Post-2022 Partisan Control of State Government and 2024 Presidential Primary Movement

What if anything do the 2022 midterm results mean for primary movement on the 2024 presidential primary calendar? 

Part of that question was actually answered back in August when the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) finalized all of the delegate selection rules for the 2024 cycle except one section. That exception? The pre-window calendar rules and exemptions. And why did the panel wait? They pushed pause on finalizing the early calendar because the midterms were going to be determinative in just how ambitious Democrats could be in reworking the calendar. A Republican surge would have meant something more like the status quo would have prevailed while a Democratic hold or gains would have given the DNCRBC a bit more latitude in changing things. 

The results ended up closer to the latter and Democrats swung big in booting Iowa and (effectively) New Hampshire from the pre-window in the adopted calendar proposal for 2024. 

That has largely been the story thus far for 2024 primary movement, prospective or otherwise. And that is unusual. It is atypical for a party currently occupying the White House to tinker with its delegate selection rules, especially when the incumbent president is signaling a run for reelection. Very simply, incumbent presidents of the post-reform era have made a habit of demonstrating that they like the rules that got them to the nomination in the first place and have tended to carry them over for the most part to their reelection cycle. 

That has not been the case with the Biden administration of the DNCRBC following the 2022 midterms. Instead of the focus being on Republican-controlled states angling to better position their primaries and caucuses for a competitive nomination cycle, the spotlight has been on two states tabbed to be a part of the new Democratic pre-window lineup. Two states where Democrats did not gain sufficient state legislative or gubernatorial seats to change the tide. That is, the talk has been about Georgia and New Hampshire not moving because Republicans in both state governments stand in the way. 

But the DNC calendar rules are not finalized yet and will not be until the February winter meeting at the earliest. Georgia and New Hampshire will continue to be stories in the process, but may force Democrats to look elsewhere to states that may be better able to implement changes. Given the national party's preference for state-run contests, any changes to move additional states' contests around will occur in state legislatures across the country. 

The other side of this, of course, is that Republicans did not flip control of any state legislative chambers in 2022. And the only gubernatorial seat the GOP gained was in Nevada, where Democrats retained control of the legislature (and the primary is already early on the calendar). As a component of possible primary movement, the lack of a typical out-party surge in the midterms did not portend pronounced primary movement. 

Another significant component is that Republicans are still dealing with the fallout of the primary movement from the 2012 cycle. As a quick primer on 2012, one has to go back to the 2004 cycle when Democrats aligned their calendar rules with those of the Republicans. Both parties allowed February contests for the first time then. While that set off some movement toward the new early, most states did not catch on to the rules change and act until the 2008 cycle. But that rush to the front of the queue was marked not just by states trying to shift to the earliest date allowed by the two major parties -- the first Tuesday in February -- but by a handful risking penalties to go beyond that point, threatening the positions of the earliest states exempted from national party rules. That pushed Iowa and New Hampshire to the brink of conducting contests in 2007, something that decision makers in neither national party seemed to prefer. 

And that influenced the calendar rules for 2012. The parties informally brokered a later start to primary season, nixing February as the earliest point during which non-exempt states could hold contests. Both parties nudged that starting time back to the first Tuesday in March for the 2012 cycle. But that left nearly 20 states in the lurch. All had February or early contests on the books. And all 20 needed to change state laws in order to come back into compliance with the new national party rules.

That change set off a flurry of activity on the state level in 2011. But there was a pattern to it. With an active Republican presidential nomination race on the horizon, the Republican-controlled states among that 20 tended to move back but less so. They mostly ended up in March. Democratic-controlled states, on the other hand, pushed even further back on the calendar with less at stake. 

And that is the legacy of 2012. The March start point for most states is still there in the national party rules and so are most of the Republican states. Some of the Democratic ones have even come back. That is not to say that there are not Republican-controlled states later in the calendar. There are. But there just is not a lot of movement that can happen at this point. Not movement forward anyway. 

In the end, there will be primary movement for 2024. Some has already happened prior to 2023. But the point here is to hone in on just how much movement can happen. Some can, but this is neither 2008 nor 2012. The changes on the Democratic side will likely push at least Iowa and New Hampshire into January and bring Michigan at a minimum into the pre-window. Other than that, however, there may be some incremental changes to comply with the new national Republican rules that will affect the end of the calendar. Unified Republican control in Montana and South Dakota ought to make those changes easier. 

The 2022 midterm elections saw relative stability across the board, and the lack of change there will affect how much the calendar is able to change in 2023. So far the outlook suggests limited tweaks. But it is still early.

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Recent posts:

Iowa Back in the Democratic Pre-Window?

Legislative Odds and Ends from New Hampshire with 2024 Implications

Roadblock to an Earlier Michigan Presidential Primary?

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Primary Movement Starts with the State Legislatures (2023)

The National Conference of State Legislatures has this calendar as well, but in alphabetical order. FHQ is more concerned with sequence. Which state legislatures convene first (1), when do their sessions end (2) and how does this impact the scheduling of presidential primaries (3)? 

[Much more below the calendar.]

2023 State Legislative Session Calendar (sequential)
Date (Convene)	States	Date (Adjourn)
January 2, 2023	Montana1 Ohio1	May 111 year-round2
January 3	Kentucky1 Minnesota1 Mississippi1 North Dakota1 Pennsylvania1 Rhode Island1 Washington, DC1 Wisconsin1	April 131 May 221 April 3n1 April 281 year-round2 year-round2 year-round2 year-round2
January 4	California3 Connecticut1 Maine4 Massachusetts1 Missouri1 Nebraska1 New Hampshire1 New York1 Vermont1	year-round2 June 71 June 211 year-round2 May 301 May 261 January 3, 20241 year-round2 May 91
January 9	American Samoa1 Arizona1 Arkansas1 Colorado1 Guam1 Georgia1 Idaho1 Indiana1 Iowa1 Kansas1 Puerto Rico1 Virgin Islands1 Washington1	--1 April 221 March 101 May 91 December 311 March 301 April 81 February 81 May 171 May 121 --1 year-round2 April 291
January 10	Delaware1 South Carolina1 South Dakota1 Tennessee1 Texas1 Wyoming1	January 9, 20241 year-round2 March 271 May 61 May 291 March 31
January 11	Illinois1 Maryland1 Michigan1 New Jersey1 North Carolina1 Virginia1 West Virginia1	year round2 April 101 year round2 year round2 July 281 February 251 March 111
January 17	Alaska1 New Mexico1 Oregon1 Utah1	April 171 March 181 June 261 March 31
January 18	Hawaii1	May 4
February 6	Nevada Oklahoma	June 5 May 26
March 7	Alabama Florida	June 8 May 5
April 10	Louisiana	June 8
Notes: 1 States in italics are caucus states. State parties and not state legislatures control the scheduling of those contests. 2 State legislatures whose session calendars have them meeting throughout the year. 3 Technically, California opened its 2023 legislative session with an organizational session on December 5, 2022. That counted as the first legislative day of the session, but the legislature was in recess thereafter until January 4, 2023. 4 Technically, Maine opened its 2023 legislative session with an organizational session on December 7, 2022. That counted as the first legislative day of the session, but the legislature was in recess thereafter until January 4, 2023.

2023 in the state legislatures
The table answers the first two of the three questions posed above. However, with the schedule of state legislative sessions down, what impact will that have on the formation of the 2024 presidential primary calendar? The biggest thing is that 2024 is not 2020. The partisan tables are turned with the Republican Party gearing up for an active and competitive nomination race while Democrats are less likely at this time to have one with an incumbent in the White House. Most recently the topline conditions that match best are from the last time a Democratic incumbent sought renomination, 2012. But that was a completely different environment with respect to the emerging primary calendar.

For starters, both parties allowed states to conduct February contests in 2008. Yet, given the flirting that early states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina did with the idea of late 2007 primaries or caucuses, both national parties made rules changes for 2012 intended to push back the start of primary season. And those changes meant that entering this period in the 2012 cycle -- early 2011 -- there were roughly 20 states with laws on the books that scheduled primaries that were not in compliance with the new national party rules. In other words, there was a tension at this point in the 2012 cycle that does not exist today. There was built-in and expected primary movement then that is not present in 2023 (or at least not present at near the same level). 

However, the backwards movement that characterized a lot of calendar movement for 2012 continued in 2013-14. And importantly for 2016, past rogue states like Florida, Michigan and Arizona moved back from the brink. But the 2020 cycle saw California move all of its delegates from June all the way back up to Super Tuesday in March, further concentrating just how many delegates were at stake so early in the process. What 2016 and 2020 demonstrated was that the national parties had -- at least for those two cycles -- devised a workable mix of penalties and bonuses to keep states in line.

Will that hold in 2024? The early indications are less clear than they have been in recent cycles, but 2023 will settle that score.

Here are a few things to look out for as state legislative session progress (mostly) over the first half of  2023 and into the latter half of the year.


1. Primary movement or primary movement?
There are at least a couple of different categories of primary movement. One is the movement of existing primaries from one spot on the calendar to another. The late 2022 attempt to shift the Michigan presidential primary from March to February is one such example. With Michigan factoring into the Democratic National Committee pre-window plans, one can expect further action on this front in the Great Lakes state in the coming months.  

The other type of primary movement concerns changes to the mode of delegate selection: primary or caucus. Every cycle there is at least some movement from primary to caucus or from caucus to primary. There has been a push in the Democratic process since 2016 to move away from caucuses in favor of primaries, whether state government- or state party-run. Democratic-controlled states on the whole shifted to state government-run contests for 2020 while the most of the rest adopted delegate selection plans with state party-run primaries. Only Iowa, Nevada and Wyoming kept caucuses intact. And the Covid-19 pandemic claimed the Wyoming caucuses, forcing the state party to use a mail-in process that more closely resembled a primary. In the intervening time, the Nevada legislature passed a bill establishing a presidential primary that was signed into law in 2021. And Iowa Democrats pledged during their pitch to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) to protect their early calendar position to adopt a mail-in process that makes the Democratic caucuses there caucuses-in-name-only. 

Primary to caucus movement or vice versa will likely be more mixed on the Republican side of the ledger. A number of state Republican parties scaled down their operations for 2020 with an incumbent seeking renomination. A handful of primary states shifted to caucuses and a fair number of caucus states cancelled those contests in favor of other means of delegate selection. [Democrats on the state level followed much the same route in a number of states in 2012 when the party was last defending the White House.] But those Republican moves for 2020 will likely reverse to some extent for 2024. Yet, at least one Republican-controlled state, Missouri, has already eliminated its primary for 2024. Although there is an effort to reestablish it. Of course, with a competitive nomination race, there could be movement in one or both directions as state Republican parties potentially consider which mode -- primary or caucus -- helps one candidate or type of candidate over others. 

