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...

...

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.

...

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. 

...

From around the invisible primary...

• In the money primary, President Joe Biden and the DNC laid down a marker, raking in $72 million in the second quarter after the president's late April launch. By comparison, the last incumbent raised $105 million during the second quarter period in 2019. That was Trump and the RNC combined.
• Much has been made about the impact Donald Trump's comments on Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds' neutrality in the 2024 Republican nomination, but it remains to be seen just how much go an impact that will have long term in the state with the nation's first contest. However, in the short term at least, it has cost the former president in the endorsement primary in the Hawkeye state. State Senator Jeff Reichman defected to Ron DeSantis, shifting away from Trump.
• In the travel primary, yes, most everyone is in Iowa for the Family Leadership Summit, but DeSantis will head to South Carolina early next week and will become the first to file for the February 24 presidential primary in the Palmetto state. It will not be the last state in which DeSantis or any other candidate files: 2024 primary and caucus filing deadlines calendar.
• Speaking of South Carolina, The State had a nice piece up last week looking at Nikki Haley's relationship with the state legislature in her time as governor in the Palmetto state. She went against the grain in some respects and may have rubbed some the wrong way. 

...

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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Recent posts:

The Trump Campaign has been very disciplined on endorsements during the 2024 cycle

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Outside groups working against Trump

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DeSantis is flirting with the qualifying thresholds in the delegate game

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 has spent most of the week at Plus on state-level Republican delegate selection rules coming into clearer view. But there are a number of other things that have happened on the calendar and rules fronts throughout the week. All the details at FHQ Plus.

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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

...

Coming on the week of a second indictment of Donald Trump, there continues to be a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. 

Now, whether it is a lagging indicator of things -- or is accurately depicting any of that uncertainty -- the polling of the contest paints a clear enough picture: Trump is ahead and his lead has even increased in some state and national polls in recent days. [There is also an argument that the former president's position has been fairly stable since mid-May.] But Trump hovering in a range from 47-53 percent, as he has done since April in the national polls, is pretty immaterial when considered through the lens of the ultimately currency of the nomination process: delegates. Trump hitting anywhere in that range is going to help him rack up a lot, if not all, of delegates in primaries and caucuses next year. 

And while nothing is set in stone at this point -- the first votes will not even be cast for another 7-ish months -- the Trump number is potentially less significant than those of his opponents for the nomination. That is because, as of now, few others are actually in range of actually qualifying for any delegates. Most of the announced candidates are mired in the single digits. But even Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump's main competition and the next closest in the polls, is flirting with the median qualifying threshold in states on or before Super Tuesday on March 5. 

In fact, DeSantis hovers just over that point -- 20 percent -- in the averages at both FiveThirtyEight and Real Clear Politics. Fall below that point in the actual voting and that means no or very few delegates (depending on how the allocation rules are set up) in ten of the 20 states that are likely to hold contests on or before Super Tuesday. And among those ten are delegate-rich states like California, North Carolina and Texas, among others. 

Again, it is early. Things are apt to change in a dynamic nomination process with some measure of uncertainty. But it is worth noting that most of the non-Trumps are well below qualifying for delegates in most early states and the one closest to qualifying besides the former president is dangerous close to being on the outside looking in as well. That is a potentially big deal if the trend persists.

...

FHQ linked yesterday to the NBC story about DeSantis heading out to early state, Nevada, this weekend. But there were a couple of other items in there worth addressing. I will deal with one one here and the other later. The first...

"The Republican National Committee has not yet finalized its primary calendar, but Nevada state law now calls for the state's primary to be held on Feb. 6. That would likely place it just behind Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina among the early states that can boost (or sink) candidates' momentum in the race for the presidential nomination."

Forget all of the positioning among the early states for a moment. Yes, that is uncertain. But that first line is wrong and is typical of the misunderstanding about how the rules and the primary calendar come together each cycle. The RNC has finalized its primary calendar. It did so in April 2022 when it again set Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada as the early states on the 2024 calendar. 

That order is implied, but obviously it may not end up that way for a variety of reasons. But the point here is less the order than the sequence in the rules-making process. The RNC has done its work. It adopted in April 2022 the rules that will govern the 2024 nomination process. It is the states and state parties that are now active as they always are in the year before the presidential race commences. It is those state-level actors who have not yet finalized the calendar for the Republican (or the Democratic one, for that matter) process yet.

Yeah, I get it. This is splitting hairs. But again, the RNC has done its work on the calendar. All the national party can do now is react to any misbehaving the states and state parties do relative to those set guidelines. The ball is in the states' court.

...

From around the invisible primary...

In the travel primary both Nikki Haley and Tim Scott will be back home in the Palmetto state next week for town halls on consecutive days. Haley holds one in the Lowcountry on Monday, June 19 and Scott has his with Sean Hannity from Myrtle Beach in the Pee Dee region on Tuesday, June 20.

...

On this date...

...in 1999, Vice President Al Gore officially entered the race for the 2000 Democratic nomination.

...in 2015, Donald Trump came down the escalator and announced a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

...in 2016, just after the conclusion of primary season, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders addressed his supporters via video, saying that Democrats' top priority is defeating Donald Trump in the general election. Sanders did not concede the race to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, nor did he endorse her for the nomination. 

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Recent posts:

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

Tim Scott is making it tough for others in South Carolina

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

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The Rules Help Frontrunners in Both Parties, not just Trump

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

...

