Showing posts with label Joe Biden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joe Biden. Show all posts

Thursday, June 15, 2023

Who ends up embarrassed if Iowa and New Hampshire go rogue in 2024?

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...
  • In case you missed it, Idaho Republicans have a pair of proposals the state party is considering for earlier than usual delegate allocation and selection in the Gem state in 2024. All the details at FHQ Plus.
If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.


In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
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FHQ has decreasingly little patience for clickbait that masquerades as a story about the primary calendar. And that is what this latest piece from Alex Thompson at Axios is: clickbait. The only thing new in there to most folks who do not obsessively follow the ins and outs of the calendar is that the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee is meeting Friday, June 16 to start the process of reviewing 2024 delegate selection plans submitted by the state parties. 

No, I could not even get through the headline before I got cranky about it. 

Headline: Biden could lose first two ’24 contests to RFK Jr.

I mean, Thompson ultimately points out what other reporting has revealed. That Presidential Biden will not be on the ballot in any rogue state in 2024. Yet, somehow that is the headline. 

Remember when the Denver Nuggets recently lost the first two games of the Stanley Cup Finals to the Vegas Golden Knights? Neither do I. The Nuggets were not on the ice. They were not facing off against the Knights. That may not be fair. That may not be a good analogy. But come on. Biden cannot lose a contest where he is not on the ballot. That is not to say Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cannot win those contests, but he will not have beaten Biden in so doing. 

And that leads to... "That sets up a scenario in which Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or another long-shot Democrat could win those states — and embarrass the president."

Maybe it would be embarrassing to Team Biden if some fringe candidate were to win one or two rogue contests. It would not affect the president much in the delegate count. There will not be any delegates at stake in any rogue state contests. But it would not necessarily be a good look for the president in the court of public opinion as the Republican primary season kicks off. Press accounts on this story really seem to like this angle. It promises future drama. 

But again, do you know who is going to be more embarrassed than the president and his campaign that Kennedy or Williamson or whomever wins rogue Iowa or New Hampshire? Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire. 

Here is that scenario: 
1) Your state party just defied the national party rules to stick with tradition and hold early contests. 

2) Those same state parties "embarrass" the president that the broader party network is trying to reelect for the short term benefit of going first. 

3) Someone other than the president wins Iowa and/or New Hampshire.

4) Those state parties pitch the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee -- the same one that rejected them for 2024 and whose rules those two states defied in response, leading to the 'embarrassment" of the president the whole party was trying to reelect -- on being a part of the early window of states for 2028. 

Who exactly is embarrassed in that scenario? In the long term, probably Iowa and New Hampshire. 

...should either or both go rogue. But that part of the story rarely sees the light of day in most press accounts.

But what about Iowa and/or New Hampshire? There is an important difference between those two; in how Democrats in each have reacted since the DNC adopted the calendar rules back in February.

Thompson does eventually get around to that too: "Iowa Democrats haven't been as publicly hostile over Biden's move. But in the past two months they've quietly moved to hold their contest the same day as Iowa Republicans — in January, but with a mail-in option for ballots."

So close. So very close. Yes, Iowa Democrats have behaved demonstrably differently than their peers in New Hampshire. Aside from the fact that Rules and Bylaws is meeting on Friday, that is -- or should be -- the lede here. But no, it gets buried in the piece and is followed by the overly dramatic and misleading "but they're going to caucus early anyway."

Yes, Iowa Democrats will caucus on the same night as Iowa Republicans some time next January. But we do not yet know when the vote-by-mail preference vote will occur. And by extension we do not yet know when delegates will be allocated. That is the important action that both the president and the DNC are and will be looking at. The delegate allocation. 

That is not to be confused with delegate selection which is proposed to start in Iowa at those January Democratic caucuses. Early selection is not a rogue activity in the eyes of the DNC. Perhaps this likening of delegate allocation/selection to getting and distributing Taylor Swift tickets would be helpful to Mr. Thompson (and others).

I get it. Drama gets folks to click. 

And while there is drama in the process of the 2024 presidential primary calendar coming together, it need not be overly and misleadingly amplified. That is what this story does. And it is not alone. There are others out there and they pop up in every cycle in which an incumbent is seeking reelection. The prospect of a ho-hum, incumbent renomination phase is not ideal for attention-grabbing headlines or stories. Remember those stories about all those Republican primaries and caucuses that got cancelled in 2019-20? They were built up in a similar fashion in the context of Trump's reelection efforts. It was a story, but one that only really only ultimately appealed to calendar/rules nerds like FHQ.  

At the end of the day, there just is not a lot of news in incumbents vying for renomination. Those folks tend to be pretty popular, or at least, popular enough within their own party. If they are not, it tends to draw legitimate challengers into the race. But there are no legitimate challengers in the race for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination. And that is mostly boring. Just like Joe Biden.  


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Seth Masket is good here on Trump and his opponents taking a position on pardoning the former president.


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From around the invisible primary...

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On this date...
...in 2015, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush formally entered the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.



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Posted by Josh Putnam at 11:30 AM 0 comments
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Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Launch Week Continues & Biden and the Iowa "Caucuses"

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...
  • With state legislative sessions winding down, things have gotten kind of quiet in terms of the primary calendar and rules for 2024. But that does not mean that nothing has been going on. In fact, it is picking up once more with some big-ish changes to delegate allocation for New York Republicans. All the details at FHQ Plus.
If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.


In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
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President Biden appearing on any state's primary or caucus ballot next year will depend entirely on whether the state party in question is conducting or involved in a noncompliant contest. That is clear and has been clear for some time. The president has stood behind a primary calendar change for 2024 that disrupts the standard positions that both Iowa and New Hampshire have occupied on the calendar for half of a century. But when those changes are combined with rules that also create penalties on candidates who campaign in states that break those rules, it makes things look rather ominous with respect to president's participation. After all, it is unlikely that a president is going break the rules of the party he leads to campaign in some rogue contest. 

But that did not deter Biden challenger, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from saying this to radio host Michael Smerconish in an interview on Monday, June 5:
“I think that President Biden is not going to even put his name in Iowa and New Hampshire. So I think he’s not even going to compete,” Kennedy added.
However, Kennedy is like others who have fallen into the trap of expecting Iowa and New Hampshire to behave the same in the face of changes that strip them both of their customary positions. New Hampshire Democrats have clearly been defiant. But Iowa Democrats have not been. Not yet anyway. And signs pretty clearly point toward an Iowa Democratic Party that is trying to thread a needle with their 2024 process. Those signs indicate a likely compliant preference vote. 

And if that all-mail preference vote occurs at a compliant point on the calendar, then Biden will be on the ballot. If not, well, he will not be. But no one -- not even RFK Jr. -- has an answer to that yet. And as for competing beyond merely being on the ballot, Biden will likely do what most incumbent presidents do in terms of campaigning in compliant contest states.


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On Christie's launch day, Jonathan Bernstein has a good one up at Bloomberg chock full of advice on how the former New Jersey governor can run a productive campaign despite not having any real chance to win (based on the typical horserace standards).


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FHQ was at least somewhat skeptical in Invisible Primary: Visible last week about an NBC News look at the potential failings of canvassing on the Republican side. Derek Willis has provided some good additional perspective on the matter in terms of expenditures on those GOTV efforts in the DDHQ newsletter this week. 
The grumbling in the NBC story about the GOP's canvassing operations - "That’s why we’re losing elections," one anonymous source is quoted as saying - doesn't sound like sour grapes from a competing consultant. But it's also not clear to an outsider how effective paid canvassing is, especially in the final weeks of the campaign. 
One thing is pretty certain: paid canvassing isn't going away, and one important reason why is primary elections, where a party apparatus usually isn't available to help pull in volunteers.

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Invisible Primary quick hits:
  • Former Vice President Mike Pence filed paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission on Monday to run for president ahead of his Iowa launch on Wednesday, June 7.
  • Taking a different route than most recent prospective presidential candidates, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu opted not to run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, calling on candidates to "not get into this race to further a vanity campaign, to sell books or to audition to serve as Donald Trump’s vice president." Seth Masket has more on Sununu's decision at Tusk. But the University of New Hampshire's Dante Scala pushed back on any impact Sununu would have had one way or the other. All FHQ would add is that a Sununu entry was very unlikely to make New Hampshire irrelevant for 2024. He has basically been flirting with the delegate qualifying threshold (10 percent) in public opinion polling in the Granite state. Sununu is no Tom Harkin in Iowa, circa 1992. He was not deterring anyone.
  • On the other hand, North Dakota Republican Governor Doug Burgum has a new extended video out ahead of his announcement on Wednesday, June 7.

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On this date...
...in 1972, South Dakota Senator George McGovern swept the Democratic primaries (or won more delegates) in California, New Jersey, New Mexico and his home state of South Dakota. The backstory on the New Jersey primary is a wild read more than 50 years on. 

...in 2000, Texas Governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore both won primaries in Alabama, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota to end primary season.

...in 2011, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum announced his candidacy for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

...in 2020, former Vice President Joe Biden won caucuses in Guam and the Virgin Islands.



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Posted by Josh Putnam at 12:00 PM 0 comments
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Wednesday, May 10, 2023

The National Parties and the Sanctioning of Presidential Primary Debates

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...
  • Efforts are under way during the final week of the 2023 General Assembly to resurrect the presidential primary in Missouri for 2024. All the details at FHQ Plus.
If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.


In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
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It was not necessarily hidden yesterday, but the news that the Republican National Committee (RNC) was floating tentative debate criteria for the first presidential debate this coming August quickly got shunted to the side in the wake of civil trial decisions and upcoming New Hampshire town halls. But the basic outlines of a debate qualifications regime from the RNC offered a glimpse into the continually evolving role the national parties play and have played in sanctioning primary debates over the last several cycles. 

After all, it was not that long ago that debates had already started at this point in earlier cycles. Democrats debated during the first week in May in 2003. Republicans did the same in 2007 and also held a debate with a truncated group of candidates during the first week in May 2011. However, it was that cycle, the 2012 cycle, that served as the straw that broke the camel's back. In all, there were 20 Republican presidential primary debates that cycle, highlighted by two debates from New Hampshire on successive days in January 2012 before the primary in the Granite state. There were a lot of debates and both during and after the general election of 2012, the sense was that all of that exposure had not necessarily helped the party's cause. That sentiment was borne out in the party's Growth and Opportunity Project report -- the so-called Autopsy. It cited the need for national party oversight of the debates process; that state parties, competing with one another for candidate attention, were partnering with media outlets to schedule debates. In turn, that led to a proliferation of the forums.  

The result was that the RNC empaneled a standing committee devoted to the sanctioning of presidential primary debates for the 2016 cycle. And that committee cut down on the number of sanctioned debates, prohibited candidates from participating in any unsanctioned debates and further scrutinized media partners for those debates. But because so many candidates threw their hats in the ring in 2015, the standing committee that cycle also had to wrestle with the various formats to present all of those candidates. The size of the field demanded some qualifications but also balancing that against the need to at the very least appear inclusive to any and all candidates with demonstrated support in public opinion polls. The initial solution was to hold two debates, a main event for candidates with 3 percent or more support in polls and an undercard for those under that threshold. 

Fast forward to the 2020 cycle and it was the Democratic Party that was faced with similar issues. Like Republicans four years earlier, the Democratic National Committee (DNC)  had a wide open nomination race that attracted a slew of candidates. And like their Republican counterparts, the party was coming off a general election defeat in the previous and dealing with complaints about the debate process during the primaries that cycle. While the Democratic nomination race was open in 2016, there was a prohibitive favorite and the incentives to develop a structure similar to what the RNC had devised were not as apparent. However, seeking to avoid a repeat in 2020, the DNC adopted a debates qualifying strategy similar to but modified from the 2016 RNC process. 

The innovation the DNC added for the 2020 cycle was to tweak the qualifications. Not only did the party initially set a polling threshold that candidates had to hit (an average of at least one percent in DNC-approved surveys), but to further, or more clearly, demonstrate widespread support, candidates also had to have at least 65,000 individual donors across at least 20 states (minimum 200 donors from each). However, the supply of candidates, even at those thresholds, was still sufficiently large enough to force two debates. Yet, rather than an undercard and a main event series of debates on the same night, the DNC instead split the debates across two nights and randomly selected participants from the entire qualified pool. 

Just as was the case for Republicans in 2016, the Democratic Party in 2019-20 had to devise a system aimed at a moving target. In both cases, the parties felt compelled to set minimum qualifying standards for debates, but did not want to set them so high as to prevent candidates with some support (and some likelihood of catching on with the voting public in the future) from participating. For better or worse, everyone having a shot in the process is a notion that both parties have nurtured throughout the post-reform era. And that dovetails nicely with primary scheduling as well. Both parties like what the Growth and Opportunity Project report in 2013 called the "on-ramp" to the heart of primary season (basically a lead up to Super Tuesday). The idea of the little guy being able to compete in and do the sort of grassroots-building retail politics in small states that can potentially lead to primary wins (and maybe the nomination) is an ideal that is part of the fabric of the process in both parties. 

Moreover, it is also something that is layered into the proposed RNC debate qualification rules for 2024 that are now making the rounds. Initially, those levels would be set quite low, just one percent support in polls and 40,000 unique donors. Left unanswered at this stage is whether the RNC, like the DNC in 2019-20, will approve the polls that determine qualification or if a candidate's donor base has to be dispersed across a set minimum of states. It also goes without saying that those barriers to debate entry are lower than what the DNC utilized just four years ago. 

And there is a reason for that. The field is different. In many ways the 2024 Republican field is akin to the 2016 Democratic field in that there is a clear frontrunner -- a former president, no less -- who has had some impact on the number of prospective candidates willing to enter. Now, clearly the field looks poised to grow in the coming weeks, so there will likely be supply for a robust debate, but perhaps not enough to require a second debate (on the same or subsequent night). Very simply, Trump is gobbling up too large a share of support (at this point) for the number of qualifying candidates to create a need for a second debate, undercard or otherwise.

But that is the moving target with which the national parties have to contend. They not only have to balance the need to be inclusive to candidates with some measure of support, but they also weigh thresholds that to create a robust debate without opening up the floodgates. Yet, this is a role the national parties have taken on in recent cycles when it took on the responsibility of sanctioning presidential primary debates in the first place. But first thing first, the RNC has to formalize the debate qualifications for 2024.


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DeSantis quick hits: 
  • In the endorsement primary, DeSantis picked up another congressional endorsement from Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), someone Never Back Down (the DeSantis-aligned super PAC) founder Ken Cuccinelli called "one of the 'first five' that got us great rules in the House..." Good was in fact one of the McCarthy holdouts in the January speaker election. And as an aside, that group has been fairly active in the endorsement primary. Of the 20 who, on one speaker vote or another, opposed McCarthy, 11 have endorsed in the presidential race. Eight of those are behind Trump with two more counted as DeSantis supporters. Nikki Haley rolled out a Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) endorsement on launch day. 
  • Never Back Down also won the support of former Trump adviser, Steve Cortes. Together, the staff primary and endorsement primary continue to offer evidence of an erosion of Trump support, but only to a point. As always, the former president in 2023 is behind the pace he set as an incumbent in 2019 but well ahead of where he was in 2015. 
  • In a signal of what may soon be coming in terms of a presidential run, the Florida governor also on Tuesday decoupled from Friends of DeSantis. It is a move that is likely a precursor to freeing up the money in the committee for use in a presidential bid. 