2. Likely Movers
As noted above, the impetus to move for 2024 is different than it was in the recent past. Democrats are idle at this time, so the motivation is less pronounced for states to move their contests around because of an active nomination race. Granted, the calendar proposal adopted by the DNCRBC will trigger some activity. Michigan fits in there as may some other states. But are there some states more likely to move than others?

When one thinks about that, there are a few factors for which to account. FHQ will not be exhaustive here, but only point toward the most likely factors motivating primary movement. One is where the contests are currently scheduled. The movement seen so far for the 2024 cycle has been focused more on states switching modes rather than switching positions on the calendar. But later states are more likely to be motivated to move up on the calendar than early states are to move back. Yes, the Louisiana primary shifted to a later date for 2024 in 2021, but that was due to a non-compliance issue. There are a handful of other states that face non-compliance issues as well, but that is because of a change in Republican National Committee (RNC) rules and they are at the end of the calendar.

But second, look to the partisan alignment of state legislatures. That has not been a significant factor in past iterations of my research, but in an increasingly polarized environment, may be becoming a more significant one now. Republican-controlled states, then, might be more inclined to seek out earlier dates. Look, in particular and as noted above, at the Republican-controlled group of states with early June primary dates as of now. Also states like Florida and Ohio with mid-March primaries may be motivated to move to even earlier dates. A wide open Republican race (not to mention favorite son candidates in Florida's case) may draw them to earlier dates for 2024.

Contrast that with the Democratic-controlled state governments across the country. Their motivation is different. Diversify the beginning of the calendar? Protect the president and/or create a smoother path to renomination? Affect the Republican process? Any movement among Democratic states is likely to be if not minimal, then narrow and particularized. 


3. Regional primaries
Part of what drove the mid-Atlantic/northeastern states back in 2012 and kept them there for 2016 and 2020 was the allure of a regional primary clustering bonus provided for in the rules of the Democratic National Committee. Neighboring states that hold their primaries together and late enough on the calendar are rewarded with additional delegates; more activists they can take to the convention. That is no small thing for a small state. While a later contest date potentially means a lesser voice for a given state in the primary process, it means a greater voice at the convention.

And that bonus may hold more sway this time around without an active nomination race than it has in the most recent cycles. Of course, this would mainly be a Democratic phenomenon and one that may be more active in the likely absence of a competitive nomination race if states opt to collectively chase the bonuses with less on the line (and less need to hold early contests).

4. Priorities for election legislation at the state level

This is a factor that has weighed on me since the 2020 election in trying to handicap what we may witness in 2023 with respect to presidential primary movement. Republican state legislatures have moved in that time to protect what the party collectively views as threats to election integrity while Democrats on the state level have focused on combatting what they see as voter suppression. Yes, state legislators can walk and chew gum at the same time, so it is possible to both fight the above fights and also move primaries around for 2024. 

Inevitably, there will be legislation proposed across the country to move primaries to varying points on the calendar, but does such legislation take a backseat in the legislative process to potentially higher priorities on electoral matters? That strikes FHQ as a big question heading into 2023. Yes, rules changes in both national parties will affect some change at the margins, and although there may be some fallout from and noise about the Democrats' proposed changes to the beginning of the calendar, this may -- MAY -- be a quiet year overall for calendar movement.¹ And what is likely to keep things quiet-ish is that the parties have a pretty good mix of rules and penalties in place to deal with most rogue states not named Iowa and New Hampshire. And honestly, those rules and penalties have not been tested on the traditionally earliest pair of states.

Anyway, as state legislatures begin to convene as they have over the last week, they will be considering any number of things. Undoubtedly though, that will include primary calendar movement if not caucus to primary movement.

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¹ Even with the proposed changes, one can map out the range in which most states are likely to fall on the calendar at this point. 

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Recent posts:

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It Isn't Just the Democrats Who Are Shaking up the 2024 Presidential Primary Calendar

New Hampshire Democrats' Lose-Lose Predicament

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#InvisiblePrimary: Visible -- The 2018 Elections and The 2020 Presidential Primary Calendar

Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the movements during the day that was...

As presidential nomination cycles have come and gone over the years, the stories change in terms of how states maneuver within that system and why. That is not to suggest that the collision of states and the decision-making conditions they confront is complete chaos every four years. Rather, the terrain is constantly shifting. That is true for a lot of electoral decisions that state legislatures make, and that includes how states position their delegate selection events -- primaries and caucuses -- on the quadrennial presidential primary calendar.

Eight years ago, nearly half the states in the country had newly non-compliant primary dates leftover from a 2008 cycle that saw a slew of states push into February and cluster primarily at the beginning of the month. When the national parties informally coordinated a later start to primary season for 2012, all those February states from 2008 had to make changes to state law.

And the result was at least somewhat predictable. State governments that were under unified Republican control shifted back their dates much less than did the handful of states that were controlled by Democrats after the 2010 midterm elections. Whereas Democratic-controlled states pushed back to traditional positions (California and New Jersey back to June) or positions later on the calendar (the northeastern/mid-Atlantic regional primary in late April), most Republican-controlled states ended up somewhere in March.

At least part of the motivation, then, was partisan. Decision makers in Republican state governments were preparing for an active nomination race and attempted to schedule their primaries for advantageous -- for voters and for drawing candidate attention -- spots on the calendar. Democratic decision makers had no such similar calculus. With no real competition for the Democratic nomination, decision makers in Democratic-controlled states could afford to shift back further in 2012 to take advantage of a new series of delegate bonuses the DNC built into their delegate selection rules for that cycle.

However, when the calendar flipped over four more times, the decision-making matrix at the state level was different for 2016. Both parties had varying levels of competitive races looming and again, acted in at least somewhat predictable ways. Republican-controlled states, already largely in early positions, saw minimal movement.

But Democratic side of the ledger was different. First even in 2014, before the 2015-16 legislatures had been elected, Democrats had a clear frontrunner for 2016 in Hillary Clinton. Second, after the 2014 midterms, there were only a handful of states with unified Democratic control. That is a recipe for little movement, and, in fact, none of those seven Democratic states made any changes for the 2016 cycle.

So as the process heads into 2019, what does the balance of power look like in states across the country for 2020?

For starters, the number of Republican-controlled states is similar to 2015. While there were 23 states with unified Republican control in 2015, there are 22 in 2019. However, there are more Democratic-controlled states now than four years ago and the gains came not from Republican states, but from those with control divided in some way, whether inter-branch or intra-branch.

Not only has the map of partisan control changed, but so too have the conditions under which these decisions are made. Like 2011 or 2015 for Republicans, Democratic decision makers in 2019 seemingly have a wide open and competitive nomination race on the horizon. Those actors, like Republicans in the recent past, have incentives to potentially shift around the dates on which their presidential primaries are held.

That incentive was great enough that California moved from June to March for 2020 back in 2017, an atypical time in the cycle to make such a move.

And that incentive could be enough to motivate the cluster of Democratic-controlled states in the northeast to coordinate an earlier cluster of contests; the inverse of 2011. There is already some evidence that a western regional primary could form in a position just a week after Super Tuesday.

On the Republican side the motivation is different, and not exactly like what Democrats faced in 2011. Yes, defending the president is chief among the concerns of Republicans like the Democrats of eight years ago. However, the defense is potentially different. Democrats, with no real threat of a challenge to President Obama, made moves potentially with the general election in mind; to attempt to influence who emerged as Obama's opponent.

Republican legislators may act, but with the nomination phase in mind; to ward off a challenge to the president. This may happen, as was the case eight years ago on the Democratic side, at the behest of national Republican actors, but it will take place at the state level.

Does that mean Republican-controlled states unilaterally pull back and set later dates? That would be an historical anomaly. States have not typically done that except in situations where it has meant consolidating separated primaries in order to reduce costs; save a line on the state budget. But in more polarized times, both nationally and increasingly in state legislatures, the rules may be different.

It is early in the 2019 state legislative sessions, but it is there that these calendar decisions will be made, and begin to provide a picture of what the 2020 presidential primary calendar will eventually look like.


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Elsewhere in the invisible primary...

1. Gillibrand end last week with a flurry of activity, whether it was lining up potential campaign headquarters, planning trips to Iowa, staffing up, or privately signaling her intentions.

2. She's not the only one headed to Iowa. Brown is going to visit the Hawkeye state too.

3. Swalwell is taking a late January trip to New Hampshire.

4. Inslee is taking flak back home from Republicans and from some New Hampshire Democrats.

5. In West Virginia, announced Democratic presidential candidate, Richard Ojeda, is resigning his state Senate seat to run for president.

6. Meanwhile, Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is in.

7. So is Julian Castro.

8. And DeBlasio isn't closing any 2020 doors, but, boy, is the clock ticking and the alarm may have already sounded for statements about door-closing/considerations being either serious or taken seriously.

9. Warren continues to add staff. This time some New Hampshire staff additions were announced while Warren was visiting the Granite state.

10. If Biden's walking, he's running [for 2020].


Has FHQ missed something you feel should be included? Drop us a line or a comment and we'll make room for it.

#InvisiblePrimary: Visible -- Primary Movement Starts with the State Legislatures

Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the movements during the day that was...

The National Conference of State Legislatures has this calendar as well, but in alphabetical order. FHQ is more concerned with sequence. Which state legislatures convene first, when do their sessions end and how does this impact the scheduling of presidential primaries? [More below the calendar.]

2019 State Legislative Session Calendar (sequential)
Date (Convene)	States	Date (Adjourn)
January 1, 2019	Pennsylvania Rhode Island	year-round2 mid July
January 2	Maine Massachusetts New Hampshire Washington, DC	June 19 year-round2 late June year-round2
January 3	Indiana North Dakota1	April 29 April 26
January 4	Colorado	May 3
January 7	California Idaho Montana Ohio Wisconsin	September 13 early April May 1 year-round2 year-round2
January 8	Delaware Kentucky Minnesota Mississippi South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Wyoming1	June 30 March 29 May 20 April 7 May 9 March 29 late April May 27 early March
January 9	Connecticut Illinois Maryland Michigan Missouri Nebraska New Jersey New York North Carolina Vermont Virginia West Virginia	June 3 year round2 April 8 year-round2 May 17 June 6 year round2 year round2 mid July mid May March 10 March 9
January 14	Arizona Arkansas Georgia Iowa1 Kansas1 Puerto Rico Virgin Islands1 Washington	late April March 14 early April May 3 mid May November 30 year round2 April 28
January 15	Alaska1 New Mexico	April 14 March 16
January 16	Hawaii1	May 2
January 22	Oregon	June 30
January 28	Utah	March 14
February 4	Nevada1 Oklahoma	June 3 May 31
March 5	Alabama Florida	June 18 May 3
April 8	Louisiana	June 6
Notes: 1 States in italics are caucus states. State parties and not state legislatures control the scheduling of those contests. 2 State legislatures whose session calendars have them meeting throughout the year.

2019 in the state legislatures
The table answers the first two of the three questions posed above. With the schedule of state legislative sessions down, though, what impact will that have on the formation of the 2020 presidential primary calendar? The biggest thing is that 2020 is not 2016, but it is likely to share more similarities with 2016 than 2016 did with its immediately prior cycle, 2012. There are not nearly 20 states that have to make some form of scheduling change to comply with changes to the structure of the primary process at the national party level. In 2008 both parties allowed February contests. For 2012, both parties changed their minds and together informally constructed a calendar structure that had the carve-outs in February and all other states in March or later.

Right off the bat, then, the 2012 cycle had a tension between where state laws had various primaries scheduled (February or before) and what the national parties wanted in terms of the overall calendar for most states (March and later). That tension has already been greatly minimized. 2011 saw a significant amount of backward primary movement, and that process continued in 2013-14. Importantly for 2016, past rogue states like Florida, Michigan and Arizona moved back from the brink. That does not mean that there will not be other rogues out there, but 2016 demonstrated that the parties had -- at least for that cycle -- a workable mix of penalties and bonuses to keep states in line.

Will that hold in 2020? The early indications are yes, but 2019 will settle that score.

Here are a few things to look out for as state legislative session progress (mostly) over the first half of  2019 and into the latter half of the year.

Primary movement or primary movement?
A couple of states -- California and North Carolina -- made early moves on the 2020 calendar. Both shifted their contest dates to Super Tuesday in 2017 and 2018. That is atypical as most states tend to wait until the new legislatures convene in the year before the presidential election to settle on the timing of their presidential primaries. And while one can expect there to be additional movement up and down the calendar in the coming months, that is not the only type of movement witnessed either thus far or likely witnessed in the near future.

Yes, some states have changed primary dates, but others -- former caucus states -- have moved to primaries as the means allocating delegates for the 2020 cycle. This trend began in 2016 (Maine and Minnesota), continued in 2017 (Colorado and Utah), stretched into 2018 (Idaho and Nebraska), and could push into 2019 in states like Hawaii and Washington. The former saw legislation die during the 2018 session and the latter has a state-funded primary option, but the Democratic party in Washington has eschewed it in the post-reform era. Washington Democrats are set to finalize their plans by March/April.

But does the trend push beyond just that group? 2019 will answer those questions and in the state legislatures.


Likely Movers
The impetus to move for 2020 is different than it has been in the recent past. Republicans are idle at this time, so the motivation is less to move around because of an active nomination race and more to do so in order to potentially protect the renomination odds of the current president. There have been some discussion about South Carolina canceling its primary in favor of a caucus system for instance. But are there states more likely to move than others?

When one thinks about that, there are a few factors for which to account. FHQ will not be exhaustive here, but only point toward the most likely factors motivating primary movement. One is where the contests are currently scheduled. The movement seen so far for the 2020 cycle has been later states moving up, California most clearly.

But second, look to the partisan alignment of state legislatures. That has not been a significant factor in past iterations of my research, but in an increasingly polarized environment, may be becoming a more significant one. Democratic-controlled states, then, might be more inclined to seek out earlier dates. Look, in particular, at the group of mid-Atlantic/northeastern states with late April primary dates as of now. Each has moved pretty far back on the calendar over the last two cycles. Most also have some Democratic control. A wide open Democratic race may draw them to earlier dates for 2020.

Contrast that with the Republican-controlled state governments across the country. Their motivation is different. Protect the president? Then move back (and see the state party shift to a winner-take-all allocation method). Hurt the Democrats? Then move back and shift an important constituency concentrated in a particular region. Think about that SEC primary coalition from 2016. That could break up and push the votes of a valuable Democratic voting bloc -- African American -- to later in the calendar. That might affect some candidates more than others.


Regional primaries
Part of what drove some of those mid-Atlantic/northeastern states back in 2012 and 2016 was the allure of a regional primary clustering bonus from the Democratic National Committee. Neighboring states that hold their primaries together and late enough on the calendar are rewarded with additional delegates; more activists they can take to the convention. That is no small thing for a small state. While it potentially means a lesser voice in the primary process, it means a greater voice at the convention.

That bonus may hold less sway this time around with an active nomination race than it has in the two most recent cycles. Instead one may see attempts to replicate the SEC primary from 2016. There are elements of a Great Lakes primary already on March 10. California's move may prompt the formation of a PAC 12 primary (if California does not already represent that on its own). But there is reason to believe those clusters, if they occur, will fall earlier in the 2020 than in 2016 or 2012.

Anyway, as state legislatures begin to convene, they will be considering any number of things. Undoubtedly though, that will include primary calendar movement if not caucus to primary movement.


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Elsewhere in the invisible primary...

1. One western state governor is headed to the first in the west caucus state. One seemingly likely 2020 candidate -- Governor Jay Inslee (D-WA) -- is trekking to Nevada.

2. On the Sanders front, former campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, will work in a different capacity in any presidential campaign the Vermont senator launches for 2020.

3. Speaking of Sanders, New Hampshire groups supportive of his candidacy will hold events this weekend across the Granite state.

