Friday, August 23, 2024

State of the Race: New Mexico -- Still leaning but trending which way?

State of the Race offers quick hit reactions to state or national poll releases in the 2024 race for the White House. For a broader overview of the battle for electoral college votes, check out FHQ Plus in the coming days. It will be where the 2024 FHQ electoral college projection resides.


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Note that in the first few iterations of this State of the Race series that FHQ has not exactly run to where the action is: the seven battlegrounds on which the Harris and Trump campaigns are focusing the majority of their efforts. As in the national polls, the most competitive states have seen a shift in the Democrats' direction since President Biden stepped back from the race in late July. 

However, our sights have initially been set on states that had formerly looked newly competitive after the June 27 debate or the ones that might become more competitive in the event that the pendulum swung back further in the other direction since Vice President Harris was elevated to Democratic nominee. Early evidence out of Virginia -- one of New Mexico's peer states in 2020 -- is that the newly constituted Harris-Trump race may be closer than was the case four years ago. In other words, the Old Dominion has not exactly snapped back into a position in the polling that one might expect given a post-exit uniform swing across the country. On the other hand, Texas did, coming in more in line with where the Lone Star state ended up on election day in 2020. 

Of the two, New Mexico -- at least in this latest look at the Harris-Trump race -- more closely resembles Texas. The Emerson survey of the Land of Enchantment for The Hill -- 51-40, Harris -- finds the vice president behind where Biden wound up four years ago: just above 50 percent (in the results to the multi-candidate question). Meanwhile, Trump also lags the pace he set in 2020 (44 percent) by about the same margin. [Neither are big enough departures from the 2020 results to be considered outside of the margin of error really.]

But there are a couple of broader points to make in the context of this New Mexico survey. First, sure, this is more evidence of a regression to the mean since Harris entered the race. And the thing is that the polling was actually pretty good in New Mexico four years ago. It undershot both candidates by about the same amount and more or less projected the final margin on election day. Additionally, it is noteworthy that Harris and Trump are already in range of where Biden and Trump were in the state at the end in 2020. But second, one should exercise some caution in drawing too many strong parallels in any state to the 2020 race -- at least at this point in 2024. At this juncture, the connection is something that could be considered more coincidental or the mark of a race in a state that has not just not changed that much. 

It is, however, important to kind of get our bearings here in 2024; to establish that in the case of New Mexico, things look like a steady state. 

...pending more data.

For now, news that New Mexico is flirting with pushing into the Strong Harris category is all one really needs to know about whether the state may be drawn into a more competitive position.


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Thursday, August 22, 2024

State of the Race: Texas -- A repeat of 2020?

State of the Race offers quick hit reactions to state or national poll releases in the 2024 race for the White House. For a broader overview of the battle for electoral college votes, check out FHQ Plus in the coming days. It will be where the 2024 FHQ electoral college projection resides.


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Texas was one of those states that looked closer in the averages than it ended up being on election day in 2020. Sure, the Lone Star state still tilted in Donald Trump's direction, but as in a number of other states, Biden ultimately settled into a position in the averages that was close to where he landed in the voting while Trump's share was underestimated to some degree.

In Texas, that discrepancy was a little more than four points. And when that was added into the mix in November 2020, it meant a state that looked like it may be a toss up (less than five points) in the projections as election day approached wound up more firmly planted in leaning (five to ten points) territory when the final tally came in. 

So, it was in that context in which FHQ first observed the latest data on the 2024 presidential race in the Lone Star state from the University of Houston/YouGov: Trump -- 49.5, Harris -- 44.6 (multi-candidate question). First, it is worth noting that the outlet previously had a survey in the field in Texas during a late June/early July window that straddled the Biden-Trump debate. While Trump basically held steady between the two, Harris improved upon Biden's position, roughly cutting the Republican's advantage in half. 

That lens is helpful, but at this point in a race that is still settling in following Biden's exit, the context from 2020 is just as important. No, past is not necessarily prelude, but note that 1) the margin in the UH survey is similar to where the 2020 Biden-Trump race ended up in Texas and that 2) both 2024 candidates are in the range of but behind where Biden and Trump found themselves in the state on election day four years ago. 

However, the most important thing, and something FHQ will increasingly discuss as November 5 approaches, is that Donald Trump is more consistently at or above 50 percent in Texas polls now. [Yes, it is still early days in this race and one should use some caution in generalizing from the scant Texas data available at this time.] But that was not a given in 2020. 

Things can change. After all, presidential races have the capacity to be dynamic. Yet, there is a reason the focus is on seven battleground states (not including Texas) and that map expansion from the Democratic perspective is solely focused on North Carolina and not, say, Florida and/or Texas as well. 


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Tuesday, August 20, 2024

State of the Race: Virginia -- Is the presidential contest close in the commonwealth?

State of the Race offers quick hit reactions to state or national poll releases in the 2024 race for the White House. For a broader overview of the battle for electoral college votes, check out FHQ Plus in the coming days. It will be where the 2024 FHQ electoral college projection resides.


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Back in the spring the polls of the presidential race in the Old Dominion showed President Biden ahead of Donald Trump. In and of itself, that was not surprising. After all, the president did win the commonwealth by a hair more than ten points in 2020. But noticeably, Biden's advantage there was smaller than four years ago. 

The June 27 debate had the effect of contracting the margin further. Suddenly, a state that had ceased being purple and was just plan old blue in cycles featuring Trump at the top of the Republican ticket looked more competitive. And in some cases, the polling in Virginia in the aftermath of the Atlanta debate found the former president ahead. 

Virginia, then, looked a lot like a number of other states that have been out of reach for Republicans on the other side of the toss ups in the leans category (a 5-10 point advantage) of late. Only, post-debate, states of that ilk -- Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia among them -- seemed to be within the margin of error. In other words, the balance had shifted in the order of states. Trump was at that time in position to claim all of the battlegrounds and push into more reliably Democratic states, nudging his projected electoral vote total well north of 300.

Yet, now that Kamala Harris is the Democratic nominee, Virginia is one of states where one might expect at least some regression to the mean. That is, with Biden out of the equation, the drag he presented should be expected to abate some. 

However, the first survey of the state after the debate did not follow that expectation. If anything, the latest poll in the series from Roanoke College continues to make Virginia look more competitive. The vice president leads 45-42 based on the results of the multi-candidate question, closer than 2020 and even closer than Clinton-Trump in 2016. 

So, what gives? Is Virginia not snapping back into line like the race seems to be in some similar states or in national polls? A few thoughts:

First, the usual caveat: This is just one poll. It is a snapshot of Harris-Trump in mid-August. 

However, compounding matters is the fact that this is not just one poll. It is the only poll conducted in Virginia since Biden withdrew from the race on July 21. As such, there is not a whole lot out there to compare the numbers to other than a handful of surveys that were in the field in the Old Dominion during the snow globe-shaking period in the presidential race between the first presidential debate and Biden's exit. 

That is why the comparison to other similar states is of importance. Actually, that is the only thing left to tether this to. This Roanoke poll of Virginia seems "off" not because there is no preceding poll in the series -- there is, but it was conducted in May and of the Biden-Trump race -- or other recent polls of the state from other firms. Rather, it seems "off" because it shows Virginia diverging from the polling shift/reversion in those other states -- Minnesota, New Hampshire and New Mexico. The data there all point to races that are roughly in line -- the margins, anyway -- with the results from November 2020. 

The bottom line? 

Wait for more polling from Virginia. This survey may be right on the nose, but it will take some more data to confirm that. 


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Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Uncommitted delegates are not necessarily Listen to Michigan delegates

Leading the day at FHQ...

The Michigan presidential primary is now in the rearview mirror, and while others will move on to the next contests or focus on the perceived threats the results in the Great Lakes state have on both likely nominees, FHQ will do what it does. And namely, that means digging into the delegates. 

For those who are interested in such things, there are a pair of delegate stories out of Michigan -- one on each side -- worth fleshing out some. 

Democrats
The story of the night in Michigan -- well, it seemed like it had already been flagged as the story well in advance of last night -- was how Listen to Michigan's push for Michiganders to vote uncommitted in protest of President Biden's Gaza policy would fare. Lowball estimates from the group and its allies aside, the group did pretty well. And by pretty well, FHQ means that they were probably wildly successful in capturing the attention of media folks and political junkies desperate for something other than "Biden and Trump win again."

Well, Biden and Trump won again and Listen to Michigan certainly grabbed some attention. Some will try to read the tea leaves on what that portends for the general election in a battleground state -- a fool's errand -- but there are other ways of looking at how uncommitted did in the Michigan primary.

Some of this FHQ contextualized yesterday over at FHQ Plus. Uncommitted 2024 did about as well as Uncommitted 2012 would have done had the Michigan Democratic presidential primary actually counted and not been a beauty contest that cycle. And that is to say that Uncommitted 2024 failed to hit 15 percent statewide to qualify for any PLEO or at-large delegates. Despite that, Uncommitted 2024, just like Uncommitted 2012 would have, managed to qualify in a couple of congressional districts. Then, it was the sixth and tenth districts. Last night saw Uncommitted 2024 qualify in the sixth and 12th districts, receiving just north of 17 percent in each. 

And what does that get Uncommitted 2024 in the delegate count? 

Two delegates. 

One delegate in each of those districts. 

[As of this writing, the Michigan secretary of state has all 83 counties reporting, but the tally may not be complete.]

However, just because there are two uncommitted delegates does not mean that those are two Listen to Michigan delegates. Again, they are uncommitted delegate slots. Uncommitted. Any national convention delegate candidate that files as uncommitted in the sixth and 12th districts can run for one of those two slots. It will be the uncommitted delegates to the congressional district conventions in May who will decide who gets those positions. 

Listen to Michigan may organize its supporters in Michigan to run for and win spots to the congressional district conventions -- more on that process here -- but the group does not have a lock on those delegate slots. Nor does it have the ability to vet potential national convention delegates in the same way that an actual candidate and their campaign can. The group will not have that check

In other words, Listen to Michigan is vulnerable to a knowledgable and organized delegate operation, one that could run or overrun the uncommitted delegate pool in those congressional districts and take those uncommitted slots for their own. 

Yes, FHQ is suggesting that the Biden campaign could swoop in and win those uncommitted delegate slots in Michigan's sixth and 12th districts.  

But they likely will not. That would likely end up being far more trouble than it is worth. Why stir up an angry hornets' nest any more than it is already riled up over two delegates? There really is no need to. Had uncommitted fared better last night, reaching, say, a third of the vote, then maybe there could have been a more concerted effort to contest the selection of delegate candidates to those allocated slots. But as it is -- at two delegates -- why attempt that particular flex?


Republicans
FHQ is not really sure what the deal with the AP delegate count in Michigan on the Republican side was, but it had been stuck on Trump 9, Haley 2 for the longest time. The Michigan Republican delegate selection plan is weird, but this is not that hard (even with an incomplete tally at this point).

Here is the number one needs to know: 25 percent.

If Nikki Haley slips under 25 percent in the Michigan primary results then she will claim three (3) delegates. As it stands now, she is over that mark and would be allocated four (4) delegates.

Trump will get the rest regardless of whether his total climbs some or falls. Why? 

Well, as of now, Trump is sitting on 68.2 percent of the vote in the Michigan primary. That would qualify him for 11 delegates. If the former president's total rose above 68.75 percent, then he would grab the last delegate, his would-be twelfth. But he would claim that delegate no matter what. Even if Trump stayed right where he is -- under 68.75 percent -- he would still win the last delegate. It would be unallocated based on the results, but all unallocated delegates go to the winner of the primary


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FHQ has started rolling out the state-by-state series on Democratic delegate allocation rules over at FHQ Plus. So far there have been looks at rules in...
What's the difference between Democratic and Republican delegate selection rules? FHQ Plus has it covered.

Looking for more on delegates and delegate allocation? Continue here at the central hub for Republican delegate allocation rules on the state level at FHQ. That includes the latest from...

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

Monday, February 5, 2024

Trump and Titanic Tuesday 2008

Leading the day at FHQ...

Last night as FHQ was preparing for the week ahead, I looked up and saw that today was going to be February 5. Big deal, right? 

Actually, for those who follow the presidential primary calendar and its many iterations, it is a date with some significance in the post-reform era. February 5, 2008 was Super Tuesday. It was so super -- so chock full of delegates, in fact -- that some took to calling it Titanic Tuesday. Indeed, both parties allocated more than 45 percent of all of their delegates that cycle on that one day! For comparison, neither party will have allocated any more than 41 percent of the their delegates in all the contests through Super Tuesday in 2024 combined

In other words, when folks look up frontloading in the dictionary -- if they are lucky enough to find it -- then they will see a picture of the 2008 map

What is more, the allocation rules were different than they are today. Okay, they were different on the Republican side. Democrats had and continue to have the same standard proportional rules with 15 percent qualifying threshold that they have had in place going back into the 20th century. 
In 2008, the GOP rules were different.

But in a lot of ways the Republican calendar was not only frontloaded but the rules were sort of inverted. There was no prohibition on winner-take-all rules early in the calendar as there is in 2024 (and has been in some form or another since 2012). And it showed. The map was peppered with plurality winner-take-all states in the 2008 Republican process and all of them save one -- Vermont -- were in contests held in or before February that year. And many of the other states on Titanic Tuesday and throughout February 2008 that were not truly winner-take-all had winner-take-all elements. Most of those, including California, were winner-take-all by congressional district.

John McCain rode success in those early states to a gigantic delegate lead that crested above the majority mark, clinching the nomination for him, during the first week in March. 

The interesting thing to me is that for all the talk of the Trump campaign working the state-level delegate rules for 2024 -- and, ahem, Team Trump did the bulk of that work in 2019 -- they would have killed to have had that 2008 calendar with its particular patchwork of delegate rules for 2024. With that combination, we would be talking about Trump clinching today rather sometime during the first three weeks in March. 

Team Trump definitely would have traded for that if they could have. But the RNC carried over the same basic set of guidelines for 2024 that the national party had in place in 2016. Which is to say that there remained a super penalty in place to prevent most states from going earlier than March and another penalty to nix plurality winner-take-all rules in states with contests before March 15. 

Anyway, it is a fun thought experiment. Changing to 2008 rules would probably not change the outcome in 2024, but it certainly would have changed the pace of how nomination season resolved itself. Happy Titanic Tuesday Remembrance Day. 


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Last week a bow was finally tied on the delegate allocation from the New Hampshire Republican primary during the prior week on January 23. Only it was not exactly a nice and neat bow. Instead, as the AP reported it, the New Hampshire secretary of state allocated the one remaining delegate in limbo to Donald Trump, raising his total in the Granite state to 13 delegates. 

How Secretary Scanlan arrived at that was a little, well, weird. And the method used was not consistent with how the secretary's office under previous longtime Secretary Bill Gardner handled the delegate count during the last competitive Republican presidential nomination race in 2016. 



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FHQ has started rolling out the state-by-state series on Democratic delegate allocation rules over at FHQ Plus. So far there have been looks at rules in...
What's the difference between Democratic and Republican delegate selection rules? FHQ Plus has it covered.



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

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Haley's Path Forward ...and more in response to New Hampshire

Nikki Haley's path to the the 2024 Republican presidential nomination may have more obstacles.

Leading the day at FHQ...


...for now. 

A day after an expectations-beating performance in New Hampshire, the former South Carolina governor faces a daunting task ahead in her one-on-one duel with Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. Mired in the teens in the Granite state as recently as the holiday season, Haley rose as other candidates fell by the wayside. That cleared a path to a head-to-head with Trump, but the results in the New Hampshire primary did little to grease the skids for the former UN ambassador to rise much further. 

In fact, New Hampshire was a good state for Haley on paper: more college educated and fewer evangelical voters (than in Iowa), independents could participate, etc. And she still came up short. Still, the final polls made things looked bleaker than they turned out to be and that is not nothing. But exactly how much that something is worth remains to be seen. 

It buys Haley some time, but not much. And it is tough to chart out a viable path forward to the nomination, much less South Carolina on February 24. Viable path. There is a path, but it entails stringing together what little Haley's campaign can muster in the meantime. She is the headliner on the Trump-less primary ballot in Nevada. Yes, it is a beauty contest primary, and while a win promises no delegates, it may carry the distinction of garnering her more votes than Trump will receive in the Silver state caucuses two days later. Again, that is not nothing, but how much that particular something is worth is hard to gauge. A vote-rich "win" in the Nevada primary coupled with a win the caucuses in the Virgin Islands on February 8 probably does not hurt. 

But what does that buy Haley in two weeks' time? 

Maybe it grants her a bit more time, but it grants her time to consider that she is even further behind in the delegate count and that her home of South Carolina still does not offer much relief. Perhaps the polls in the Palmetto state will have moved by then. Maybe Nevada, the Virgin Islands and/or the campaign will spur such a change. But if the polls do not move, then, as FHQ noted yesterday, the cacophony of winnowing pressures from Republicans in the broader party network are only going to grow louder and the prospect of not just a loss at home, but a big loss, will loom large. 

Again, there is a path forward for Nikki Haley. Only, it is not a particularly good path. And it certainly gets her no closer to the nomination. 

But hey, if she can manage to bankroll it, then why not play it out, grab what delegates she can, cross her fingers that Trump's legal troubles catch up with him and head into the convention in good standing? Yeah, that is a path, too. In theory. It just is not a sustainable path. Whatever incentives the former president's courtroom drama provide to stay in the race, the winnowing pressures will more than offset. And that would affect any "good" standing she may have as the candidate with the second most delegates at the convention.

The convention is way off. Haley's concerns are more immediate. And her path? Filled with obstacles.


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All the New Hampshire results are not in, but it looks like the delegate count out of the Granite state is going to end at...
Trump -- 12 delegates 
Haley -- 10

But currently Haley is clinging to her tenth delegate. If she drops below 43.2 percent, then she will fall below the rounding threshold and that tenth delegate will become unallocated. Trump is not in a position to round up unless he approaches 57 percent of the vote. However, he would claim that unallocated delegate formerly in Haley's column because all unallocated delegates go to the winner of the primary. That would push Trump's total to 13 delegates in the state. 

UPDATE:


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Tuesday, January 23, 2024

2024 has been a weird cycle in New Hampshire ...and more

Leading the day at FHQ...

Happy New Hampshire primary day!

It has been a weird cycle in the Granite state. 

The Democratic primary there today will happen as it always does, but it will not count toward determining the outcome of the nomination after the national party reshuffled its early primary calendar for 2024. [There will be New Hampshire delegates -- reduced by half -- but they cannot be allocated based on the results of an unsanctioned primary.] But all the chatter of bumping the primary and the resulting write-in effort on President Biden's behalf in New Hampshire will likely garner a few seconds more attention than the primary otherwise would in an incumbent cycle for Democrats. And that is to say, not much.

On the Republican side, well, this looks like it. If the last polls, especially the tracker in the field after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suspended his campaign, are taken as the final results or anything near them, then Donald Trump is in for another romp. A 60-38 win would translate to a 14-8 delegate win for Trump over former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. And that, not the net delegate gap, per se, but the 3:2 loss in a state that is supposed to be "good" for the former UN ambassador, would make it a little easier to bow out with her home state up next. Haley is not on the ballot in Nevada, so South Carolina would be next. And even in the event of a closer than expected loss, Haley would be staring down the prospect of getting whipped at home for a month and a day. In other words, she may have made it out of New Hampshire with a win relative to expectations, but that would not necessarily carry her all the way to and through South Carolina. The winnowing pressures would have grown deafening in that time.

As FHQ said before Haley's third in Iowa took some of the [limited] air out of her sails, "Haley may or may not become a disruptive factor in her bid for the presidential nomination, but if she does, it is more likely to be in the form of a speed bump rather than a total roadblock."

But that it came down to two viable Republicans by New Hampshire -- just the second contest -- is the weirder thing for the Republican contest relative to past cycles. It is one thing to have local Granite staters politically plugged into the politics of it all complain in the year before the primary about candidates not showing up as much as they used to, but it is quite another for folks on the ground in New Hampshire to be talking about how dead things are in the 24 hours leading up the voting. 

New Hampshire typically does at least some of the winnowing -- and the primary may yet in a limited capacity for 2024 -- but most of the winnowing took place in the invisible primary (and after Iowa) before New Hampshire. And a lot of this is it is just the nature of the cycle. After all, there is an incumbent president running on one side and a former president running on the other (and one of them is not even on the ballot in the Granite state). 

Again, it has been a weird cycle. But it is not clear that some of the same forces will not return to New Hampshire for 2028. It remains to be seen if the Democratic National Committee wants to take another shot at shunting New Hampshire to a different slot on the calendar, but the nationalization of the process in the invisible primary preceding New Hampshire will continue to be a factor that likely detracts from the way the New Hampshire primary "used to be."


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Over at FHQ Plus... 
I pushed back on what has seemingly become a dominant narrative in how the delegate rules came together on the Republican side for 2024. There has been way too much Trump was heavy-handed in forcing state parties to adopt favorable rules and not nearly enough examination of the actual rules. 

If anything the delegate rules are marginally less favorable to Trump in 2024 than they were in 2020. 

That does not mean that they are not well suited to the former president. Far from it! But there very simply was not much improving Team Trump could have done in 2023. They did some incremental work, but most of it was working the phone lines to defend what they established for the 2020 cycle. That is the story of the Republican rules for 2024.



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Friday, January 19, 2024

How many delegates do New Hampshire Democrats have anyway?

Leading the day at FHQ...

By now the story is old hat. At least around these parts it is. The Democratic National Committee altered its presidential primary calendar rules for the 2024 cycle. New Hampshire Democrats did not take kindly to the change that saw South Carolina's primary nudged into the first slot and spent 2023 openly defying the national party rules changes. 

Now, under the delegate selection rules of the Democratic Party, such a move on the part of New Hampshire Democrats carries a penalty, a 50 percent reduction in the size of the base delegation. That reduction has taken place, and New Hampshire Democrats now have 10 delegates to the national convention in Chicago later this summer. But the reporting, if one reads it closely, still seems to toggle between saying that New Hampshire Democrats will lose/have lost half of their delegates and that Granite state Democrats will lose/have lost all of their delegates.

So which is it? Half or all?

Actually, it is both. The actions of the New Hampshire Democratic Party -- opting into the noncompliant state-run presidential primary on January 23 -- cost the party half of its delegates. That is done. However, due to a tweak in the national party delegate selection rules for the 2024 cycle, state parties cannot allocate any delegates to any candidate who campaigns in a state like New Hampshire which has a primary scheduled in violation of the guidelines. Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson cannot even win any actual delegates by being on the ballot in the upcoming primary in the Granite state (even if they manage to qualify). 

So, New Hampshire Democrats have 10 delegates but cannot allocate them. Half and all, all rolled into one. 

The question is, what happens with those 10 delegates? Obviously the back and forth continues between the New Hampshire Democratic Party and the national party to resolve their impasse. But in the meantime, here are some thoughts at FHQ Plus on where things may go as primary season progresses


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In the continuing state-by-state series on delegate allocation rules, FHQ examines changes for 2024 in...
  • Utah: Republicans in the Beehive state have once again shifted to caucuses for selecting and allocating delegates. Otherwise, the same eccentricities remain under the surface in the allocation process.
  • Vermont: FHQ often says that there are only so many ways to proportionally allocate three congressional district delegates under RNC rules. Well, that is true in terms of the 17 delegates Vermont Republicans have to offer as well. Nevertheless, Republicans in the Green Mountain state have built some unique features into their delegate selection plan.


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Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Trump's firewall isn't the delegate rules, it's his support ...and more in response to Iowa

Leading the day at FHQ...

Over at FHQ Plus yesterday, I had a long takedown of the notion that Donald Trump has a firewall in the state-level delegate allocation rules across the country. 

Look, the rules Team Trump crafted for 2020, and for the most part defended for 2024, are not a bad thing for the former president. But no firewall provides any real safety if it is a conditional firewall. And for the next month, true success in the delegate count for the Republican frontrunner is going to depend on how often he hits 50 percent in states and in congressional districts in many cases. 

