Tradition is a powerful force to overcome

That's Jeremy Peters from the New York Times in one of the opening salvos in what is a quadrennial rite after every primary season: the look ahead to delegate rules for the next cycle. Nomination largely settled, Republicans are already batting around a range of ideas to again reform the party's presidential nomination process for 2020. But rather than focus on the specifics of some of the ideas  -- and there are no doubt some intriguing ones included in Peters' story -- FHQ will instead hone in on the negative inertia that "tradition" tends to bring to the table around which rules changes are negotiated every four years.

First, tradition is an imperfect term. It is not inaccurate, but it is a catch-all that glosses over a complicated, political process. No one has ever been satisfied with "tradition" as the answer to questions like...

Why are presidential nominees selected in this way? 

Why are Iowa and New Hampshire always first?  

Why aren't all primaries opened/closed? 

Why do we still have caucuses?

The list goes on.

Again, no one is ever satisfied with that answer -- tradition -- because it borders on the tautological: the rules are the way they are because those are the rules. Additionally, it always leads to the very obvious follow up question, "Well, why?"

The answer ultimately lies in the fact that rarely is an alternative put forth that can garner widespread enough support among convention delegates or national party committees or state parties or the state themselves as separate groups or collectively to be implemented. It is not that there are not alternatives. There are plenty of them, but what they lack is consensus. To the national parties what they lack is certainty. To the states/state parties what they lack is flexibility.

The trouble with presidential nomination reform is not tradition. Instead the problem is that reform is a complex effort at coordinating widely ranging interests within and sometimes across diverse political parties. If that were not enough, add to the mix that state governments, often in partisan conflict with at least one party, control important aspects of the process (eg: when primaries are, who can participate in them, etc.).

Those competing interests often make bringing about fundamental, sweeping changes (or even incremental ones where there is enough overlapping interest) to the system impossible. Such a set up does not tend to produce directives from the national party to close all primaries, for example.¹ To the contrary, with so many interests involved, the likely outcome is more incremental and smaller in scope; like the RNC decreasing the proportionality window from a whole month in 2012 to just two weeks in 2016. Incremental changes -- goals -- are more achievable, but are the very types of tweaks that are most likely to maintain large parts of the status quo.

...or tradition, if one will.

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¹ Closing or opening primaries cuts to the very heart of what political parties are. They are private organizations that can, under the first amendment, freely associate with whomever they choose. But who gets to choose who gets to associate; to participate in a primary election? Under the above idea, it would be the Republican National Committee (or the delegates at the national convention) making that determination. But what about Republican state parties that would prefer a more open system that allows the party to potentially draw more voters into its ranks? That was the basis of the Tashjian case. Or what about the open primary states that are controlled by Democrats in states that Democrats in control of at least one part of the decision-making apparatus within the state? Does a national party push those state parties toward closed caucuses? Do they offer some sort of incentive/penalty structure to gain compliance? What? The more one digs, the more complicated it gets. The more questions arise.


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2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: WASHINGTON

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2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: WASHINGTON

This is part forty-eight of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable. 

WASHINGTON

Election type: primary
Date: May 24
Number of delegates: 44 [11 at-large, 30 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional (with winner-take-all trigger for majority support at the
congressional district level)
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 20%
2012: nonbinding caucus

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Changes since 2012
Washington state joins Idaho and Missouri on the list of states that shifted from 2012 caucuses to 2016 primaries. Each has its own story, but the tale in the Evergreen state is a long one. Historically, the primary has been little used in Washington since a voter initiative added after the 1988 cycle. Washington Democrats have never utilized the election as a means of allocating national convention delegates in the three competitive cycles the party has had since 1988 and that carried over into the 2016 cycle as well.¹

Evergreen state Republicans have only been marginally more active in using the primary election over the same time period. Traditionally, the party has allocated about half of its delegates through the primary while the other half were awarded through a caucus/convention process.

The story of the Washington primary, then, is one of a contest that has traditionally been underemployed by the state parties. Given that reality, in less competitive cycles, there has existed at least some motivation to cancel the primary in order to save the state money. That was the case in 2004 when only Democrats had an active nomination race and were not going to use the primary anyway, and again in 2012 when the combination of a budget shortfall and the Washington State Republican Party only half using the primary led to cancelations.

But those cancelations were always only temporary, lasting just the one cycle. That brought the primary back in the subsequent presidential election years. And that all set the baseline to which a number of changes the WSRP has instituted for 2016 can be compared.

Yes, the 2016 primary replaced the 2012 caucuses, but that came about because Washington Republicans narrowly held the state Senate after the 2014 elections. That allowed them to stop any efforts to cancel the primary (which they did). However, holding only the state Senate meant Republicans in the legislature faced a partisan roadblock in moving the primary to an earlier date. Plans to for a coordinated March 8 primary with Idaho were scuttled by Democrats on several occasions.

Once the primary scheduling had finally resolved itself in August 2015, Washington Republicans also opted to use the primary to allocate all of their convention delegates, breaking with the half and half approach that had been the custom. All told, Washington Republicans shifted from a non-binding, early March caucus in 2012 to a binding, late May primary in 2016.


Thresholds
In trading the non-binding caucuses for a binding primary, the WSRP adopted a proportional method of allocation that split the awarding of delegates across both congressional districts and the state. Part of that allocation plan entails a qualifying threshold. To win any delegates in the Washington primary a candidate must win at least 20 percent of the vote -- the maximum allowable threshold under RNC rules -- within a congressional district or statewide. Those who fail to reach that threshold fail to win any delegates. This is not unlike a number of the states that held contests in the proportionality window; particularly those that were part of the SEC primary on March 1.

Additionally, there is a winner-take-all threshold that applies. However, that only applies in the case of the allocation of congressional district delegates. The candidate who wins a majority of the delegates within any of the ten congressional districts in Washington state, wins all three delegates from that district.

But again, this threshold is only applicable in the congressional districts. There is no winner-take-all threshold for the 14 at-large and automatic delegates. As such, that pool of delegates is always proportionally allocated to candidates with more than 20 percent of the vote statewide. This is is a setup unique to Washington. In most cases where there is a winner-take-all trigger, it separately affects both the at-large and congressional district delegate allocation. In other instances, a statewide majority supersedes the separate allocation, awarding all delegates, regardless of distinction, to the majority winner.


Delegate allocation (at-large and automatic delegates)
If the unevenly applied winner-take-all trigger was not enough, there are additional wrinkles to the allocation of the at-large and automatic delegates. It is impossible under the WSRP delegate allocation plan for a candidate to win all 14 at-large and automatic delegates. Not only is there no winner-take-all trigger, but a candidate cannot even take a backdoor route to the allocation of all of those delegates by virtue of being the only qualifying candidate.

There is no backdoor winner-take-all trigger in Washington and that has everything to to do with the underlying allocation equation the Washington Republican Party is using. Rather than dividing a candidate's vote share by the total qualifying vote -- just the votes for the candidates with 20 percent or more of the statewide vote -- the WSRP is dividing by the total number of votes cast for both qualifiers and non-qualifiers alike.

This is atypical as the modal activity on the state level in 2016 has been to use the qualifying vote instead of the total vote as the denominator in the allocation equation.

Why?

Basically, the answer lies in efficiency. To use the qualifying vote is to streamline the process; to eliminate the possibility of the obvious follow up question. What do we do with these unallocated delegates? This is less of an issue when there is a small group of candidates who are qualifying. But that is a pretty limited sweet spot. In scenarios where there is a large field of candidates (and only a limited few are barely clearing the qualifying threshold) or a smaller field of candidates with a clear frontrunner (but the laggards are still winning votes), the number of unallocated delegates tends to increase.

Those are situations in which non-qualifiers are still winning a sizable chunk of the vote; leaving a corresponding bloc of delegates unallocated in the process.

Let's use the results in last week's Oregon primary to illustrate this point. Donald Trump won 67 percent of the vote in the Beaver state while Cruz and Kasich respectively took 17 percent and 16 percent of the statewide vote. If that outcome were to repeat itself statewide in the Washington primary, it would create the following byproducts: 1) Cruz and Kasich would not qualify for any of the 14 delegates but 2) Trump would not win all of them as the only qualifier.

Trump would take two-thirds of the delegates, but the remaining one-third would be unaccounted for. Of course, "unaccounted for" in this case means that those delegates are unallocated. And in Washington, the state party is treating those delegates as unbound. That one-third is about five unbound delegates.

All of this is compounded by the rounding method the WSRP is using. The basic rounding scheme is simple enough. The party is rounding to the nearest whole number: Qualifying candidates with a fractional delegate of .5 or above round up while any fraction below .5 rounds down. The complication comes in how the party is dealing with the contingencies in which rounding leads to either an over- or under-allocation of at-large and automatic delegates.

Consistent with some other states, Washington Republicans are using a furthest from the rounding threshold method in cases where superfluous delegates are allocated due to rounding. An over-allocated delegate is subtracted from the total of the candidate with a fractional delegate furthest from the rounding threshold.

If, however, there are any under-allocated delegates due to rounding, then those delegates remain unbound as opposed to being allocated to the candidate, for example, closest to the rounding threshold (as is the case in some other states).


Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
The picture of how the 30 congressional district delegates are allocated is a bit more defined. There is no potential for unbound delegates, but there are a number of possibilities that the WSRP has helpfully laid out for their allocation in Rule 37B of the party bylaws:

1. There is a winner-take-all trigger on the congressional district level. If a candidate wins a majority of the vote in any of the 10 Washington congressional districts, then that candidate receives all three delegates from that district. The remaining scenarios are dependent on whether/if a candidate hits the 20 percent qualifying threshold. 
2. If no candidate hits 20 percent, then the top three votegetters in that district each are awarded one delegate. 
3. There technically is also a backdoor winner-take-all trigger on the congressional district level. If only one candidate clears the 20 percent threshold in one of the congressional districts, then that one qualifying candidate receives all three delegates from that district. 
4. If two candidate surpass 20 percent of the vote, then the allocation resembles, say, the Georgia congressional district allocation: the district winner gets two delegates and the runner up, the remainder..
5. Should three candidates all qualify for delegates, then each qualifier is allocated one delegate as in Oklahoma. 
6. Finally, if four candidates clear 20 percent, then the top three finishers receive one delegate each.

A winnowed field with a frontrunner/presumptive nominee is likely to produce a lopsided allocation of congressional district delegates. The winner-take-all trigger described in #1 above is most likely to be tripped in that scenario.


Binding
While the 2012 caucuses in Washington were described as non-binding above, that glosses over some of the intricacies of how the Republican Party in the Evergreen state handled its delegate selection process. Delegates were bound but based not on the results of the early March caucuses in 2012. Instead delegates were bound as they have been in Colorado, the Virgin Islands or Wyoming in 2016: based on which presidential candidate the delegate candidates (selected at district and state conventions) affiliated with in filing to run for national convention delegation openings. Four years ago, Washington Republican delegates were bound for the first ballot at the national convention to the candidate they preferred when filing to run.

The first ballot is still the limit of the bond in 2016 as well. However, the selection of delegates does not have to follow the results of the primary. As is the case in most other states, the selection process is completely divorced from the allocation process. Whereas 2012 delegates from Washington were locked into to the candidate they preferred when filing to run, that is not the case in 2016. The delegates have already been selected in Washington, and 40 of the 41 selected were aligned with Ted Cruz. Rather than supporting the Texas senator -- as would have been the case four years ago -- those delegates will likely be bound to Donald Trump based on the primary results on the first and likely only ballot at the national convention.


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State allocation rules are archived here.


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¹ Those cycles include 1992, 2000 and 2008. Yes, 2004 was a nomination that was contested on the Democratic side, but the Democratic-controlled Washington legislature postponed the primary that year.


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Dayton Signs Minnesota Presidential Primary Bill

The list of caucus states for 2020 decreased by one more on Sunday, May 22.

Already, Maine has shifted from caucus to primary for 2020, and now Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton (D) has signed legislation triggering the same transition in the North Star state. Like Maine, the newly signed law does not specify a date for the new election, but instead defers the "when" decision to another party. Under the Maine primary law, the legislature cedes the decision-making authority to the secretary of state who consults with the state parties before settling on a date.

The new Minnesota law provides for a similar setup. However, the power flows in a different manner. As has been the case with the past Minnesota caucuses, the state parties have the right of first refusal. If they can agree on a date for the primary (see 2015 action on the caucus date), then the parties jointly set the date. Absent agreement (see 2011 inaction), though, the default date on which the secretary of state is to conduct a primary election is the first Tuesday in March. The power, then, is mostly housed within the state parties in Minnesota. In Maine, they only play a consulting role to the secretary of state, who makes the final decision on the date of the primary.

