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...
- FHQ has spent most of the week at Plus on state-level Republican delegate selection rules coming into clearer view. But there are a number of other things that have happened on the calendar and rules fronts throughout the week. All the details at FHQ Plus.
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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
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Coming on the week of a second indictment of Donald Trump, there continues to be a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Now, whether it is a lagging indicator of things -- or is accurately depicting any of that uncertainty -- the polling of the contest paints a clear enough picture: Trump is ahead and his lead has even increased in some state and national polls in recent days. [There is also an argument that the former president's position has been fairly stable since mid-May.] But Trump hovering in a range from 47-53 percent, as he has done since April in the national polls, is pretty immaterial when considered through the lens of the ultimately currency of the nomination process: delegates. Trump hitting anywhere in that range is going to help him rack up a lot, if not all, of delegates in primaries and caucuses next year.
And while nothing is set in stone at this point -- the first votes will not even be cast for another 7-ish months -- the Trump number is potentially less significant than those of his opponents for the nomination. That is because, as of now, few others are actually in range of actually qualifying for any delegates. Most of the announced candidates are mired in the single digits. But even Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump's main competition and the next closest in the polls, is flirting with the median qualifying threshold in states on or before Super Tuesday on March 5.
In fact, DeSantis hovers just over that point -- 20 percent -- in the averages at both FiveThirtyEight and Real Clear Politics. Fall below that point in the actual voting and that means no or very few delegates (depending on how the allocation rules are set up) in ten of the 20 states that are likely to hold contests on or before Super Tuesday. And among those ten are delegate-rich states like California, North Carolina and Texas, among others.
Again, it is early. Things are apt to change in a dynamic nomination process with some measure of uncertainty. But it is worth noting that most of the non-Trumps are well below qualifying for delegates in most early states and the one closest to qualifying besides the former president is dangerous close to being on the outside looking in as well. That is a potentially big deal if the trend persists.
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FHQ linked yesterday to the NBC story about DeSantis heading out to early state, Nevada, this weekend. But there were a couple of other items in there worth addressing. I will deal with one one here and the other later. The first...
"The Republican National Committee has not yet finalized its primary calendar, but Nevada state law now calls for the state's primary to be held on Feb. 6. That would likely place it just behind Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina among the early states that can boost (or sink) candidates' momentum in the race for the presidential nomination."
Forget all of the positioning among the early states for a moment. Yes, that is uncertain. But that first line is wrong and is typical of the misunderstanding about how the rules and the primary calendar come together each cycle. The RNC has finalized its primary calendar. It did so in April 2022 when it again set Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada as the early states on the 2024 calendar.
That order is implied, but obviously it may not end up that way for a variety of reasons. But the point here is less the order than the sequence in the rules-making process. The RNC has done its work. It adopted in April 2022 the rules that will govern the 2024 nomination process. It is the states and state parties that are now active as they always are in the year before the presidential race commences. It is those state-level actors who have not yet finalized the calendar for the Republican (or the Democratic one, for that matter) process yet.
Yeah, I get it. This is splitting hairs. But again, the RNC has done its work on the calendar. All the national party can do now is react to any misbehaving the states and state parties do relative to those set guidelines. The ball is in the states' court.
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From around the invisible primary...
In the travel primary both Nikki Haley and Tim Scott will be back home in the Palmetto state next week for town halls on consecutive days. Haley holds one in the Lowcountry on Monday, June 19 and Scott has his with Sean Hannity from Myrtle Beach in the Pee Dee region on Tuesday, June 20.
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On this date...
...in 1999, Vice President Al Gore officially entered the race for the 2000 Democratic nomination.
...in 2015, Donald Trump came down the escalator and announced a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
...in 2016, just after the conclusion of primary season, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders addressed his supporters via video, saying that Democrats' top priority is defeating Donald Trump in the general election. Sanders did not concede the race to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, nor did he endorse her for the nomination.
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