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Viewed through one lens, it is curious that Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) would call on President Biden to break the DNC rules for 2024 and file to be on the New Hampshire primary ballot even if, as expected, the state goes rogue and holds a primary too early next year. If Khanna is behind the president, as he suggests he is, then why not call on New Hampshire Democrats to come up with an alternative to selecting delegates through a rogue primary? However, viewed through a 2028 lens, the reason may become more apparent. Khanna is not wrong that the Biden-driven calendar rules changes may hurt the president in New Hampshire in the general election, but the question is whether the damage has already been done or if it will take the president not being on the ballot (in a largely uncompetitive race) to fully push enough New Hampshire supporters away. FHQ is dubious. Clearly, Khanna is betting that New Hampshire will be there (early) in 2028, and that is no sure thing. 


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On this date...
...in 1988, Vice President George H.W. Bush and Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis both handily won the Nebraska and West Virginia primaries.

...in 2016, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders won the West Virginia primary. Trump also won in Nebraska. [Democrats in the Cornhusker state had caucused earlier in the year. Delegates were allocated based on that contest despite there being a beauty contest primary in Nebraska.]



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Posted by Josh Putnam at 1:30 PM 0 comments
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Thursday, May 4, 2023

Raffensperger Zeros in on Date for Georgia's Presidential Primary

Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

First, over at FHQ Plus...
  • More on the delegate selection plan from Iowa Democrats (and an update on that caucus bill working its way through the state legislature there as the session winds down), a final update on Hawaii's presidential primary and Iowa's was not the only delegate selection plan to go live on Wednesday. All the details at FHQ Plus.
If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.


In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
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Georgia to March 12? Greg Bluestein and Mark Niesse at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution are reporting this morning that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) is set to schedule the presidential primary in the Peach state on Thursday, May 4. And the choice is an interesting one. 
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger plans to announce the decision on Thursday to establish Georgia’s primary date for March 12, according to several people with direct knowledge of the decision who aren’t authorized to speak publicly ahead of a press conference.
Georgia added some flexibility to the timing of its presidential primary back in the lead up to the 2012 nomination cycle. Instead of the state legislature handling those scheduling duties, the body ceded that authority to the secretary of state and empowered the office with rather broad latitude on the matter. Despite that discretion, the presidential primary in the Peach still ended up on Super Tuesday in both 2012 and 2016, consistent with where the primary had been stationed in every cycle dating back to 1992.

But Raffensperger broke with that pattern for the 2020 cycle, initially setting the date for the fourth Tuesday in March, three weeks later than had become usual. And the move was something of a nod to Georgia Republicans. The state Republican Party took the opportunity of the later date to increase the delegate prize for anyone victorious in the Republican presidential primary. Delegate allocation shifted from a more proportional method to one that was winner-take-all by congressional district. Georgia was another piece in the bigger puzzle that was President Trump's renomination race. As in other states across the country, Georgia's 2020 plan made it harder for other candidates to win any delegates and easier for Trump to win, if not all, then most of the delegates in the state. 

All of that is important context for the decision Secretary Raffensperger is apparently set to make. Moving to March 12 would not only impact the ill-fated plans of national and Georgia Democrats to move the primary to a pre-Super Tuesday position, but it would affect the delegate allocation scheme Georgia Republicans would be able to use. Any plan like the one used in 2020 would not comply with Republican National Committee rules. Winner-take-most methods like the one used by Georgia Republicans in the last cycle are prohibited by RNC rules before March 15. 

That means that Georgia Republicans will have to return to a more proportional method similar to the ones utilized by the party in either 2012 or 2016. It may take some folks a bit of time to get there on this, but some will likely eventually argue that this move by Raffensperger hurts Trump because it dilutes any potential net delegate advantage the former president may take out of the Peach state next March. But honestly, that conclusion is not exactly clear at this point in time. The difference between a winner-take-all by congressional district method and a proportional one that has a winner-take-all trigger (as Georgia's did in 2016) can be negligible. If Trump is in the position he is in now in polls when votes are cast next year in primaries and caucuses, then it is likely that he would take fairly significant net delegate gains from Georgia regardless of the methods mentioned above. 

That, however, hinges on what Georgia Republicans decide about delegate allocation rules in the coming months. It seems unlikely, but the state party could opt for a strictly proportional method that really could hurt Trump or at the very least potentially stunt any significant delegate gain from the Peach state. 

All this just triggers the usual mantra used around these parts: The rules matter. And this calendar decision of Raffensperger's moves the needle there. 

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Iowa Leftovers. I still do not feel like many folks have spent much time reading the Iowa Democratic Party draft delegate selection plan. Some of the reporting has been bad and some of the reactions have been worse.

From New Hampshire, Michael Graham at The New Hampshire Journal had this lede:
The Democratic National Committee may have killed the Iowa caucuses, but Hawkeye State Democrats aren’t going down without a fight. Their problem is that, even if they can somehow battle their way past the DNC, they’ve still got to contend with New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan.
This is just wrong. 

