Showing posts with label Ron DeSantis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ron DeSantis. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

Why DeSantis Attacks Haley

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...
  • Some Missouri Republicans keep advancing a bogus rationale to justify the 2022 elimination of the presidential primary in the Show-Me state. And FHQ keeps getting irritated by it. Venting... All the details at FHQ Plus.
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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
On its surface, the latest fusillade from DeSantis-affiliated super PAC Never Back Down against Nikki Haley seems to fit into the now-conventional narrative of a fight for second place in the Republican presidential nomination race behind former President Donald Trump. 

It comes from a branch of the consolidation theory of the race. That, if only the race narrowed to Trump and an alternative, then that alternative, whomever he or she may be, could finally overtake Trump. Mathematically, that makes some sense. Some sense, but it has made less and less sense over time as Trump has expanded his lead in the polls nationally and on the state level. After all, if Trump is pulling in more than a half of support in surveys, much less votes during primary season next year, then it is going to take more than just a one-on-one with the former president for an alternative topple him. It is going to take something else. In other words, it continues to be consolidation theory but with a side of magical thinking. 

However, the DeSantis case is a bit different than it may be for other would-be second placers. And the explanation may be simpler for why the Florida governor and company are going after Haley (and putting off focusing on Trump for a hypothetical one-on-one). And it has everything to do with the trajectory of the DeSantis campaign. It is not so much that DeSantis has lost or is about to cede second place to Haley. Rather, it is about how he has lost second place (if he has lost it). As DeSantis' fortunes have declined, it is Trump who has gained the most. And one does not win back former supporters who have drifted over into the Trump column by attacking Trump. 

The campaign may not win them back by fighting Nikki Haley either. But overall, the move stands less a chance of success by directly taking on Trump now.1 

That said, this is another case of Trump benefiting from opposing campaigns putting off the inevitable. Short-term motivations outweigh long-term considerations.


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From around the invisible primary...
  • Iowa focus: DeSantis has some company in the "all in in Iowa" category. The campaign of South Carolina Senator Tim Scott has now also begun to redirect money and staff to the first-in-the-nation caucuses in the Hawkeye state. 
  • Debates: Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's campaign has indicated that he has qualified for the November 8 debate in Miami. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum has met the donor threshold, but continues to fall short of the polling criteria. 
  • New Hampshire entrants: Both Donald Trump and Mike Pence filed in Concord on Monday to appear on ballot in the as yet unscheduled primary in the Granite state.
  • Quiet winnowing: If a candidate is winnowed from the field and no one is there to see it, has that candidate really been winnowed? FHQ does not know. What is known is that businessman Perry Johnson has suspended his presidential campaign. Yeah, that is winnowing.
  • Staff primary: Staffers in the Florida governor's office keep leaving their jobs and finding their way into roles with the DeSantis campaign. 
  • Blast from the past: Trump's expanded lead has made this a bit less of a thing, but calibrating Trump 2024 to Trump 2020 and/or Trump 2016 is still a thing if attempting to assess where his current campaign is now. Tending the grassroots in New Hampshire in 2023 appears to be ahead of where it was in 2015. But support is not nearly as consolidated behind him as it was in 2019.
  • Consolidation theory, South Carolina edition: The editorial board at the Charleston Post & Courier called on hometown candidate Tim Scott to withdraw and clear the way for Nikki Haley to challenge Trump in the state and nomination race.

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1 Note also that DeSantis has upped the attacks on Trump lately. But the overall effort is not exclusively homed in on Trump.


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Posted by Josh Putnam at 10:30 AM 0 comments
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Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Revisiting the Frankenstein's Monster

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...
  • There is some great reporting in the recent AP account of the under-the-radar battle to set the Republican delegate rules for 2024. But there was some important context missing from the state-level updates in that article. FHQ attempts to bridge the gap. 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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A month before Ron DeSantis officially entered the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race, FHQ described the basic organization of the nascent campaign as "a bit of an attempt at a better Frankenstein's monster in 2023, taking elements of the Bush super PAC build out in 2015 and melding it with the deep organizing -- staff, grassroots and delegate efforts -- of the Cruz campaign. Neither were particularly successful against Trump separately in 2015-16, but fused in some respects in 2023, it may prove different."

Two months after the Florida governor announced his campaign, it appears that Dr. Frankenstein has lost control of the monster. From Playbook: 
But behind the scenes, there are serious doubts whether the layoffs will do anything to address a fundamental weakness of DeSantis’ presidential bid: the rising tension and distrust brewing between his campaign and the main super PAC supporting him, Never Back Down.
Look, DeSantis and company may yet turn this thing around, but this is more evidence that there is a certain balance to be maintained between a campaign proper and its affiliated super PACs (and other groups). The broader DeSantis effort very simply seems to have outsourced a lot to Never Back Down and that makes it tough for a candidate and the campaign to rein in without the ability to directly coordinate. 

FHQ spent much of the candidate entry phase earlier this year discussing candidates and campaigns learning lessons from 2016. Unless DeSantis mounts a comeback, one of the lessons potentially learned from 2024 may be about properly calibrating the balance between campaign and super PAC. 


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Illinois Republican National Committeeman Richard Porter appears to have endorsed Ron DeSantis in an op-ed at Real Clear Politics. He will not necessarily be an automatic delegate to the national convention next year because the Republican state convention in the Prairie state will select the national committeeman and committeewoman to attend the convention in Milwaukee next year. Unless there is a significant change to Illinois Republican Party rules, then the three RNC members will be bound to the statewide winner of the March 19 primary. Theoretically, Porter could be reelected at that convention and then bound to a candidate other than DeSantis. 

The RNC has pledged to say neutral in the presidential contest and not many members have gone out of their way to weigh in on the race at this point in the invisible primary. But this counts as an early (initial?) exception to that, and it is someone taking a position. Porter not only talks up DeSantis as likely to emerge as nominee, but also gives an explicit unendorsement of Trump in the process. 

At a time when there are not a lot of rays of sunshine for the Florida governor, this counts as one: a national committee endorsement.


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From around the invisible primary...


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See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies. 
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Friday, July 21, 2023

Another way to look at current support for the First-in-the-Nation primary in New Hampshire

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...
  • How about an update on some quiet calendar and rules stories from around the country that maybe have not seen much of a spotlight? We dig into a few 2024 things in Delaware, Georgia, New York and South Dakota. All the details at FHQ Plus.
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Six in ten New Hampshire residents support a New Hampshire law that requires the state's Presidential Primary to be held before any similar contest.
It was interesting the ways in which this finding was reported. At home in New Hampshire, WMUR headlined an article, "New UNH poll shows most support law requiring New Hampshire hold first presidential primary." 

Meanwhile, national outlets like The Messenger honed in on the crosstabs focused on Democrats in the Granite state, "Poll: Less Than Half Of New Hampshire Democrats Support First-In-The-Nation Primary Law."

Neither is untrue. Neither is off-base. It is just interesting to what each opted to draw attention. 

FHQ would offer another interpretation. Yes, Democrats in the state appear to be divided over the first-in-the-nation question, but in years past that number likely would have been far, far higher. Again, the first-in-the-nation primary has been one of the few things where Democrats and Republicans in New Hampshire have seen eye-to-eye as politics has become more and more polarized. And many Democrats are still with Republicans in the state on the matter according to this survey. But all/most of them are not. Not anymore anyway. Not at this time.

That is a big deal. A national party -- in this case the Democratic National Committee -- taking a stand on the early calendar has triggered a marked dip in support for one of the biggest institutions New Hampshirites hang their hats on in the national spotlight every four years. 

Now, it is fair to ask whether the numbers would have trailed off as much if Democrats were looking at a competitive nomination fight in 2024. But they are not. And that buttresses the argument that if ever there was a time to make big calendar changes, it is during an incumbent reelection cycle. This is just one poll and there is so much yet to play out in this New Hampshire/DNC drama before next summer at the Chicago convention.

...but this is an interesting poll result. 


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Much of the current negativity around the DeSantis campaign may be legitimate. It may also be overblown. Campaigns at this level are often on a knife's edge. But whether it is real or not, one of the things to eye (as a real operationalization of that) is how much emphasis Team DeSantis puts on Iowa. Yes, Trump and DeSantis have been "eyeing Super Tuesday states," but that is not anything that is new. However, if the DeSantis campaign and affiliated groups begin to put all or most of their eggs in the Iowa basket, then that could be a sign that the campaign's options (on a number of fronts) are waning. Wooing evangelicals in the Hawkeye state (before a gathering there) may or may not be evidence of that. But it is something to watch in the coming days.
This week Never Back Down, the super PAC affiliated with the DeSantis effort, is scaling up its activity in the Hawkeye state, host of the first-in-the-nation caucuses next January. Again, this is a super PAC and not the campaign itself, but it is somewhat telling.


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From around the invisible primary...


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On this date...
...in 1988, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in Atlanta.

...in 2016, Donald Trump gave his acceptance speech in Cleveland, completing his path to the Republican presidential nomination.



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See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies. 
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Friday, July 14, 2023

The DeSantis-is-sinking stories may be oversold to some degree, but...

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...
  • Trump either wins Iowa or plays the victim card next January. Does Iowa even matter in 2024? Yeah, the caucuses in the Hawkeye state still matter. All the details at FHQ Plus.
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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
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There has been a lot of ink spilled in the last week or two about the shape the DeSantis campaign is in a little more than a month since the Florida governor launched his bid for the Republican nomination. Donors are nervous. Deck chairs are being moved. Murdochs are looking elsewhere. Poll numbers are plateauing if not trending downward. And that collective picture could portend an ominous swing into debate season starting next month. Or it could be blip on the radar, a summer lull. Time will tell that tale, but DeSantis remains the clear second option in the current field, albeit not as clear as it may have once been. He continues to bring in money at a pretty good clip. And for some reason he continues to draw in a fair number of endorsements. He may not be best positioned in the race for the 2024 Republican nomination, but he is well positioned even despite the current (real or perceived depending on the metric used) slide.

But here is the thing: DeSantis is now flirting with the threshold for qualifying for delegates that will be used in a lot of states. He is on the wrong side of 20 percent in the latest Morning Consult national poll. No, the Republican nomination process is not a national primary, but not being able to meet delegate qualifying thresholds will kill a campaign quickly once votes begin to be cast. 

...if the ship is not righted. 

There are still six months until the Iowa caucuses and the first few states -- at least as the rules are understood at this point -- have low bars to claim (small shares) of delegates. There is no formal threshold in Iowa, it is set at 10 percent in New Hampshire and Nevada's rules in previous cycles have set the threshold below five percent. But the winner-take-all by congressional district method South Carolina Republicans use is not forgiving and neither are rules in the Super Tuesday states, the majority of which have the maximum 20 percent threshold. 17 percent for DeSantis still puts space between him and the rest of the field, but it is far enough behind Trump right now that the Florida governor is in danger of missing out on delegates when it counts next March and beyond. 

Still, much can happen between now and the voting phase and that could be good or bad for DeSantis.


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Not surprisingly, New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan is giving January 23 a good look for an eventual landing spot for the presidential primary in the Granite state. That has made sense since South Carolina Republicans settled on a February 24 date for their primary, clearing enough space in front of the South Carolina Democratic primary for both Iowa and New Hampshire in January next year. But there is a question that has to be answered first before Scanlan is able to pull the trigger later this fall on that late January date. 


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From around the invisible primary...


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On this date...
...in 1972, South Dakota Senator George McGovern accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in the wee hours of the morning of July 14 in Miami.

...in 2007, former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore dropped out of the race for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. 



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Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Are the Two South Carolinians Hurting DeSantis in the Palmetto State?

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...
  • Haven't had a chance to check out the latest deep dive on the proposed Michigan Republican hybrid primary-caucus plan to allocate delegates in 2024? Go check it out. But coming later at FHQ Plus, Michigan Republicans may not have the only pre-Super Tuesday (but compliant) contest on March 2. All the details at FHQ Plus.
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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
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Some folks in the DeSantis orbit are, according to Shelby Talcott at Semafor, griping about the impact the crowded field is having on the Florida governor. In particular, the focus appears to be on the injurious effect the two South Carolinians in the race -- former Governor Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott -- are having on DeSantis in the Palmetto state. 

But assertions that Haley and Scott are only in the race in pursuit of a spot on the ticket with Trump or a  slot in a hypothetical Trump cabinet aside, is the pair hurting DeSantis now or likely to in the future in the first-in-the-South primary state? 

Talcott hints at the answer being yes in her piece, citing current Real Clear Politics averages of polls of the race in South Carolina. The former president checks in just above 40 percent, DeSantis is about half that and both Haley and Scott are hovering just over ten percent. If one combines DeSantis, Haley and Scott support, then yes, the conglomerate (presumably headed by DeSantis) is competitive with if not slightly ahead of Trump in the state. 

Yet, would Haley's and/or Scott's South Carolina support go to DeSantis if either or both were suddenly on the sidelines? There is some evidence outside of mere speculation that it would be. An April survey of Palmetto state Republicans from National Public Affairs, for example, showed that Haley's and Scott's support was more correlated with DeSantis than Trump. But while that is suggestive, it is just one poll.

And the presidential nomination process is, after all, sequential. What happens between now and the South Carolina primary early next year will have some impact on the course of that election. The remainder of the invisible primary will matter. The Iowa caucuses will matter. That primary in New Hampshire will matter as well in terms of what is likely to transpire in the South Carolina primary. Haley and Scott may stay in the race through the third contest. But either or both could also pull out so as not to be embarrassed at home.

If one is in the DeSantis camp, the first point to focus on may be the filing deadline for candidates in the Palmetto state. Regardless of whether Haley and/or Scott withdraw from the race after Iowa or New Hampshire, or whether either or both are on the ballot in South Carolina at all matters. If both South Carolinians are still actively in the race at that point, they may pull a meaningful amount from DeSantis in South Carolina. However, even if both suspend their campaigns before their home state contest, they may still siphon off a smaller but sizable enough amount of support from DeSantis if Haley and Scott remain on the ballot. 

Those things matter, but what likely is of greater significance (or should be) to the broader DeSantis presidential effort is the Florida governor being able to pick off one of the first two contests. The worry is better trained on Haley and Scott in Iowa than it is on either one of them back home in the Palmetto state. 

Another question: How are Haley and Scott affecting DeSantis in South Carolina in terms of the invisible primary metrics? That may be the true source of the grumbling. It maybe less that Haley and Scott may rain on the DeSantis parade in the South Carolina primary and more that they are gobbling up institutional support in the state that might otherwise be receptive to DeSantis. There have been headline-grabbing waves of endorsements for the Florida governor in Iowa and New Hampshire. But something has deterred similar inroads (so far) in South Carolina. 


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The Rhode Island House on Monday, June 12 unanimously passed SB 1010, concurring with the Senate version of legislation to move the presidential primary in the Ocean state up from the fourth Tuesday in April to the first Tuesday in April for just the 2024 cycle. The House did not vote on the measure by itself. Rather, the body took up and adopted by a 67-0 vote a seven bill consent calendar package including SB 1010. 

The bill now heads off to Governor Dan McKee (D) for his consideration. However, it is likely to be joined shortly by HB 6309, the House version of the same bill, which is on the state Senate's consent calendar for Tuesday, June 13. Should the upper chamber concur, Rhode Island will join New York as states eyeing presidential primary shifts to April 2 where bills have fully cleared the legislative hurdle in the process.


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From around the invisible primary...
  • Doug Burgum did not take long after his announcement last week to hit the airwaves. The North Dakota governor has ads up and running in Iowa and New Hampshire, part of a $3 million buy. 
  • In the money primary, First Lady Jill Biden has been deployed on a fundraising junket ahead of the second quarter deadline at the end of the month.

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On this date...
...in 2011, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. 

...in 2015, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton officially launched her campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.



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Posted by Josh Putnam at 12:00 PM 0 comments
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Wednesday, June 7, 2023

Is the RNC Using the Debate Criteria to Winnow the Field?

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...
  • The Rhode Island Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the upper chamber's version of a bill to move the presidential primary in the Ocean state. All that and more at FHQ Plus.
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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
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As FHQ noted earlier in the week in this space, the RNC released the qualification criteria for its first presidential primary debate in August late last week. Of course, our's was not the only reaction out there. Walt Hickey at Business Insider astutely pointed out the likely small pool of polls the national party will be able to lean on by requiring qualifying polls to have at least "800 registered likely Republican voters" in the sample. And FiveThirtyEight's Geoffrey Skelley noted that the DNC allowed qualification in the first 2019 debate by polling or donors whereas the RNC is requiring candidates hit both metrics to qualify in 2023. 

In total it sums to a high bar exerting some pressure on the low end of the field. The Burgums and Hutchinsons and Elders and Johnsons, in other words, will potentially have some to a great deal of difficulty making the stage. And that is a departure from the past two contests that have seen large fields, the 2020 Democrats and 2016 Republicans. Four years ago, the DNC had to have two consecutive nights of debates (with randomly chosen participants) to accommodate everyone who qualified. And four years before that, the RNC split the field into a main stage debate and kiddie table debate; a set up that had its own potential winnowing effects. 

But the criteria are not the only facet of this overall process exerting winnowing pressures on the candidates struggling to gain attention. There is pressure from the top end of the field in 2023 that was not present in either 2020 (Democrats) or 2016 (Republicans) or not present to the same extent. Here is what I mean.

Look at how the fields of candidates are positioned on this date in 2015 and 2019. How much support were the top candidates pulling in?

Jeb Bush -- 11.3 percent (please clap) 
Scott Walker -- 10.8 percent 
Marco Rubio -- 10.3 percent 
[Combined: 32.4 percent]

Joe Biden -- 33.5 percent 
Bernie Sanders -- 16.7 percent 
[Combined: 50.2 percent]

Quibble if one will about using the Real Clear Politics averages or the specific date chosen or how many candidates were included or whatever, but the two examples above are far different from what one sees now in the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race. 

Donald Trump -- 53.2 percent 
Ron DeSantis -- 22.3 percent 
[Combined: 75.5 percent]

There just is not a lot of oxygen there for other candidates. Some might have difficulty qualifying for the first debate regardless of the criteria. The first debate was going to apply winnowing pressure regardless. What the RNC criteria may decide is just how much. And this top end pressure is not new. Trump and DeSantis have routinely gobbled up about three-quarters of the support out there. As DeSantis has faded Trump gained. Stretching into last year, as Trump's fortunes waned, DeSantis rose. 

FHQ is not saying the debate rules do not matter. They do and they will likely help winnow the field to some degree. But that is not the only thing exerting some winnowing pressure on the other candidates. They are, however, one of the few things in the control of the national party.


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Former Vice President Mike Pence has launched his bid for the Republican nomination with a splashy new video, but starts in a bad spot. And as Julia Azari and Seth Masket argue, Pence is stuck trying to resurrect the party of Reagan while simultaneously tethered to a Trump anchor. Candidates have seen some success trying to tread between past and present in years gone by, but it is not a path for Pence that is without resistance in the current context, they point out.


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In the travel primary, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis continues to branch out and hit states that are not home to one of the first four contests. There is a trip to Oklahoma this weekend and another to keynote a big Tennessee Republican Party fundraiser next month. Both are Super Tuesday states.

Also, CNBC's semiannual survey of millionaires still shows DeSantis as the choice, but the gap between him and the former president has noticeably shrunk since the last survey was conducted in fall 2022.


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On this date...
...in 1988, President George H.W. Bush and Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis both swept primaries in California, Montana, New Jersey and New Mexico. The wins by Dukakis pushed him over the number of delegates necessary to clinch the Democratic nomination. 

...in 2008, New York Senator Hillary Clinton conceded the Democratic presidential nomination to Senator Barack Obama a few days after the last round of primaries.

...in 2016, Donald Trump ran off a string of victories in primaries in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota to close out primary season on the Republican primary calendar. On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won primaries in California, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders continued his success in caucus states, winning in North Dakota and besting Clinton in the Montana primary.

...in 2020, President Donald Trump won an electronic vote of party leaders in Puerto Rico to take all of the island territory's delegates in the Republican presidential nomination race.



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Monday, May 29, 2023

What California Republicans Decide on Delegate Allocation May Matter a Lot. Here's how.

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...
  • FHQ Plus has been on a holiday (publishing) hiatus, but be on the lookout for a fun new post today or tomorrow. If you have been on the fence about subscribing to FHQ Plus, this one might be one to get you off of it. Come check out 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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Over the weekend, there was a new poll out of California taking the pulse of, among other things, the state of the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. The Institute of Governmental Studies (UC Berkeley) poll showed former President Donald Trump up big over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the Golden state. 

But there are some important factors to make note of about where the candidates are relative to one another in a Super Tuesday state that has undefined delegate allocation rules for 2024 at this point. Despite the sunsetting of the rules used in the largely uncontested 2020 Republican primary, California Republicans will not use the current winner-take-all by congressional district method that serves as a baseline method. Well, the state party will not use those allocation rules if they want to avoid losing half of their delegates under Republican National Committee (RNC) rules. 

So what are the alternatives? And perhaps more importantly, what strategic differences could they make for the candidates?

First of all, if the California Republican Party later this year readopts rules similar to those it used in 2020, then Trump would be looking at a big net delegate advantage coming out of the California primary. Granted, that would be weighed against delegates won by other candidates (or not) in other Super Tuesday states. But despite being a blue state, California remains the biggest delegate prize in the Republican process. 

But not as big as it could be.

While Trump, with a nearly two to one advantage over DeSantis in this poll, would hypothetically take a sizable net delegate gain from California, that big plurality would fall short of a majority. And under the 2020 rules, a majority win would activate a winner-take-all trigger for all 169 delegates. Again, Trump would miss out on that with just 44 percent support statewide. However, that 44-26 advantage would allocate the former president 106 delegates to DeSantis's 63. [No other candidates would qualify for delegates by virtue of missing the 20 percent threshold.] By narrowly missing out on a majority, Trump's delegate advantage goes from all 169 delegates to just 43. 

That is a big difference. Yes, a 43 delegate chunk like that is nothing to dismiss. But that is more easily neutralized across other Super Tuesday states for Trump opponents than if the former president had won all of the delegates from California. 

But what if California Republicans opted to split up the delegates, to not pool the at-large, RNC and congressional district delegates? That may also cut further in to any Trump advantage. The statewide results would only affect the allocation of 13 delegates, the at-large (10) and RNC (3) delegates. With a 44-26 win in a California primary, Trump would only win eight of those 13 delegates. DeSantis would be awarded the remaining five and again, no one else would qualify. 

By not pooling all of the delegates, the district delegates -- three per district -- would be allocated based on the result in each of the 52 congressional districts in the Golden state. Trump may win a majority in some of those, something that would net him all three delegates from such a district. But DeSantis may peak above 50 percent in some districts as well. The bigger thing may be the districts where no one wins a majority. The plurality winner would get two delegates and the runner up would get one. And if a third candidate qualifies in a handful of districts, it could, depending on how the rules are crafted, bring the winner (and assume that is Trump for the purposes of this exercise) down to just one delegate. The top three candidates over 20 percent would all get one delegate. 

Understandably, this gets messy in a hurry. However, the point here is that, depending on 1) the allocation rules and 2) how the primary vote is distributed across California, it could shrink Trump's net delegate advantage, making it more possible to neutralize the Golden state in the process. But it could also grow Trump's delegate advantage over the pooled allocation. Now imagine being one of the campaigns trying to figure this out.

Yes, it is just one poll. Yes, it is late May of the year prior to a presidential election year. Yes, there is a great deal of uncertainty still. But depending on the decisions the California Republican Party makes in the very early fall, it could make a big difference come Super Tuesday 2024. Rules matter.


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There are a lot of DeSantis analyses out there since the Florida governor officially joined the Republican presidential nomination race, but few are as thorough as Geoffrey Skelley's at FiveThirtyEight. It provides some nice perspective at the outset of DeSantis 2024. 


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Invisible Primary quick hits:
  • NBC News has a good summary of the current state of the endorsement primary. [As an aside, FHQ does not know why RNC member is included as an endorsement category in their analysis. Those three RNC members from each state and territory are ultimately going to be bound delegates next year. Those folks are going to stay (publicly) neutral in the vast, vast majority of cases. There will not be many (if any) endorsements there.]
  • After stops in Iowa and New Hampshire after his own launch, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott came home to the Palmetto state over the Memorial Day weekend for a town hall in the Low Country. Scott also has a fundraising trip out west in San Diego planned for mid-June (money primary).
  • New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu joined the chorus of prospective Republican candidates suggesting that a presidential announcement is coming "in the next week or two." Chris Christie has sounded similar calls in recent days.
  • Vivek Ramaswamy swung back through Iowa over the weekend. 
  • Never mind what a crowded field might do to the 2024 Republican race, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says it is good for the Hawkeye state and the Republican Party.
  • Not that it is a secret, but aides to North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum are (anonymously) confirming that the launch of presidential campaign is imminent. 


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On this date...
...in 1975, former North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford entered the 1976 race for the Democratic presidential nomination. And New Hampshire Governor Mel Thomas signed HB 73 into law. This is the now famous (or infamous depending on one's perspective) law on the books in the Granite state that gives the secretary of state the discretion to set the date of the presidential primary, directing them to keep it seven or more days ahead of any similar election. 

...in 2012, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney won the Texas Republican primary and surpassed the number of delegates necessary to claim the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.