4. New Hampshire will also welcome Elizabeth Warren this weekend.

5. Steyer opts to focus on impeaching Trump rather than seek the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Yes folks, #WinnowingWorks.

6. O'Rourke is more inclined to run than not at this point.

7. While Booker and Sanders are in South Carolina for MLK day, Harris will be back in Oakland to make her 2020 intentions, if not official, then clearer. ...and they have already been pretty clear if one has followed the signals.

8. Finally, ask and ye shall receive. The burning question on everyone's mind in early 2019: Will Jeb Bush run in 2020? Nope.


Has FHQ missed something you feel should be included? Drop us a line or a comment and we'll make room for it.

Cross-Party Involvement in Presidential Nominations: 2020 Primary Calendar Scheduling

In the time since the midterms nearly two weeks ago, FHQ has been mulling over a morning after tweet from The National Journal's Hanna Trudo:

.@GOP just sent mass email marking Tuesday as “an especially bad night for Elizabeth Warren” pic.twitter.com/HFbbiewEum

— Hanna Trudo (@HCTrudo) November 7, 2018

Yes, this is evidence of the Republican National Committee chipping away at a potential high-profile 2020 challenger to the sitting Republican president in a press release. That is not exactly uncommon. However, that email left me wondering about the extent to which either the RNC and/or the broader Republican Party would/will attempt to intervene in the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and how overt those efforts might be.

After all, we seemingly are a long way from back channel comments attributed former President Bush about some of the candidates involved in the 2008 cycle. But that was more commentary than outright attempt to intervene. And Republicans had their own active nomination race that cycle anyway.

Yet, typically, parties will keep the other party's process at arms length. Sure, press releases and mass emails are always going to be a part of this exchange in the open market of the battle between parties. But as is our wont here at FHQ, we tend to put these things in the context of the mechanics of presidential nominations. And that is what I turned to upon reading Trudo's tweet.

Often we think of partisan actors in elective office behaving in a manner to best advantage their party's interests (if not the party). Think in particular about the lengths to which actors on the state legislative level have sought to position their presidential primaries in calendar positions over the years to have some impact on the presidential nomination process in their own party.

Southern Democratic leaders, for example, famously pined for a process that would yield a southern moderate-to-conservative nominee throughout the two cycles in the 1970s and into the 1980s. The idea was that that type of nominee would stand a better chance at winning a general election. And the stars aligned in 1988, at least procedurally. Fourteen southern states -- headed by Democratic-controlled state governments -- shifted to and coalesced on the second Tuesday in March; just on the heels of the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.

Sometimes, however, the best laid plans go awry. And that was the case for southern Democrats in the 1988 cycle. Try as they might, the plan did not work. Rather than speaking with one regional voice, the results across the South were split on the Democratic side. Dukakis won the big states (Florida and Texas), Jackson the Deep South, and Gore the peripheral South. The plan backfired.

But what can be gleaned from that is how state actors have typically approached the calendar scheduling part of this process: To the extent they sough to have influence, it was either to give voters a larger voice in the process (by moving earlier) or to influence who the nominee was in the party of legislators making the decisions.

In other words, the impact was to be an intra-party positive for some candidate (favorite son) or some faction within the broader party coalition.

Yet, this logic was turned on its head in the 2012 cycle. No longer was the motivation for states to move forward on the calendar to have some positive impact. Instead, the negative incentive in the form of (flawed) national party penalties was to push states back in the process in an effort to create a later start to primary season, one not bumping up against the New Year's festivities.

States retained the ability to cluster on the earliest -- although theoretically later compared to 2008 -- date, but all of those February 2008 states shifted in a seemingly partisan manner. Those with Republican-controlled state governments tended to move their presidential primaries back less than those in Democratic-controlled states. And there was at least some (anecdotal) evidence that the Democratic side of the equation was a concerted effort; to shift more liberal states later in the process to draw out and stir up a hypothetical race that foresaw a Mitt Romney nomination. Now, the logic underlying that effort can certainly be questioned -- liberal states in the aggregate do not necessarily have moderate-to-liberal Republican primary electorates -- but the intervention is there.

And that is where at least some of the focus should be heading into 2019: how will states shift around on the 2020 calendar? Much of the spotlight has been on the impact the re-positioning of the California presidential primary will have on the Democratic nomination process. That is not wrong. It is a noteworthy shift. But it leans on a logic rooted in the past: partisan actors (Democrats in California) making positive, partisan decisions (to move the primary in the Golden state up).

How much can we expect Republican actors to act? Will Republican-controlled states sit idly by and maintain early calendar positions? Or will Republican states, say those involved in the SEC primary from 2016, proactively move to another position so as to have some impact on the Democratic nomination process? Those southern states moving back would mean the shift of an important bloc in the Democratic primary electorate: African Americans.

There are no clear answers to these questions at this point, but 2019 will begin to offer them as state legislatures begin to convene for their 2019 sessions and begin to weigh primary calendar moves.

State Legislatures Move Most Presidential Primaries. ...But They Have to Change State Law First

Don Gonyea had a good background piece on the possibility/formation of an SEC primary this morning on NPR's Morning Edition.

However, Mr. Gonyea lost FHQ when he began to place odds on which southern states would join the potential southern regional presidential primary on March 1 of next year. Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi were deemed "sure things" while it was mentioned that the "lineup could include" Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas and Florida. This not correct.

It was a small section in an otherwise solid story, but it is misleading about how the presidential primary calendar forms from cycle to cycle. Some states are constant date-tweakers. New Hampshire, for instance, has to be able to change the date of the presidential primary there to stay at the front of the queue every presidential election year. They move dates every cycle. But the majority of states are not like New Hampshire: They stay in the same position if not every cycle, then for multiple cycles. Indiana has held its presidential primary on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of May for the entire post-reform era (1972-2012), for example.

Part of the reason why is that the motivation is not always present in a given state to move the date on which a presidential primary is held. The benefits are not readily apparent. And even when the benefits of added attention and candidate spending are somewhat clear, the decision still has to filter through two chambers of a state legislature and garner a governor's signature. That introduces the layer of state-level partisanship and possible partisan gridlock (which FHQ discussed in some detail recently).

But here's the thing: When a state legislature cannot pass legislation moving the date of the presidential primary or has not passed legislation the default position of such a contest is the position described in state law. That very definitely affects the odds of a state joining a proposed regional primary or in moving a primary to an earlier date as has been the fashion for much of the post-McGovern-Fraser reform era.

State laws in Tennessee, Texas and maybe Florida currently indicate that those states are "sure things" for March 1. There is nothing fluid about that. There are no discussions in any of those states about changing the state laws concerning the dates of presidential primaries.¹

Arkansas may join the SEC primary, but it could be tough. In any event, the calculus is different in the Natural state than it is in any of the other states on the SEC primary list.

There is unified Republican control of the state governments in both Alabama and Mississippi and appears to be support for the idea of bumping the primaries up a week in each state. Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann indicated to his Georgia counterpart, Brian Kemp (who is behind the SEC primary concept), that everyone in the Magnolia state is "on board".

Georgia is unique in that the legislature does not factor into the presidential primary date-setting decision. Like New Hampshire, the secretary of state sets the date of the primary in the Peach state. That streamlines the decision-making process and mean that Georgia is only a formal declaration away from a March 1 primary date next year.

But again, if we're trying to place odds on which states will be involved in this southern regional primary, then look to the state laws first. Tennessee and Texas are the sure things. State laws in each say so. There's still work to be done -- and potential roadblocks -- in the other states (though there does not seem to be much resistance to moving up in most of those states).

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Here are some related posts on the intricacies of the formation of the SEC primary:
Why is Florida on March 1 and Not March 15?

Will a Calendar Bump Up Mean More Candidate Visits in SEC Primary States?

Why Getting Arkansas into an SEC Primary is More Difficult

But Southern States Will Have to Be Proportional

Louisiana not inclined to join 'SEC' presidential primary day in 2016

A Couple of Reasons the 2016 Texas Presidential Primary Isn't Going Anywhere

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¹ There may be a discussion in Florida at some point about clarifying the law, but the state legislature does not convene in the Sunshine state until March.


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Post-2014 State Government Partisan Control and 2016 Presidential Primary Movement

Four years ago, the story coming out of the 2010 midterm elections was what newly Republican-controlled state governments would do in power. The tale from the 2014 postmortems has been much the same. Indeed, Republicans now control both chambers of state legislatures and gubernatorial seats in 23 states (see map below).¹ That can and will have a significant impact on policy-making in states covering most of the regions of the country.

It could also influence the way in which the 2016 presidential primary calendar develops and hardens throughout 2015.

Whether a state government is unified or divided along partisan lines is a factor in the calculus that state governmental actors go through when making the decision to shift the date of the state's presidential primary.² Again, Republicans have stretched their advantage in state government over the last four years. Yet, conditions are different in 2011 than they are in 2015. State governmental control may play a role in any subsequent primary movement, but it plays a smaller role than other factors.

That is consistent with what FHQ has found for the 1976-2008 period. Throughout that span structural, state-level factors played a much larger role in the determination to shift the date of a primary. For instance, a state such as Arkansas in 2015 is forced to decide between moving the presidential primary together with the primaries for state and local offices or creating a separate presidential primary election that can be moved more easily but incurs the cost of funding that new, separate election. That is a sterner test than in a state like Florida where the presidential primary was separate at the outset of the post-reform era. The costs of moving are greater in Arkansas than in Florida.

Incumbency in the White House also matters in this calculus. This may differ in the currently more polarized era, but in the 1976-2008 period, the floodgates have tended to open up in terms of primary movement in years in which both parties have competitive presidential nomination races. In other words, if there is no incumbent seeking reelection, both parties members in state government are potentially more motivated to help their party -- whether candidates, their state or the partisan voters in the state -- to gain some advantage. Actors on the state governmental level are hypothetically more cautious when an incumbent is running for reelection. Partisan conflicts are more likely to occur when one party is attempting to reelect a president while the other is trying to determine which candidate would be best suited to unseating that incumbent. The I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine mindset gives way to its every man for himself.

The interesting thing is that the 2012 and 2016 cycles may break from that pattern to some extent. 2012 saw a significant amount of primary movement for a year in which an incumbent was seeking reelection. By comparison, 2016 is off to a much slower start (despite both parties having open nomination contests). The reason is the semi-coordinated rules changes between 2008 and 2012. Both the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee allowed states to hold delegate selection events in February for the 2008 cycle.³ That resulted in a primary calendar in 2008 that began on the heels of New Years, stretching the calendar and in some respects the process out. Neither wanted repeat of that in 2012. The solution was an informal agreement to shift the start point back to February with the majority of states -- those other than the four carve-out states -- being restricted to March or later dates.