It is also worth noting that while there is no specified date in the new Maine law, it does restrict the window in which the primary can occur to a Tuesday in March. The parties in Minnesota are not as constrained. Earlier is often preferable and the past certainly suggests a convergence between the default date in the new law, the likely earliest date allowed by the national parties and what the state parties will ultimately choose. All of that points toward the first Tuesday in March. However, if they agree to it, the state parties in the Gopher state could opt for a later date -- outside of March -- for the primary as well.

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As FHQ discussed during the Maine post, presidential primary legislation -- whether to shift the date or change to/from a primary -- is not common during presidential election years. Usually legislators wait to make a decision after -- not in the midst of -- a primary battle, heated or otherwise. That is not to say that the tendency is to wait until no one is paying attention. Rather, the decision is typically held until closer to the next election, a point after the national party rules for the following cycle have been set. That avoids unintended consequences (or the need to return to an issue and re-legislate). Of course, the Minnesota shift is a change that is likely well within the calendar window the national parties will establish for nominating contests in the 2020 cycle (barring unlikely fundamental changes to the nominating system).

If legislation in presidential election years is atypical, then changes are even rarer. Minnesota now makes the second state to have made a change in 2016 for 2020. Given the tradition the caucus holds in Minnesota, this was a move that was surprisingly uncontroversial. The 2016 legislative session opened in the wake of the March 1 caucuses in Minnesota and there was a bevy of legislation introduced during the last two weeks of March.

Of the seven bills that were introduced across both legislative chambers, four of them -- including SF 2985, the bill just signed into law -- basically called for the establishment of a primary election with date-setting authority vested in the state parties. The other three established the primary but kept the date decision in the hands of the legislature. Two called for a first Tuesday in March primary while the third proposed a would-be non-compliant first Tuesday in February date. Only SF 2985 and its state House companion ever got out of committee.

And SF 2985 did not really face much resistance other than time. It languished in committee, but with the legislative session in its waning days in early May, the effort to move from a caucus to a primary gathered steam. A flurry of activity pushed it first through the Democratic-controlled state Senate. Just over half of the minority Republican caucus (15 of 28 Republican senators) opposed the bill, but could not stop it from passing the chamber on the strength of support from a unified Democratic caucus and the remainder of the Republicans. On the House side there was only token opposition to an amended version of the Senate-passed bill. Nearly even numbers of Democratic (10) and Republican (13) representatives voted in opposition, but they were outgunned in a lopsided 106-23 final vote. That version found concurrence in the state Senate with only 11 votes in dissent before heading off to the governor's desk.

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This is not the first attempt at such a change either. A similar caucus-to-primary effort failed just a year ago. And before that primary bills were introduced but never acted on in both 2008 and 2009.

Minnesota has had a history with presidential primaries, but the experience was minimal. There was a primary in 1992, but it was a beauty contest for Democrats (The party continued to use the caucuses.) and state Republicans used it in a year in which President George H.W. Bush saw only limited opposition for renomination.


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Colorado Presidential Primary Bill Dies in Committee

The 2016 effort to reestablish a presidential primary in Colorado ended up in the same place as a similar push in 2015: bottled up by Republicans in a state Senate committee as the legislative session expired.

The bill emerged late in the session on the heels of March precinct caucuses that left some in the Centennial state and in aggrieved campaigns complaining about the process on inclusivity and fairness grounds. Despite those issues, Republicans on the Colorado Senate Veterans and Military Affairs Committee balked at rushing legislation through in this session.

Still, this is the second year in a row in which legislation to bring a presidential primary back in Colorado stalled in the state Senate. The 2016 version passed the state House with only nine dissenting votes. However, there is a split in the Republican-controlled state Senate, and the pattern there appears to be one in which the pro-caucus forces have some advantage.

This issue will likely come back up in some subsequent session of the Colorado state legislature. But movement on any effort to return Colorado to the ranks of presidential primary states may depend on how the dust settles on state legislative elections this fall. A change in partisan control in the state House or Senate -- each party controls a chamber now -- may buoy the fortunes of primary advocates or further cement the caucus process in the state for another cycle.


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2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: OREGON

This is part forty-seven of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable. 

OREGON

Election type: primary
Date: May 17
Number of delegates: 28 [10 at-large, 15 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 3.57%
2012: proportional primary

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Changes since 2012
Much of the delegate selection plan the Oregon Republican Party used in 2012 and has historically used in the post-reform era has carried over to 2016. That is largely a function of the significant overlap between the state party rules and state law in the Beaver state with respect to delegate allocation, selection and binding. States where that bond -- between rule and law -- is strong are states  that are more resistant to change than states where the state party rules and state law are more fully divorced from each other.

That is not to say that such a state cannot make changes to their state party rules that conflict with state law.¹ Rather, their holding pat signals how entrenched/institutionalized the practice has become over time.

In Oregon, that is the case again in 2016. The allocation will again be proportional based on the statewide results as called for in state party bylaws and state law. The binding requirements will again hold delegates through the second ballot (with some conditional exceptions described below).

The one change made to the bylaws and/or special rules the ORGOP adopts every four years (as called for in those bylaws) is actually a recent one. Just this spring, the party made a change to its rules on allocation and binding. Triggered by the January memo from the Republican National Committee general counsel's office, Oregon, like many other states, had to tweak its rules regarding the allocation of the three automatic delegates in the Beaver state. Unlike past cycles and due to a change in the RNC binding requirements, those three party delegates have to be allocated and bound in some manner based on any statewide preference vote.

Rather than just 25 delegates, all 28 Oregon delegates will be proportionally allocated based on the results of the May primary. Also, as Oregon Republican Party Chair Bill Currier notes, those three delegates -- the state party chair, the national committeeman and national committeewoman -- are likely to fill three of the slots allocated to the winner of the primary. To be clear, those three delegates will fill three of the slots allocated to the winner. That is different than them being separately -- as a bloc of three -- to the winner. Very simply, the automatic delegates are part of the total pool of delegates to be allocated.


Thresholds
Functionally, the allocation process in Oregon approximates the language of the delegate selection rules in Nevada: Any candidate who receives less than the percentage required for one Delegate will receive no Delegates. That is essentially how the process will operate in Oregon. For every 3.57% of the vote a candidate receives statewide in the primary, the candidate will be allocated one delegate.


Delegate allocation (at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates)
The Oregon Republican approach to proportional allocation is a bit different from that described in other proportional states in this series. The crux of the difference is the allocation equation. In most other states, the equation amounts to something like this:

Delegates allocated to candidate X equals candidate X's votes divided by the total number of statewide votes. That ratio is then multiplied by the total number of delegates at stake. 

In Oregon, however, that equation is replaced by a more stepwise method. The ratio is still the same -- candidate vote share divided by total votes cast -- but that percentage is divided by the 3.57 "threshold". That -- the 3.57 -- is what the ORGOP calls the "benchmark increment". It is not dissimilar to the incremental rounding threshold FHQ uses to describe the share a Democratic candidate would have to receive to round up to an additional delegate.

That process is done sequentially -- from the top finisher down -- until all of the delegates have been allocated. In doing so, the method the party is using eliminates the possibility of an overallocation. In the event, the allocation process works its way through the qualifying candidates and has unallocated delegates, then the procedure is to award delegate slots to the candidate closest to that benchmark increment.

If there are multiple unallocated delegates, then the allocation follows a sequence of proximity to that benchmark increment. The candidate closest to rounding up gets the first delegate, the next closest the next delegate and so on.


Binding
The form delegate candidates have to file with the Oregon Republican Party includes a section that not only requires those candidates to affiliate with a presidential candidate -- it requires them to state a preference -- but lays out the conditions of how long that pledge holds. As mentioned above, delegates if selected to attend the national convention are bound to the candidate to whom they have pledged through the first two ballots at the convention.

However, if the candidate to whom the delegate is pledged/bound is not on the ballot at the national convention (not placed in nomination), is released by the candidate before the balloting and/or does not receive 35 percent support on the first ballot, then the delegate is unbound. Typically in an environment with a presumptive nominee, this means that all of the delegates not bound to the presumptive nominee are freed by virtue of no other candidate appearing on the ballot (or their candidate releasing them). Yet, the bottom line here is that the two ballot requirement is less restrictive than meets the eyes. These exceptions greatly loosen that barrier.


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State allocation rules are archived here.


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¹ Ultimately, state parties have the final say in matters of delegate selection. On the Republican side, the RNC give precedence to state party rules over state laws in any instance of conflict between the two. Additionally, it should noted that there are potential penalties associated with breaking with state law. A state party could take the matter to court as has been done in a number of cases in which state law has defined parameters of primary participation -- open or closed -- that conflict with the desired mix in the state party. This can also be seen in the maneuvering of dates on the primary calendar. A state party may want an early primary, but be stuck in a later date (as that is the timing defined by state law). Often the only alternative is for a state party to hold caucuses but on its own dime. Those financial costs -- disincentives -- can force a continued marriage between state law and state party rule.


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Recent Posts:
2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: WEST VIRGINIA

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2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: WEST VIRGINIA

This is part forty-six of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable. 

WEST VIRGINIA

Election type: primary
Date: May 10
Number of delegates: 34 [22 at-large, 9 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: loophole primary/winner-take-all
Threshold to qualify for delegates: n/a
2012: loophole primary

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Changes since 2012
The basic structure of the West Virginia Republican method of allocating, selecting and binding delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention is the same as it was in 2012. The real election is still for the delegate candidates -- both at-large and in each of the three congressional districts -- directly elected on the primary ballot. In that way, the Mountain state is like Illinois (congressional district) before it. Delegate candidates file (or are filed by one of the presidential campaigns) to run for one of the 31 vacant delegate slots. Like Illinois, those delegate candidates are listed on the ballot with the presidential candidate's name (or uncommitted) next to theirs, and if elected are bound to that candidate at the convention.

Unlike the system out west in the Land of Lincoln, though, West Virginia Republicans elect both congressional district delegates and delegates at-large. The full allotment of at-large and congressional district delegates, then, is selected through direct election and bound based on any candidate affiliation made when the delegate candidates filed to run.

One other difference the West Virginia delegate selection process has with the one Illinois Republicans use is based on a rules change the WVGOP instituted for the 2016 cycle. The crux of the change is that the at-large delegates are not all that at-large anymore; at least not in the way that they have been in the past. For the 2016 cycle, those at-large delegates have been districtized or rather more appropriately countyized.

Let me explain. At-large delegates are delegates that are intended to be the top however many votegetters statewide in any selection process, whether primary or caucus/convention. Every voter votes on those positions. In a truly at-large system, that can result in an overly homogenized outcome. And that homogeneity tends to benefit some majority faction. In turn, that means that some geographic/regional, racial or political minority is disadvantaged in the process. Those groups end up not being represented in the government positions or delegate slots being filled.

Having a mixed system with both an at-large component and a congressional district element, as West Virginia Republicans have traditionally had, can overcome that problem. Can being the operative word. Those district delegates are supposed to ensure that there is at least some representation on the national convention delegation from all corners of the state. However, in West Virginia, there are only a handful of congressional district delegates -- nine across three districts -- and that does not always serve as a counterweight to the more than twice as many at-large delegates.

If, for instance, there are nine delegates from across the state and then 22 others elected statewide but predominantly from one populous area of the state, then the ultimate delegation is potentially lacking in diversity.¹ This seems to have been the case with West Virginia delegations to past Republican National Conventions. More populous areas were simply overly represented on the delegation. In some respects, that is supposed to be the case, but the needle was pushed more toward a delegation predominantly made up of delegates from only a few concentrated areas.

By adding a new rule for 2016, the West Virginia Republican Party has attempted to better calibrate the representativeness of its delegation. New for this cycle, then, are restrictions on the selection of at-large delegates. There will be a fuller discussion of the exact nature of the effect of these changes below, but suffice it to say, those restrictions are intended to bring about a more regionally balanced West Virginia delegation.


Thresholds
As the delegates are directly elected in West Virginia, there are no thresholds that a candidate must reach in order to qualify for delegates. For the presidential candidates, banking bound delegates is entirely dependent upon whether delegate candidates affiliated with them are elected.


Delegate allocation (at-large delegates)
Contrary to how the process has worked in the past, the selection/election and allocation of at-large delegates in West Virginia for 2016 is not truly at-large. There are a couple of restrictions the WVGOP has newly placed on the selection of at-large delegates:

1. After the top finisher -- the delegate candidate with the most votes statewide -- the top seven at-large finishers from each of the three congressional districts will win slots to the national convention.
2. Additionally, there can be no more than two at-large delegates from any one county with the exception, again, of the top at-large delegate candidate votegetter statewide.  

This has several implications. First, each congressional district will have at least seven delegates; ten if one counts the three congressional district delegates that are also being . One of the three will have eight (or 11) delegates as a bonus for having the top, unrestricted votegetter statewide hail from there. This ends up being far less "at-large" and a lot more districted. It is a move that is somewhat reminiscent of Missouri Republicans shifting a couple of at-large delegates to each of the eight congressional districts in the Show-Me state allocation process. Yet, the West Virginia maneuver more overly districtizes their plan relative to Missouri.

There are also campaign strategic ramifications from this change. Rather than having the freedom to quickly go into a state and assemble an unrestricted slate of delegates as campaigns have done in the past, 2016 campaigns have to be an order of magnitude more savvy about the process. There are additional hoops to jump through in terms of cobbling together a slate of delegate candidates who reside in areas more uniformly distributed across districts and without too many from one county. Without wide support across a state, then, a campaign has to rely on a deeper level of connection and organization within the state of West Virginia in order to put together a winning and ultimately eligible delegation.

Those campaigns that do not pay attention to detail run the risk of having delegate candidates win more votes than other candidates, but losing out to popular losers because of potential regional clustering. The slate is too concentrated in one area, in other words, and thus does not qualify even if individual candidates from it receive more votes. If one presidential candidate has nine delegate candidates from one county, for example, then only two (or three if one of them is the top statewide finisher) would be able to sit in the final delegation.²


Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Unlike the selection and allocation of the at-large delegates, the choosing of the congressional district delegates is more simplistic. There are no restrictions placed on the selection of those delegates. The top three finishers in each district -- among the congressional district delegate candidates³ -- are the three delegates who will represent the district at the national convention.


Delegate allocation (automatic delegates)
Finally, as opposed to past years, the West Virginia presidential preference vote in the primary will actually mean something. However, the upgrade is a minor one at best. As has been the case in a number of other states, the historical pattern has been to leave the three automatic delegates each state has unbound. A change in the binding rules and a further interpretation of them by the RNC general counsel's office has required states will ambiguous rules (with respect to the allocation of those party delegates) to allocate and bind them based on the statewide results. In most cases, that means treating those automatic delegates as if they are at-large delegates.

In West Virginia's case, though, that is impossible. The at-large delegates are directly elected on the primary ballot. Those automatic delegates are not. In such a scenario -- and it is a unique on to West Virginia -- those delegates are to be allocated to the statewide winner.

The winner of the preference vote -- typically a beauty contest vote -- will be allocated all three party delegates to add on to however many other aligned delegates have been elected.


Binding
There is some dispute over this between the RNC and the WVGOP, but the delegates are bound to the winning candidate (automatic delegates) or to the presidential candidate with whom they affiliated when filing to run as a delegate candidate. That bond, according to the RNC holds until the delegate is released. This is not a new interpretation on the part of the RNC. West Virginia delegates were similarly treated in 2012 as well: bound until released. The state party may be trying to toe the line in terms of talking up their unbound delegation, but the RNC will be treating them as bound at the Cleveland convention (unless the rules, particularly Rule 16, are changed).


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State allocation rules are archived here.


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¹ Lacking and diversity are, of course, in the eye of the beholder in this case. One person's perception of diversity is another's conception of unfairness.

² Most of these problems have been rectified by the Trump campaign dipping into some uncommitted delegate reserves aligned with the campaign.

³ Bear in mind that there are still distinct pools of delegate candidates here. There remain at-large and congressional district delegate candidates despite the restrictions placed on the election of the at-large delegates.


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Recent Posts:
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2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: NEBRASKA

This is part forty-five of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable. 

NEBRASKA

Election type: primary
Date: May 10
Number of delegates: 36 [24 at-large, 9 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: winner-take-all
Threshold to qualify for delegates: n/a
2012: caucus/convention/beauty contest primary

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Changes since 2012
There have been a number of changes since 2012 to the method by which Nebraska Republicans will select, allocate and bind delegates for 2016. Changes in national party rules and in state law prompted most of the alterations that been made over the last four years.

First, the custom in Nebraska has been to hold a primary as called for by state law, but to make its results only advisory to the selection of Republican national convention delegates. In other words, the sequence was to hold a May primary and then a July state convention. At the latter event, the national convention delegates were chosen (with the early primary election having no direct influence).

However, that practice, or rather that sequence, is not consistent with the delegate selection rules that came out of the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa. Under the revised Rule 16(a)(1), delegates are to be allocated and bound based on any statewide vote. Nebraska Republicans were sending bound delegates to past national conventions, but selecting those delegates at an event -- the state convention -- that essentially ignored the primary results. The change made in Tampa was intended to tie the allocation and binding to the most participatory election in a state.

That change served as a catalyst to state parties like those in Colorado, North Dakota and Wyoming, each of which opted to skip presidential preference votes at the beginning stages of their caucus/convention processes. Those moves were made in an attempt to preserve a tradition of sending unbound delegations to the national convention. Nebraska, though, does not fit into that category. The local practice among Republicans in the Cornhusker state has always been to send a bound delegation to the national convention, but select, allocate and bind those delegates in one fell swoop at the state convention.

The problem for NEGOP in the lead up to 2016 was that to comply with the newly tweaked national party rules, the state party either had to completely opt out of the statewide primary in May or to tie the results of the preference vote in that election into the delegate allocation and binding process. As it turned out, state government basically forced the hand of the state party by changing state law to require state parties to have the delegate allocation reflect the vote in the primary.

It was those changes -- to national party rules and state law -- that pushed the Nebraska Republican Party transition from a beauty contest primary to a winner-take-all primary election. The delegates to the national convention will still be selected at the state convention, but will be allocated based on the May 10 primary.

It should additionally be noted that in order to complete the delegate selection process in time for the July national convention, the state convention in Nebraska had to be shifted from July to the weekend after the primary in May. The primary/state convention sequence is still in place, but the meaning of the two contests has transformed and the window between them has significantly shrunk since 2012.


Thresholds
The move to a winner-take-all primary means that there is no threshold either for qualifying for delegates to trigger a winner-take-all allocation. Very simply, the plurality winner statewide is entitled to an allocation of all 36 Nebraska delegates.


Delegate allocation (at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates)
Win the most votes statewide and win all of the delegates. The statewide winner takes them all.


Binding
Nebraska delegates by state party rule are bound for two ballots at the national convention. The only exception to that is if the winning candidate to whom the Nebraska delegation has been bound receives less than 35 percent of the vote on the first ballot. They would become unbound early if those conditions were met.

The selection process is different in 2016 than it has been in the past. Though not a part of the section of the state party constitution pertaining to the selection of national convention delegates (Article VII, Section 3), the new winner-take-all provision the Nebraska GOP is utilizing this cycle is an extension of the broad powers granted to the Nebraska Republican Party State Central Committee in that section. Article VII, Section 3(f) allows the NEGOP SCC to adopt any rules to implement Section 3 so long as they are consistent with the national party rules and state law.

FHQ mentions that because the addendum to the constitution that lays out the winner-take-all allocation method also has a bearing on the selection process. The last sentence of the lone paragraph of guidance on the 2016 allocation method reads:

Only candidates for National Convention Delegate and Alternate Delegate who have been pledged to the Presidential candidate who won the Nebraska Primary may be elected to the National Convention.

All other descriptions of the selection process included in the Rule 16(f) filing the Nebraska Republican Party submitted to the Republican National Committee are silent on this matter. However, the above clause is restrictive, limiting the pool of delegates to those pledged to the primary winner.

Of course, there is something of an out buried in all of this. Before 2016, national convention delegate candidates had the option of filing as pledged to a candidate or simply uncommitted.¹ That uncommitted option is gone for 2016. Instead, the form delegate candidates have to complete and submit to the state party require that candidate to either pledge to a particular candidate or to pledge to the winner of the primary. The latter is a kind of TBD -- to be determined -- option.

But what that means is that the winning candidate may or may not have delegates sympathetic to him or her at the national convention. A winning candidate having sincere delegates behind them long term at the convention is dependent upon how many of those delegates selected are specifically pledged to the winner. If they filed as Cruz or Kasich or Trump delegates, then yes, but if they filed as pledged to a winner to be determined later (via the primary), then they may not be as loyal.

The practical implication here is that if, say, Cruz wins the Nebraska primary, then the Trump and Kasich delegate candidates are sidelined. Only the Cruz and "pledged to the winner" delegate candidates would be eligible to be elected to one of the national convention delegate slots.

Again, regardless of that distinction, those 36 delegates are bound through at least one ballot and perhaps two if the Nebraska primary winner receives more than 35 percent on the the first vote.

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State allocation rules are archived here.


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¹ An uncommitted delegate elected at the state convention would attend the national convention unbound.


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Recent Posts:
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