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Friday, May 26, 2023

DeSantis is not without Organizational Strengths in the Republican Nomination Race, part two

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...
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...
...
Early last week FHQ discussed the organizational strengths the still-nascent DeSantis campaign had through the lens of endorsements. And that is not the only area where the now-announced candidate DeSantis is excelling relative to those who are vying to be the main alternative to former President Trump.  The Florida governor shrugged off the technically glitchy launch and reeled in $8.2 million in the first 24 hours after his formal announcement. This adds to the total DeSantis coffers (across the formal campaign and affiliated groups) that are already busting at the seams. 

This is an effort behind DeSantis that is well-funded in the money primary, staffed with folks who know how to organize for a delegate battle and that is building institutional support within the broader party network. It is a campaign that is built to run through Super Tuesday (at the very least). Now, building to get to that point and actually doing it are two separate matters. But the pieces are in place for DeSantis to stick around for a while.

And not that DeSantis was not already doing the sorts of things that presidential candidates do, but he has an upcoming swing next week through the states with the first three contests on the 2024 Republican presidential primary calendar.


...
Invisible Primary quick hits:

...
It is hard not to get the sense that the fixation on Glenn Youngkin 2024 is stuck in this weird feedback loop. 
  • Donors looking for a viable Trump alternative keep approaching Youngkin about running. 
  • Youngkin reaches out to other donors about securing the requisite funding for such a run. 
  • Media reports on the entreaties from both sides.
  • Repeat.
Forget mixed signals. All of this continues despite the fact that Youngkin would not officially jump into the race until after the November state legislative races in Virginia. You know, less than two months before voting likely starts in Iowa. Never mind that Youngkin 2024 would have to launch before November on ballot access grounds alone. Plus there appears to be a certain collective amnesia about the whole thing. It may or may not be on the tail end, but there is still an entertaining of the idea that Ron DeSantis may have waited too long to get into the 2024 race. If late May is too long, then November would be way too long. That may have been lost in the feedback loop. 

This talk is likely to continue as the uncertainty surrounding Donald Trump and the impact of his legal troubles has on the race ebbs and flows and whether or if DeSantis rebounds any. 


...
On this date...
...in 1980, George H.W. Bush withdraws as former California Governor Ronal Reagan crosses the delegate threshold to clinch the 1980 Republican presidential nomination. [Fun fact (and marker of just how much the world has changed): Bush informed Reagan of his decision to leave the race via telegram.]

...in 1992, President George H.W Bush and Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton both swept primaries in Arkansas, Idaho and Kentucky. The Democratic primary in the Gem state was a beauty contest. Idaho Democrats gathered in March 3 caucuses, giving Iowa Senator Tom Harkin a narrow victory.

...in 2016, Donald Trump surpassed the 1237 delegates necessary to claim the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.



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Posted by Josh Putnam at 10:00 AM 0 comments
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Thursday, May 25, 2023

An Exercise in Early State Delegate Allocation

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...
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...
...
FHQ is aware that most folks are focused on other things this morning, and we will comment on yesterday's events below. But let's start elsewhere with a fun diversion. Because who does not want to talk about delegate allocation seven months before any votes are cast, right?

Well, probably most normal people. However, as an exercise in just how delegate allocation may go in a pair of early Republican primary (or caucus) states, let's look at a couple of recent polls out of Iowa and South Carolina. 

Iowa
Just this morning, Emerson released a poll on the state of the race in (presumably) first-in-the-nation Iowa, and the survey depicts a race that is not especially close. Former President Trump enjoys a 42 point advantage over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the pair are the only two candidates to garner more than five percent support. Still, even though the full Iowa delegation will vote for one candidate at the national convention (if just one name is placed in nomination as usual), the Republican Party of Iowa uses a proportional allocation system with no official qualifying threshold. That just means that, depending on how the vote is distributed, a candidate can get below two percent support and still round up to a single delegate in the allocation.

So how would things look if, on caucus night, the Emerson survey was reflective of the results in Iowa?


Not surprisingly, Trump and DeSantis dominate the allocation. One should expect that in a straight up proportional allocation system with no qualifying threshold. However, the fun, if one can call it that, is in the rounding for those candidates at the bottom of the order. Like Bill Weld in 2020, Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Sununu all eke out a hypothetical delegate from the Hawkeye state. Note that Sununu in particular reels in just 1.6 percent of the vote and manages to round up to a delegate. 

Yet, if the 1.6% in the poll who named someone else other than the candidates listed -- those above plus Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum -- opted for, say, DeSantis instead, then the Florida governor would round up to a ninth delegate, depriving Sununu of his lone delegate. The math for both would leave DeSantis a larger remainder and he would round up.

Now, is that solitary delegate going to matter in the grand scheme of things? In this particular scenario, no. But if the votes are distributed differently -- in a less lopsided manner -- then it could matter. But that would likely mean that Trump's support has ebbed and/or some other candidate's fortunes have turned around. And that would probably be the bigger story to tell. 

[NOTE: This all assumes that 1) Iowa Republicans carry over allocation rules that the party most recently renewed in the 2022 adoption of amended party rules and 2) that the RNC apportions 40 delegates to Iowa for 2024 as it did in 2020.]


South Carolina 
There was also a recent survey from National Public Affairs of the Republican nomination race in the Palmetto state. Trump led by 15 over DeSantis -- 38-23 -- but the main takeaway from FHQ's perspective was that Trump's support shrank since the firm's last poll of South Carolina in April. Normally a five point drop while still retaining a 15 point advantage would not elicit much of a response. Trump would hypothetically win the primary and leave the most delegate-rich state in the early window of the calendar with a significant net delegate advantage from a winner-take-all by congressional district state. 

But in dropping below 40 percent support, Trump would be flirting with potentially losing out on taking all of the delegates out of South Carolina. Again, it would depend on how the votes are distributed across the state and districts, but it is rough rule of thumb that a candidate who clears 40 percent in the South Carolina Republican primary has a better than average shot at turning it into a winner-take-all (overall) state under the party's allocation rules. 

Perhaps that is splitting hairs, but as with the Iowa example above, it does help to identify where the cutlines are in the delegate allocation process. Anyway, as FHQ said, this is supposed to be a fun diversion.


...
Look, FHQ made a case for DeSantis being up against it in the race for the Republican nomination based on where Trump is positioned in the race at the moment. But folks, things can change. And as Jonathan Bernstein astutely pointed out at Bloomberg yesterday, they often have in presidential nomination battles. [It is a good piece. Go read it!] As he notes, DeSantis may have suffered some setbacks but he is in a position not unlike that of John McCain or Barack Obama in 2008. Both came back to win their respective nominations after invisible primary swoons the year prior. However, DeSantis could also ultimately find himself in the company of Kamala Harris or Scott Walker, who both, despite conventional qualifications and some promise, fell flat and never really amounted to much in their respective races. 

Yes, as I mentioned on Monday in response to something similar from Harry Enten, much of this depends on Trump. The former president is in a commanding position right now. That is commanding and not precarious. Commanding, not tenuous. But there is uncertainty because of the baggage Trump carries, including the various legal entanglements in which the former president finds himself mired. The uncertainty is great enough that anything from a Trump collapse to a DeSantis comeback to a surge from another candidate (or some combination of all three) are all seemingly possible. But the remainder of the invisible primary will say much about the viability of those last two options. 


...
Finally, Ron DeSantis officially filed his paperwork to run for president with the Federal Elections Commission on Wednesday, May 24. And things went downhill from there. There has already been a lot of ink spilled on the botched rollout of DeSantis for President on Twitter and the impact it will have. 

Meh. 

Here is where it matters. DeSantis is coming off a stretch where little seemed to be going right. Trump's position improved and some were asking whether DeSantis had waited too long to jump into the race or whether he should even officially run at all. All last night was was a missed opportunity. It was a missed opportunity to break from the downward spiral narrative. DeSantis will have future chances to right the ship but there may be fewer of them and/or less margin for error when they do come along. That is where yesterday matters. One rarely gets a second chance to make a first impression. However, in DeSantis's favor is the fact that most folks still are not engaged on 2024 yet. But an impression may be in the process of setting in. 


...
On this date...
...in 1976, on what was the busiest day of the calendar that cycle, five candidates claimed victory in primaries across six states and two competitive nominations races. On the Republican side, President Gerald Ford won contests in Kentucky, Oregon and Tennessee while former California Governor Ronald Reagan notched wins in Arkansas, Idaho and Nevada. In the Democratic race, former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter swept the three southern primaries in Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee while Frank Church (Idaho and Oregon) and Jerry Brown (Nevada) split the three contests out west.

...in 2000, Texas Governor George W. Bush took all of the delegates from a win at the Kansas Republican state convention.

...in 2004, President George W. Bush received just under 90 percent of the vote in winning the Idaho presidential primary.



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