such lesson Team Trump has taken to heart is to not take the delegate selection portion of the process for granted. While they may have been out-hustled on that front in 2016, the Trump campaign of 2019-20 designed a set of rules at the national level and pushed for changes on the state level that would ward off challengers, yes, but maximize the number of delegates the president would win in the process on his way to claiming a second nomination as well. 

Fast forward four years and Trump no longer enjoys the trappings of the office of the presidency nor the direct backing of the Republican National Committee. But the lessons of 2016 have not been forgotten. Team Trump is using a network of connections forged during his time in the White House to potentially influence the state-level delegate selection rules for 2024 if not some of the future Republican delegates in 2024. Politico's Alex Isenstadt updated his March story with further details of Team Trump's outreach to state party leaders. And it is clear that, despite doubt about Trump's delegate rules acumen in opposing campaign networks, the former president is mindful of the shortcomings of the 2016 operation and tending to the relevant state-level players to avoid a repeat in 2024.

Isenstadt leads with the recent effort to woo Republicans from Louisiana. And that is an interesting test case. Yes, the Cruz campaign lapped Trump in delegate selection in the Pelican state after Trump won the primary there. But that was not unusual in 2016. The Cruz campaign was adept at exploiting the intricacies of the delegate rules to their advantage where available. However, the Trump reelection effort in 2019-20 cleaned up much of that. Louisiana Republicans, for example, greatly streamlined their process from 2016 for 2020. A later primary date in the 2020 cycle allowed the state party to use truly winner-take-all rules to allocate and bind all of the state's delegates to the winner of the primary. 

Now, there is a delegate rule story (or many more) in every state, but this Louisiana example is instructive. Team Trump likely wants the party to utilize rules that more closely resemble the 2020 rules with respect to allocation and binding rather than those of the 2016 plan. And they are doing that outreach not only to Louisiana Republicans but Republicans in state parties across the country. Importantly, according to Isestadt's reporting, all signs point toward the president not only having a head start in these efforts but that his campaign is the only one wooing state party actors at this time.

Together, all of this is important and worthy of continued tracking. Trump wants to maintain for 2024 as much of the baseline rules from 2020 as possible. 

...

Team Trump is not the only one working those who will make decisions on the rules that will govern the 2024 Republican presidential nomination process on the state level. Vivek Ramaswamy was in Michigan this past weekend and he made the case for Michigan Republicans to conduct a primary next year rather than caucuses. Yeah, the state party will need a waiver from the RNC no matter what they decide.

...

FHQ has raised Trump's standing with evangelicals in response to a number of stories that emphasize each side of a divide with his falling support among the group on one side to his continued good standing there on the other. Seth Masket has a good one that mostly falls into that latter category, casting Trump's relationship with white evangelicals as transactional and that, because Trump delivered for them during his time in the White House, he remains in good shape with that particular demographic. Good piece.

...

On this date...

...in 1984, former Vice President Walter Mondale won the Maryland and North Carolina primaries while Sen. Gary Hart's narrow victories in Indiana and Ohio kept his campaign alive for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination.

...in 1987, Gary Hart dropped out of the 1988 Democratic presidential race (for the first time that cycle) after reports of an extramarital affair surfaced.

...in 2012, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was three for three against nominal competition in the Indiana, North Carolina and West Virginia primaries as he closed in on securing the delegates necessary to claim the Republican nomination.

--

Recent posts:

Sunday Series: There's no budding feud between Iowa and New Hampshire, but the Democratic parties in each are approaching 2024 differently. Here is how.

[From FHQ Plus] A Curious Decision on the Georgia Presidential Primary

Checking in on 2024 Republican Delegate Math

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Post or subscribe by Email.

See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies.