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...
- October 1 is less than a month away now, and there are still a few missing pieces on the 2024 presidential primary calendar that have yet to fall into place. An update on a few of those pieces: All the details at FHQ Plus.
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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
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A new LA Times/UC Berkeley poll of Republicans in the Golden state demonstrates again the tricky spot the delegate jewel that is the California presidential primary will likely always be in with an earlier-than-most contest.
As Seema Mehta notes, at 55 percent support, former President Donald Trump would be in line to rake in each and every one of the 169 delegates at stake in the state on Super Tuesday next year. Under the new rules the California Republican Party adopted in July, a bare majority statewide for any candidate in the March 5 primary would trip the winner-take-all trigger. That Trump is already over that mark may have a chilling effect on other candidate activity in the Golden state. Never Back Down, the super PAC aligned with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has, for example, already ceased door knocking/canvassing in the state. Additionally, California, the most populous state in the country, is unmercifully expensive to campaign and advertise in. Yes, a lot of voters are concentrated in areas, but it is across a number of areas throughout the state. That adds up quickly.
All of that points to candidates potentially steering clear of the California or strategically approaching it with a light touch in the near term.
Only, to cede 169 delegates to a frontrunner candidate is to come as close to waving a white flag of surrender in presidential nomination politics as there is. If anything, opposition candidates almost have to throw some resources into California. Trump is not that far beyond the majority mark in this or any other poll in the state and the adopted California Republican delegate rules for 2024 are enticing in their own right. With no qualifying threshold, the number of delegates all non-Trumps would collectively receive would be maximized as long as Trump does not hit 50 percent.
But to do that means to crack the code of dragging the former president below the majority mark between now and early March. And that may best be achieved not by sinking money into California but instead investing in contests that precede Super Tuesday. The delegate incentives are there, but the costs are prohibitive in-state.
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Speaking of that California poll, almost half (47 percent) of all respondents across partisan affiliations showed some interest in a third party option in the general election. With Labor Day apparently marking the unofficial kickoff to the 2024 campaign season and a public reluctant to accept a likely 2020 rematch in the presidential election, there is likely to be interest in the idea of a third party candidate. That has been clear.
But are any of the likely alternatives -- Joe Manchin, Cornell West, Larry Hogan, fill in the blank -- going to capture the imaginations of folks who are receptive to an alternative? That transition from idea to identity is always key and the reality rarely matches up to the idealized notions survey respondents may have. So yes, some folks of all partisan stripes may entertain alternatives at the prospect of a Biden-Trump general election, but partisans are very likely to come home in the end. The bigger question in all of this may be whether more folks drift into the third party column or stay home in November 2024.
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From around the invisible primary...
- In the endorsement primary, the campaign of Vivek Ramaswamy rolled out endorsements from 200 New Hampshirites. It is not a who's who of Granite state politics that is going to draw headlines at the national level, but it represents enough of a coalition of supporters to make note of and to count as a fairly robust grassroots effort in New Hampshire.
- In the money primary, DeSantis has seen some leakage of some of his biggest financial backers from his statewide runs.
- In the travel primary, Ramaswamy is in Iowa this week, Pence appears in New Hampshire today to speak against populism in the Republican Party and Trump will trek to the Hawkeye state for some rivalry football this weekend.
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