If the results in Iowa demonstrated anything it was that Trump's support among Republicans is his firewall. Yes, the Hawkeye state is state that is well-suited to the former president, so one should use some care not to extrapolate too much from the caucus results. But still, a majority is a majority in Iowa and that does not mean nothing. But if the caucuses prove to have been a harbinger of things to come, then Trump will likely rack up a lot of delegates in March. 


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Speaking of delegates...
As it stands now, the delegate count coming out of Iowa will end up somewhere around the following:
DeSantis -- 9 (21.2 percent)
Haley 8 -- (19.1 percent)
Ramaswamy -- 3 (7.7 percent)

That is no different than it was last night before I turned in, but overnight there was an interesting shift and a delegate moved to unallocated. And how do the Iowa Republican rules work in the case of an unallocated delegate? Here is what FHQ had to say on the matter last month in our rundown of the Iowa rules:
Hypothetically, there is one unallocated delegate after rounding and Donald Trump has won a little more than half the vote. His raw, unrounded share of the delegates ends up at 20.47. On the other hand, Asa Hutchinson receives a little more than one percent of the vote (but under 1.3 percent) and his raw, unrounded share lands on 0.48 delegates. Hutchinson would receive the last delegate because his remainder is closer to the .5 rounding threshold than Trump. He would gain one delegate and Trump would stay on 20 delegates.
Well, overnight Ron DeSantis saw his vote share drop from 21.3 percent to 21.2 percent. Big deal, right? Actually, it meant that his raw delegate share dropped below the rounding threshold, lowering his total from nine to eight delegates and leaving one delegate unallocated. 

But that also left him with a fairly high remainder. The unallocated delegate came down to Trump (20.4 unrounded delegates) and DeSantis (8.48 delegates). DeSantis has the highest remainder under the rounding threshold, and as such, the unallocated delegate goes (back) into his column. 

Rounding rules at work!

[Yes, it is more than a little eerie that the very same .48 remainder I made up for Hutchinson in the hypothetical above was the remainder DeSantis ended up on.]


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Maybe New Hampshire shakes things up next week, but I stand by this from that Firewall piece over at FHQ Plus:
First, let’s dispense with the obvious: Trump remains a heavy favorite to become the Republican Party standard bearer atop the ticket in the general election. Haley may or may not become a disruptive factor in her bid for the presidential nomination, but if she does, it is more likely to be in the form of a speed bump rather than a total roadblock.
DeSantis placing second in Iowa had many on cable news last night speculating about whether that may have blunted any momentum Haley had or has heading into the Granite state next week. It also had them -- and this was true on Fox News last night and NPR this morning -- falling back on the tired 2016 adage that Trump does well when his opposition is divided among several candidates. 

Maybe, but it is not as if DeSantis coming in third last night and joining Ramaswamy among the winnowed candidates was going to set his supporters rushing off to Haley. Some DeSantis folks may gravitate toward Haley, but many, maybe even most, would likely drift over to Trump, bolstering the former president's prospects even more moving forward. Still more may have decided to stay home rather than participate in subsequent primaries and caucuses. 

It just is not clear at this point that a continued split in Trump's opposition is hurting the opposition. It may just be that Trump has majority support and the opposition cannot be helped (...at least not to a winning position). 

Perhaps DeSantis and Haley need each other to limit Trump's delegate haul through the early part of March. Of course, that sort of three person race is not sustainable long term. The winnowing pressures are only going to pick up in the days ahead. And besides, one them will have to figure out how to not only win, but win consistently to derail Trump. 

On to New Hampshire.


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Monday, January 15, 2024

What if Iowa Republicans used the old Democratic caucus rules? ...and more

Leading the day -- caucus day! -- at FHQ...

In the coming days there is going to be enough written on Iowa's Republican caucuses and the results therein. Who finished second? Did Trump beat the expectations (that many worked feverishly over the last weekend before the caucuses to set)? The questions go on and on.

One thing that struck FHQ in this final weekend before the (in-person) voting phase of the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race begins was how candidates campaigned (bundled up!). But not just where they were but how they approached one another in their final pitches to potential Iowa caucus goers. After months of relative quiet -- an implicit truce if not an unofficial alliance -- Trump turned on Ramaswamy. And after going toe to toe on the debate stage last week, DeSantis and Haley continued to attack one another (and also draw contrasts with Trump). 

But it is funny. Rather than shrug those off and chalk them up as normal caucus fare, those strategic decisions made me think about how things might be or have been different under different rules. Iowa Republicans, after all, will caucus on Monday night, but that process differs from how Hawkeye state caucus goers convened and operated on the Democratic side four years ago. Yes, Iowa Democrats bungled their attempt at a revamped caucus. But FHQ is not talking about that. 

Rather, I mean the difference in how both state parties have traditionally handled the caucuses. Republicans, when they gather in gyms, conference centers and living rooms across Iowa, will hear speeches from candidates or in most cases their proxies and vote by secret ballot on presidential preference. Some will leave. Others will stick around and haggle over party business and choose who will move on to the next stage of the caucus/convention process. 

Yes, the Democratic process in Iowa is new, different and later for 2024. But Democrats, relative to Republicans in the state, have traditionally convened, heard similar pitches, conversed with neighbors, friends and others and then gathered with likeminded supporters to express presidential preference. There is no secret ballot. Individuals physically move to join with the Biden group or the Sanders group or whomever to express presidential preference. Those candidate groups with more than 15 percent of all of those in the room move on to the next round. 

However, the people in the candidate groups with less than 15 percent then become free agents. Their candidates are eliminated in a given precinct and they can realign with a viable group (one with more than 15 precent support). Post-realignment movement helped Barack Obama surge across the state in 2008 and sunk Joe Biden in some cases in 2020, for example. After that process is complete, some folks leave while others hang around to do exactly what Republicans will do after the preference vote tonight. 

But it is that middle part, the difference in process, that sets the Republican and (old) Democratic methods in Iowa apart. And it is exactly that which would have some impact on the stretch run of the campaign. 

Take the Selzer poll of the Iowa Republican caucuses that was released over the weekend:

Yes, Trump has a commanding lead. Yes, Haley slipped into second place. Yes, DeSantis and Ramaswamy, after their full and double Grassleys, are further back in Iowa.

But if the caucus rules were different, then how each of them has talked about the others might have been different down the stretch. Under those old Iowa Democratic rules, Ramaswamy might be above 15 percent in a handful of precincts across the state, but would be well under it in most. His supporters in the caucuses, again, under Democratic rules, would then become free agents. Would Trump have been attacking Ramaswamy over the weekend or courting his voters with a second round after realignment in mind? 

And DeSantis would be facing a similar situation, albeit in the inverse. As opposed to Ramaswamy, DeSantis would likely be above 15 percent in most places, but below it in a handful of precincts. And honestly, at 20 percent, Haley would likely be in a similar but perhaps less vulnerable position as well. In past races on the Democratic side, that is a situation where campaigns of those two candidates might strike a deal. If DeSantis groups slipped under the 15 percent threshold and were not viable in some precinct, then under the agreement, they would realign with Haley supporters to give her a better shot against the frontrunner. And Haley groups would do the same for DeSantis when they failed to reach viability and a DeSantis group made it. Strategically, the collective moves would potentially keep delegates away from the frontrunner. 

Look, this is not the way things will work tonight in the Republican process. But this what-if does shed some light on the impact the process -- the rules of the process -- has on campaign strategy. What has been witnessed in the Republican campaign as the caucuses draw nearer may have been different under different rules. Yes, rules matter. 

Something fun to consider as everyone passes time until caucus o'clock. 

Happy caucus day, everyone!


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In the continuing state-by-state series on delegate allocation rules, FHQ examines changes for 2024 in...
  • Oklahoma: The year may be different but the rules are not for Oklahoma Republicans in 2024. All the fun quirks are back again from when the Republican presidential nomination was last competitive.
  • Tennessee: There are frontrunner-friendly delegate rules and there's the Tennessee Republican delegate selection rules. While other states may have moved in a Trumpier direction for 2024, the Volunteer state did not. But that does not necessarily mean it is any easier for non-Trumps.
  • Virginia: After an incumbent cycle using a state convention for delegate selection, Virginia Republicans are back to a primary, but with markedly different allocation rules in 2024 than in 2016.