The Iowa plan in no way signaled that Iowa is fighting anything. In fact, it indicated just the opposite. If anything, the Iowa plan was a deescalation in its back and forth with the Democratic National Committee. Yes, it laid out a delegate selection process that will start with the likely January precinct caucuses. But the allocation process, the important one based on the vote-by-mail preference vote, will not kick in until that preference vote is completed. The Iowa plan went to some lengths to separate those two processes so as not to run afoul of the DNC rules for the 2024 cycle. It stands to reason, then, that the preference vote will not be complete until some time that is compliant with DNC rules. 

Now, those mail ballots may be sent out to Iowa Democrats at some point in January, but that is no different from absentee ballots being mailed to voters or early voting starting before early contests like New Hampshire's primary conclude. Hey, Californians started voting as early as February 3 in 2020, the same day as Iowa's caucus (and before the New Hampshire primary!). But results were not reported until Super Tuesday, well after the early contests in 2020. And guess what! New Hampshire's primary law was not "triggered."

Sure, there is a new secretary of state in New Hampshire this cycle, but the dynamic is no different. New Hampshire's results will very likely be in and part of the fabric of the 2024 presidential nomination races before Iowa Democrats begin to report on the preference vote there. 

Graham really should have led with Secretary Scanlan's last line from the New Hampshire Journal story: “We’re just going to have to watch and see what they do.” Indeed. If the Iowa Democratic preference vote ultimately is scheduled to conclude before New Hampshire, then there may be a fight, but all this "fight" talk is wholly premature in light of the plan Iowa Democrats shared on Wednesday.

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And from Iowa, FHQ hates to disagree with our friend Tim Hagle, but I do disagree with elements of his reaction to the Iowa Democratic delegate selection plan here:
“It’s polite to say it’s in flux.” He [Hagle] added, “Nobody knows what’s going on at this point. ... The plan that the Democrats are putting through with a mail-in caucus, there won’t be that sort of that intensity where you’ve got to get people ready by caucus night. And so we’re probably not going to see a lot of candidates. It’s basically a disservice to Iowa voters.”
It is fact to say that the draft delegate selection plan is in flux. Plans from all 57 states and territories are at this point. But Iowa's plan made things a lot clearer about the path forward there. The disservice that the Iowa Democratic Party is doing is continuing to call the entire process a caucus. Yes, there is a brand there. But the plan offered by the party is no longer a caucus. The delegate selection process is through a caucus, but the allocation part of this -- the part that matters to everyone watching -- is going to be routed through a separate vote-by-mail preference vote. Folks, Iowa now has a party-run primary if some version of this basic plan is approved. That is what this is. Continuing to call it a caucus just confuses that reality. 


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Polls may be flashing warning signs at President Biden, but just as troubling, if not more so, is the fact that a major union, the United Autoworkers, is holding off on endorsing the president. That is a biggish story about the potential Democratic coalition in 2024. Granted, the polling and the UAW not endorsing at this time may just fit into a broader narrative that is in vogue at this juncture of the invisible primary: embattled Biden. It is something of a theme this week, what with there being a story about Biden's possible troubles with African American voters recently as well. 

Of course, all of this comes before the reelection campaign has kicked into full gear for the president, the sorts of activities meant to woo valuable constituencies back into the Democratic fold for the general election in 2024. Voters are just not engaged yet. As Karl Rove noted over at the Wall Street Journal just this morning, Barack Obama was not in the best of positions at this point in 2011 either. Let's get into (or at least closer to) 2024 and see what the fundamentals look like and then we can talk about warning signs. They may be there now, but odds are high that the UAW will endorse Biden in the end and African Americans will solidly back the president (Yes, the margins matter.).


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On this date...
...in 1972, Alabama Governor George Wallace (D) won the first Tennessee presidential primary.

...in 1976, both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan swept primaries in Alabama, Georgia and Indiana. Reagan's Indiana victory was his first primary win outside of the South. 

...in 2004, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) won the Indiana primary on his way to the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.


...in 2016, Ohio Governor John Kasich bowed out of the contest for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.



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Posted by Josh Putnam at 10:00 AM 0 comments
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Friday, April 28, 2023

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Forfeiting New Hampshire?

Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

It is not exactly news that New Hampshire will have the first presidential primary in 2024. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) may have relegated the primary in the Granite state to its customary second position (but behind another primary this time), but every signal from up in that part of New England since December has pointed in one direction: New Hampshire will continue to be first.

Democrats have said it. Republicans have said it. Governors have said it. And most importantly, secretaries of state -- you know, the one who makes the scheduling decision on the presidential primary in New Hampshire -- have said it. 

However, it is also not a mystery that the DNC will not grant a waiver to New Hampshire Democrats to hold anything other than a February 6 contest. Barring a reversal from the state party in the Granite state, then, the DNC is going to levy penalties against the state party during primary season at the very least. It will also assess specific penalties against candidates who campaign in the state.1 So it is not a surprise that the president will likely take a pass on any rogue New Hampshire primary. Biden would be breaking the rules of the party he leads to file for access to the ballot there. 

But that is not forfeiting the primary. That is the wrong frame for this. And it misses the point anyway. Look, the New Hampshire Democratic Party wants three things whether they say them out loud or not. First, well, they want to be first. But they also, despite the calendar rules snub, want Biden to be the Democratic nominee over the alternatives. There are no viable alternatives, and that is where the party's third want comes in: They do not want to further undermine New Hampshire's leverage for attempts at winning an early calendar waiver in future presidential cycles. 

And what would really undermine the state with national Democrats even further for the future is Marianne Williamson or Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. winning the New Hampshire primary next year. One of those outcomes would destroy any remaining credibility Granite staters have for making discerning decisions on presidential nominations on the Democratic side. And if one thinks New Hampshire Democrats want to go to the table with the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee in 2026 and make the case that they should have an early contest in 2028 after Williamson or Kennedy won there in 2024, then FHQ does not really know what to say. But one can say that New Hampshire Democrats -- the state party anyway -- do not relish that possibility. 

New Hampshire Democrats are stuck. They have been stuck since December between state law and new national party rules. But it is under-appreciated just how much that rules change has upset the delicate calendar balance for New Hampshire Democrats. To defy the national party means to further hurt New Hampshire's primary primacy. And that is true whether it is the party breaking the national party rules to go early or voters protesting the Biden-driven calendar changes by pulling the lever for a long shot alternative. 

But the press focus should be less on poking at the "there is not a story on the Democratic side, but let's see if we can find one" angle and more on what the New Hampshire Democratic Party is going to do, stuck between national party rules and a Democratic electorate in the Granite state riled up by the president. That is a story worth pursuing because the decisions made there by the state party may make a great deal of difference for 2028 when there will be an active Democratic nomination race. 


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Never Back Down, the super PAC aligned with the nascent DeSantis bid for the Republican presidential nomination rolled out a robust slate of endorsements in Michigan on Thursday. Yes, Trump has run laps around the Florida governor on congressional endorsements from his home state, but 19 members of the Michigan House -- just more than a third of the Republican caucus in the lower chamber -- is nothing to sneeze at. 

The catch is how much value those endorsement ultimately end up carrying. New leadership in the Michigan Republican Party seems to be on the fence about the primary or caucus question for 2024. On the one hand, 19 state legislative endorsements might be a meaningful signal ahead of an early primary in the Great Lakes state (if granted a waiver from the Republican National Committee), but may be less valuable in a caucus setting, especially if participants are limited to state convention delegates already chosen. Unless those legislators are among the delegates or are connected to delegates who are participating, the endorsements may mean very little. 

Yeah, the Michigan situation is a mess. But that primary or caucus distinction matters.


...
In the travel primary, Donald Trump was not the only 2024 presidential candidate in New Hampshire on Thursday. Nikki Haley was there, too, and has another town hall there Friday. Former Vice President Mike Pence will be in Utah today for a roundtable at Utah Valley University. Pence is the second potential candidate to visit Super Tuesday Utah in recent days. The other, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, wraps up his trade mission abroad in London. Vivek Ramaswamy continues his bus tour of South Carolina.


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Over at FHQ Plus...
  • Wyoming Democrats have a date for their 2024 caucuses (or is that party-run primary?) and Rhode Island appears to be on a fast track to a new presidential primary date next year. All the details at FHQ Plus.
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...
On this date...
...in 1992, Both President George H.W. Bush and Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton were dominant in wins in the Pennsylvania primary. But The New York Times account had this aside: "Still, the voting in Pennsylvania only underscored the new phase of the campaign, in which Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bush begin to take each other's measure -- while keeping a wary eye on Ross Perot, the Texas businessman considering an independent campaign for the Presidency."

...in 2020, it was to have been the date of the Acela primary -- presidential primaries in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island -- but covid forced all six states to shift to later dates. In the end, only Ohio was active, concluding the vote-by-mail in the Buckeye state's presidential primary on this date.


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1 This was incorrect in the NBC News piece: "The rules apply to Williamson and Kennedy as well, but they've indicated they're willing to accept the DNC's unspecified penalties for rule violations since they're running anti-establishment campaigns anyway."

Rule 21.C.1.b covers that. "A presidential candidate who campaigns in a state where the State Party is in violation of the timing provisions of these rules, or where a primary or caucus is set by a state’s government on a date that violates the timing provisions of these rules, shall not receive pledged delegates or delegate votes from that state." What is unspecified is that the DNC chair can go beyond that penalty if rules are broken and keep candidates out of primary debates, for example. But there are not going to be any Democratic primary debates for the 2024 cycle.



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Thursday, April 27, 2023

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Trump's Inevitability?

Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

The invisible primary buzzword of the last 24 hours or so (if not longer) has been inevitability. As in, the impression is forming that Trump is looking like the inevitable Republican presidential nominee in 2024. It pops up in The Washington Post. And there it is in Politico as well. If one is in Trump World's orbit, then that is likely the impression they want. 

The slow yet methodical drip, drip, drip of endorsements over the course of the last few weeks may have been engineered to serve as a symbol of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's flagging support, but during the same span of time, his poll numbers began to dip and the former president's rise. It has been a well-played move by the 45th president's team before DeSantis even formally enters the race. And with no one else even threatening to break into double digit support as the invisible primary marches on, that certainly buoys the notion of Trump as inevitable. 

But is he? 

The first thing to note here is that there just is not a long and deep history of losing presidents coming back to run again. Not in the post-reform era anyway. And honestly, that trend stretches back much further into the 20th century than that. But FHQ raises that fact to suggest that as far as inevitability goes, a former president, in the abstract, would be well-positioned (if not best-positioned) to be granted inevitability status. And that has been the case for Trump. That has not changed. 

What has changed is that the attacks on DeSantis have put the governor on the defensive and he has not exactly answered the call (yet). Those attacks have worked. Additionally, Trump has been indicted. And those charges against the former president in court in Manhattan have done what threats to Trump did during his presidency (and post-presidency): they have rallied Republican support (in the near term).  

So, as long as endorsements keep coming in for Trump and his poll numbers continue to rise, there will be fuel to stoke the fires of inevitability chatter. And that may be enough. That perception may be enough stunt the growth of and effectively end any challenge to Trump for the nomination even before one vote is cast. That is definitely what Team Trump wants. But it is still relatively early -- even if it can get late early in the invisible primary -- and best-positioned though Trump may be at this time, the one thing the former president continues to invite is uncertainty. 

We may be getting a clearer picture of how a former president may do if he or she were to run for renomination for the first time in quite some time, but Trump is unique because of all the baggage he brings. He is polarizing for starters, but he also has additional potential criminal charges looming over him. He may be or become inevitable, but that uncertainty will continue to animate support for alternatives in the Republican nomination process. Voters and donors will look around now and into the future, and possible candidates will in the near term entertain if not act on their ambitions to challenge the former president. 

And those two forces -- inevitability and uncertainty -- will continue to collide over the next month or two as the field of candidates solidifies. Both bear watching.


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Number of the day: 62. FHQ is often quick to dismiss polls at this stage of the invisible primary. That does not mean I do not look at them. It means I do not put too much stock into them at this point. Still, sometimes those surveys catch my eye. Take the recent Emerson poll of the Republican primary race and the Fox News poll of the Democratic presidential field. In the former, Trump is at 62 percent. And in the latter, Biden sits at 62 percent. Those numbers from individual polls do not necessarily mean anything, but folks will talk about those two 62s very differently. Trump's 62 suggests, well, inevitability while Biden's 62, some would argue, shows weakness. 


...
Nevertheless, he persisted. Trump may be inevitable, but there has not been any reporting to suggest that DeSantis is second-guessing a bid for the Republican nomination. In fact, with the Florida legislature set to wrap up its work early next month, that sets up the governor in the Sunshine state to throw his hat in the ring in the not-too-distant future. NBC is reporting that DeSantis will waste little time and announce an exploratory committee soon after the legislature adjourns. 

Additionally, The Guardian discusses the staff assembling in Tallahassee for an actual (not super PAC-run shadow) DeSantis campaign.


...
Over at FHQ Plus...
  • Those presidential primaries or primary moves in Hawaii, Missouri and Ohio? Well, the week has not been kind to any of the efforts across that trio of states. All the details at FHQ Plus.
If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work.


...
On this date...
...in 1976, former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter (D) and President Gerald Ford (R) won their respective primaries in Pennsylvania. North Dakota Democrats caucused and Pennsylvania Governor Milton Schapp (D) withdrew from the Democratic presidential nomination race.

...in 1992, Republicans in Utah held caucuses.

...in 2004, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry (D) took the Pennsylvania primary.

...in 2016, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), trailing Donald Trump in the delegate count for the Republican nomination, named former candidate Carly Fiorina his running mate on a short-lived ticket that did not fundamentally alter the race heading into the Indiana primary the following week.



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Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Hutchinson's Turn to (Officially) Jump in

Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson (R) already spilled the beans earlier this month, but he is set to officially join the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race on Wednesday, April 26. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has a write up on the Natural state's favorite son candidate for 2024.
"We've been divided before, we have struggled before, and we're resilient," he said in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "It's because we're the greatest democracy in the world, and we have a Constitution that we try to follow. It has tensions, but we always find a way through." 
Hutchinson, 72, hopes to relay that message to the voting populace as a presidential candidate. Hutchinson announced his electoral ambitions earlier this month and will officially kick off his campaign today with an event in Bentonville.
He faces long odds in the battle for the Republican nomination. So far, Hutchinson has tested the limits of opposition to former President Trump and has drawn a launch day rebuke from a county Republican Party in his home state:
“We need somebody strong,” [Saline County Republican Party Committee Vice-Chair Jennifer] Lancaster said. “We need somebody bold who is willing to take on the controversial issues and the tough issues, and he is not that person.”
And that more or less encapsulates things for Hutchinson as he sets out on a bid for the Republican nomination. He is "strong" enough to take on Trump when few others seem willing to, but not strong enough for the moment in the eyes of those who will be voting on who the Republican nominee will be in 2024. That is a tough spot to be in at the current moment with Trump riding high in most metrics that measure invisible primary success. That is especially true when "strong" is often synonymous with Trump.


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FHQ does not often talk about issues or candidate position-taking on issues. But that does not mean that issue positioning by the candidates is not important. It just means that it does not often intersect with the calendar and the rules. However, it does matter in the invisible primary. And while the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision in the early summer of 2022 put the Republican Party on the defensive on abortion in the months that followed, that does provide some potential opportunities in the Republican presidential nomination race. 

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley staked out a nuanced position on abortion on Tuesday, April 25 that has the potential for her to create some daylight between her and her competition for the Republican presidential nomination. The UN ambassador during the Trump administration called for a federal role in the matter but urged consensus building on setting abortion policy at the national level rather than racing to the right on the issue. 
“I said I wanted to save as many babies and help as many moms as is possible — that is my goal,” Haley said, speaking at the pro-life Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America offices here just outside the nation’s capital. “To do that at the federal level, the next president must find national consensus.” (Haley’s speech, according to her prepared remarks, used the word “consensus” nearly a dozen times.)
The conundrum for Haley is whether this position on abortion is better suited for the primary phase or the general election phase. It may set her apart from candidates like fellow South Carolinian, Sen. Tim Scott, but it also may set her back among the Republican primary electorate in 2024 if greater value is placed on ideological rigidity on abortion orthodoxy within the broader party network. It is and will be a crowded field of candidates (and would-be candidates) in the near term. There is room for nuance, but will that register?


...
President Biden had an understated kickoff to his reelection bid a day ago. He got a tepid nod of support from some elected officials in New Hampshire. Which is an improvement over recent months! Here is Rep. Ann Kuster (D-NH):
“What I’ve said to the president twice directly now is I think he should come. I think he should be on the ballot in New Hampshire. He’ll win handily." Even if Biden isn’t on the ballot, Kuster said he’d “probably ... win on a write-in.”
Biden even scored an endorsement from 2020 rival Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on day one. Look, the Sanders entry in the endorsement primary may or may not be a surprise. The party organization at the national level has only signaled support for the president, as has most of the its caucus in Congress. But a Sanders endorsement (and even lukewarm support from the Granite state) speaks to the sort of consolidation of the party that Biden is going to need, not in the primary phase necessarily, but in the general election when the party is going to need to unite anew the coalition that carried the president to victory in 2020.

Speaking of consolidating, Brian Schwartz at CNBC has the latest on big Democratic money circling the wagons on launch day for the president. The money primary will seemingly not be a problem area for Biden as 2024 approaches.

Jonathan Bernstein provides some perspective about Biden to Democrats over at Bloomberg.


...
Over at FHQ Plus...
If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work.


...
On this date...
...in 1980, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) won a narrow plurality victory over President Carter in Michigan's Democratic caucuses.

...in 1988, both Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis (D) and Vice President George H.W. Bush (R) won the Pennsylvania primary. The latter of the two officially became the presumptive nominee with the victory, cresting over the number of delegates necessary to claim the nomination. 

...in 2007, former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore (R) entered the 2008 Republican presidential nomination race. 

...in 2016, after wins in New York the previous week, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump swept the five Acela primary states in the northeast and mid-Atlantic, strengthening their grip on their respective nominations. 



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Tuesday, April 25, 2023

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Biden's In

Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

President Biden formally joined the 2024 race for the White House in a video released early Tuesday morning, April 25. It is a bid for renomination that will not go unchallenged, but is more likely than not to move ahead despite some reservations within the rank and file of the party. The polling numbers are not great, but whether this announcement and resultant campaigning in the near term begins to consolidate Democratic support ahead of 2024 remains to be seen. However, that coupled with the fact that no serious challengers are lurking in the wings, champing at the bit to attempt to push Biden to the periphery, would have the effect of exhausting any pining for an alternative if not quell some of the dissension in the ranks.

Still, this is a reelection effort that faces some unique challenges. Questions about the president's age are not going to go anywhere, again, the approval numbers are not the best and the economy has been resilient, but is on less than rock-solid footing. Those are the things that will matter as 2023 wears on and gives way to 2024. 

On the staff primary side, Reuters has a nice look at the team that is and might be around the president as the reelection effort gets off the ground.

Fox News wonders why there will not be any Democratic presidential primary debates. [Two things: 1) FHQ is hard-pressed to remember the last time an incumbent president's party had primary debates. 2) The Reuters piece above mentioned Ron Klain doing (general election) debate prep and that only made FHQ wonder about whether there will be general election debates.]


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Seth Masket was in Iowa for the Faith and Freedom Coalition gathering this past weekend. He has some thoughts on the event up at Tusk.


...
In the endorsement primary, Trump started the week with a couple of significant gets. Failed New York gubernatorial candidate and former congressman Lee Zeldin lined up behind the former president and Montana Senator -- and 2024 NRSC chair -- Steve Daines also threw his support behind Trump. The contrast is stark as the Trump campaign continues this drip, drip, drip of endorsement announcements while the competition, well, is not following suit. Not to the same degree or at the same level anyway.


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Maybe, maybe not. The Washington Examiner looks at the money primary and the fundraising behind the prospective DeSantis presidential run, but The New York Times has two of the big spenders mentioned -- Ken Griffin and Robert Bigelow -- surveying the field amidst this recent DeSantis swoon. 


...
Over at FHQ Plus...
  • It was a wild kickoff to the work week. One state has a new primary date and another saw its effort to resurrect its now-defunct presidential primary suffer a setback. All at FHQ Plus.
If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work.


...
On this date...
...in 1972, the results in the Massachusetts and Pennsylvania primaries were split in the Democratic nomination race. South Dakota Sen. George McGovern won in the Bay state while former Vice President and 1968 nominee Hubert Humphrey took the most delegates in the Keystone state.

...in 1984, Democrats caucused in Utah. 

...in 1988, four years later Utah Democrats were at it again. Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis won in the Beehive state going away. 




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