Elaine Kamarck had a really good piece up over at Brookings late last week. Breaking the nomination process timeline into three parts -- invisible primary, early contests and everything -- could perhaps use another layer, the opening of the winner-take-all window on March 15, but that is a small quibble. The hypothesis that someone will have to trip Trump up in one of the early states to take him down is a sound one as well. 

But FHQ breaks with Kamarck on an earlier section she penned...

"A few months ago, I helped create the now conventional wisdom which says that a large field of challengers will help Trump because the Republican winner-take-all or winner-take-most delegate selection rules are tailor made for a candidate who holds a solid base among primary voters and who can wrack up a series of plurality wins."

First of all, this is not exactly wrong. Winner-take-all rules certainly would not hurt a frontrunner with a built-in base of support like Trump seems to have. However, that is not the only layer of the rules that might help. There is another facet of the delegate selection process in both parties that could also help frontrunners in a similar position: the qualifying threshold. After all, candidates in both parties have to receive a minimum amount of support to gain any delegates in the first place. It is a standard 15 percent across all states, territories and jurisdictions in the Democratic process, and although it varies on the Republican side, the qualifying threshold can be no higher than 20 percent. In fact, more Republican state parties moved toward the 20 percent maximum qualifying threshold for the 2020 cycle. That remnant from the changes for the last cycle will potentially benefit the former president as well. 

But it is not just Trump who is helped by such rules. Frontrunners of all stripes can reap the benefits of a qualifying threshold. Here is an example. Say Trump wins 40 percent of the vote in the Minnesota primary on Super Tuesday next year. Ron DeSantis comes in a distant second at 20 percent, enough to qualify for delegates under the proportional rules Minnesota Republicans used in 2020. Trump in that scenario falls below 50 percent, so the winner-take-all trigger is not activated. Yet, only he and DeSantis qualify for delegates. Only their collective vote counts in calculating how many delegates each is allocated. Trump would not receive 40 percent of the delegates. The former president would claim two-thirds of them. DeSantis would take the remaining third. While that is not all of the delegates going to Trump, it would be a fairly healthy net delegate advantage coming out of the state. And if replicated across other states on a Super Tuesday with a number of primaries and caucuses, the delegate count could get lopsided quickly.

And this is not just a Republican phenomenon. This very thing happened to Joe Biden on Super Tuesday in 2020. Yes, some of his competition dropped out after South Carolina (and before Super Tuesday) and endorsed the former vice president, but they were still on the ballot, gobbling up votes and hovering well below the qualifying threshold. Who was above it? Biden, Bernie Sanders and a revolving cast of characters who nudged above 15 percent barrier across the slew of Super Tuesday states. The result was that Biden built a large enough lead in the delegate count to pressure others to cease campaign operations thereafter. 

Look, this is not all just delegate selection rules. As Seth Masket pointed out last week, winnowing matters a great deal in all of this. But the fact remains that it is not just winner-take-all rules that help just Trump. The delegate selection rules in both parties help frontrunners. Kamarck is not wrong, but her hypothesis is a bit too narrowly crafted. 

...

The Republican National Committee late last week also released the qualifying criteria for the first presidential debate this August in Milwaukee. Some candidates are already complaining. Others are too:

“It seems that the RNC is going out of its way to purposely narrow the field at one of the earliest times in the party’s history,” said a Republican consultant working for one of the presidential candidates who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. “And rather than finding a way for as many conservative voices to be heard by Republicans throughout the country, they are attempting to make this a two-man race.”

The RNC was going to catch some flak on this decision regardless, but this is much more about one candidate -- a dominant former president as frontrunner -- than it is about squelching the others struggling to gain support. How much lower than topping one percent in the polls was the national party supposed to go? The donor threshold is lower at 40,000 than it was for Democrats in their first debate four years ago. And Democrats managed to have 20 qualifiers across two debates on consecutive nights. The difference is not those on the low end. This is about the someone at the top end of polling crowding others out of a debate in which he may not even participate. 

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Invisible Primary quick hits:

• In the endorsement primary, former Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam threw his support behind South Carolina Senator Tim Scott.
• Never Back Down, the super PAC aligned with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, started canvassing in New Hampshire, continuing to test the effectiveness of the practice outside of a traditional campaign.
• Granite state Rep. James Spillane flipped his endorsement from Trump to DeSantis. [There has been some early churn in the endorsement primary between these two among state legislators. That may or may not be a story, but it signals that both sides are seemingly (and intensely) battling for the support of this subset of elected officials (especially in early states.]
• And action (or inaction) over in Iowa may help explain why state legislators are so sought after: Republicans elected statewide are for the most part staying neutral for now. That is true in Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire. South Carolina is the exception. Trump has endorsements from the governor and senior senator.

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On this date...

...in 1972, Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty withdrew from the Democratic presidential nomination race on the eve of the California primary.

...in 1984, in a series of five contests to end primary season, Colorado Senator Gary Hart won the delegate vote in California and primaries in New Mexico and South Dakota. Former Vice President Walter Mondale claimed victories in New Jersey and West Virginia.

...in 2012, both former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama swept primaries in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota. Obama also took the caucuses in North Dakota.

...in 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the Democratic primary in Puerto Rico.

...in 2020, President Donald Trump won an online vote among Republican party leaders in Puerto Rico to take all of the delegates from the territory.

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Recent posts:

Sunday Series: Demystifying Delegate Allocation and Delegate Selection

[From FHQ Plus] Uncertainty and the 2024 Presidential Primary Calendar

Real Talk: FHQ has to roll its eyes at coverage of this new caucus law in Iowa. It's bad.

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See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies.