Invisible Primary: Visible -- Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...
First, over at FHQ Plus...
- Late last week, Michigan Republicans released details of a plan to use both the February 27 presidential primary and March 2 congressional district caucuses to allocate delegates to the national convention next year. All the in-the-weeds details of the plan at FHQ Plus.
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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
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In the money primary, the Des Moines Register has a nice rundown of outside spending in first-in-the-nation Iowa so far in 2023. The Trump-affiliated Make America Great Again, Inc. super PAC has spent more than $20 million in the Hawkeye state, most of it on television ads against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. But that $20 million total is nearly five times more spending than all of the other candidate affiliated groups combined.
A few things that all of this signals...
1) The candidates, their campaigns and affiliated groups continue to behave as if Iowa will, in fact, have the first contest on the 2024 presidential primary calendar (despite all of the recent calendar drama).
2) There is a certain inefficiency to all of that spending. Yes, all of those dollars are being shelled out in a state that will have, if not the first contest, then a very early one. [Iowa will very likely end up first.] The spending is useful in that sense. However, that is a lot of money spent to mobilize voters for a caucus in a state that is unlikely to be competitive in the fall campaign.
The Democrats have changed the calculus on this, but have their own inefficiencies built into the primary calendar on their side. The handpicked new leadoff state, South Carolina, is no more competitive for Democrats than Iowa is in the general election, and there is the potential negative impact of shunting New Hampshire to a later slot. But the Democratic calendar will feature a new primary in Nevada and a newly early primary in Michigan during the early calendar in 2024, two likely battlegrounds for the fall. Granted, Democrats do not appear to have competitive nomination phase ahead of them and that is its own built-in, institutional inefficiency with respect to mobilizing/energizing voters during the primary phase of the campaign. But the notion of there being inefficiencies like this at all is a byproduct of the work the DNC did to revamp the calendar for 2024.
Still, interesting figures out of Iowa.
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In the endorsement primary, it was a busy weekend.
- Former President Donald Trump picked up the support of a couple of Georgia congresspeople, Rep. Andrew Clyde and Rep. Mike Collins. Both endorsed Trump, timed along side the former president's trip to address the state convention of Peach state Republicans in Columbus over the weekend.
- Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt became the first fellow governor to line up behind Ron DeSants's bid while the Florida governor was in the Sooner state for an event in Tulsa this past weekend.
- In what might be considered an intra-state battle in South Carolina, Senator Tim Scott rolled out endorsements from 29 state lawmakers, including the state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, and dozens of other current and former elected officials from across the Palmetto state (more than 140 in all). It is difficult not to view those endorsements as a sort of zero-sum game between Scott and former Governor Nikki Haley. Trump already claims high profile endorsements in South Carolina from Governor McMaster and Senator Graham, so the battle for endorsements in the first-in-the-South state is for other officeholders. Thus far, Scott is outpacing his fellow Sandlapper in the count at home.
- North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum did not have to go far to gain his first big endorsement. From right in his Roughrider state backyard, Senator Kevin Cramer endorsed the governor on Monday.
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Miami Mayor Francis Suarez hometown paper reports that a major announcement is coming from the mayor during his upcoming trip to the Reagan Library later this week. FHQ has not said much about the mayor but he has been talking about a presidential run for a while.
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On this date...
...in 1999, Texas Governor George W. Bush officially entered the race for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination.
...in 2008, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) ended his bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, but transferred the money left over from his campaign to start the advocacy group, The Campaign for Liberty.
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