That change put 18 primary states in the national parties' crosshairs in January 2011. 18 states had laws calling for February (or earlier) presidential primaries. That significantly reshaped the primary movement calculus in those states. Those states had to move in order to comply with the new rules and avoid the penalties associated with violating them.

As the map below demonstrates, that same pressure from the national parties will not exist in 2015 as the 2016 primary calendar is being finalized in state capitals across the country. There are only three states -- Michigan, New York and North Carolina -- that are officially slated to hold non-compliant presidential primaries in 2016. Michigan has already signaled that a move to March is likely there. And New York is only back in February because the 2011 primary date change was passed with a sunset provision. That leaves only North Carolina.

...and other states that might want to go rogue, breaking the national parties' rules on timing.

But that brings us back full circle to the unified control factor.

One could hypothesize that with so many Republican-controlled states and a significant increase in the Republican penalty associated with holding a pre-March primary (or caucus) that the stars have potentially aligned to produce an orderly primary calendar. Perhaps put more precisely, the parties may have devised the best way of combatting such frontloading activity than has been the case in the past.

There are 23 Republican-controlled states that the more severe RNC penalty may help keep in line. Past scofflaws (and Republican-controlled states) -- Arizona, Florida and Michigan -- have either disarmed or look to be in the process of disarming. However, attempts at going rogue during the 2016 cycle have thus far occurred in Republican-controlled states (Arizona, North Carolina and Utah). The fact that Arizona is on both lists says something about intra-party divisions. That is not something confined to just Arizona either. North Carolina has seen a number of issues put its Republican-controlled Senate at odds with its Republican-controlled House. On the surface, then, it may look as if the combination of more severe RNC penalties and an expansion of Republican-controlled states would help reign in any potential 2016 rogues. But it is more complicated than that.

If we really want to see the potential impact of partisan control of state governments on this process, the best test may not in Republican states where there is a willingness to break the rules. Rather, the better test may be in Republican-controlled states and the ease with which they form regional and subregional primaries.

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¹ That is a slight increase over the 20 state governments the Republican Party controlled following the 2010 elections.

² To see a similar examination of these factor from 2011 see here and here.

³ That was not new in 2008. Both parties allowed February contests in 2004, but only the Democratic Party had a nomination race that cycle.


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Primary Movement Starts with the State Legislatures: 2015 State Legislative Session Calendar

The National Conference of State Legislatures has this calendar as well, but in alphabetical order. FHQ is more concerned with sequence. Which state legislatures convene first, when do their sessions end and how does this impact the scheduling of presidential primaries?

2015 State Legislative Session Calendar
Date (Convene)	States	Date (Adjourn)
December 1, 2014	California	September 11, 2015
December 3, 2014	Maine1	June 17
January 2, 2015	Washington, DC	year-round2
January 5	Montana Ohio Wisconsin	late April year-round2 year-round2
January 6	Indiana Kentucky Minnesota1 Mississippi North Dakota1 Pennsylvania Rhode Island	April 29 March 24 May 18 April 5 late April year-round2 late June
January 7	Colorado1 Connecticut Massachusetts Missouri Nebraska New Hampshire New York Vermont	May 6 June 3 year-round2 May 30 early June July 1 year-round2 mid May
January 12	Arizona Arkansas Georgia Idaho1 Iowa1 Kansas1 Puerto Rico Washington	mid April March 12 early April early April May 1 late May May 12 April 26
January 13	Delaware New Jersey South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Wyoming1	June 30 year round2 June 4 late March late April June 1 early March
January 14	Illinois Maryland Michigan North Carolina Virginia West Virginia	May 14 April 13 year-round2 early July February 28 March 14
January 20	Alaska1 New Mexico	April 19 March 21
January 21	Hawaii1	early May
January 26	Utah	March 12
February 2	Nevada1 Oklahoma Oregon	June 1 May 29 July 11
March 3	Alabama Florida	June 15 May 1
April 13	Louisiana	June 11
Notes: 1 States in italics are caucus states. State parties and not state legislatures control the scheduling of those contests. 2 State legislatures with year-round sessions.

The table answers the first two of the three questions posed above. With the schedule of state legislative sessions down, though, what impact will this have on the formation of the 2016 presidential primary calendar? The biggest thing is that 2016 is not 2012. There are not nearly 20 states that have to make some form of scheduling change to comply with changes to the structure of the primary process at the national party level. In 2008 both parties allowed February contests. For 2012, both parties changed their minds and constructed a calendar structure that had the carve-outs in February and all other states in March or later.

Right off the bat, then, the 2012 cycle had a tension between where state laws had various primaries scheduled and what the national parties wanted in terms of the overall calendar. That tension has been greatly minimized. 2011 saw a significant amount of backward primary movement, and that process has continued in 2013-14. Importantly, past rogue states like Florida and Arizona have moved back from the brink and Michigan is signaling that it may follow suit. But that does not mean that there are not other rogues out there.

Here are a few things to look out for as state legislative session progress (mostly) over the first half of  2015 and into the latter half of the year.

Rogue states (2016 calendar for reference)
2015 looks a lot less like a minefield than 2011 looked from the national parties' perspectives. There are far fewer automatic problems on the calendar. New York has to move back. But the state legislature moved back in 2011, but just for 2012. Michigan and North Carolina have to move too. Michigan looks like it will move back, but North Carolina may be a different matter. Legislatures in both states convene on January 14.

The rest of the states that have any claim to a non-compliant position on the calendar at this juncture all have options that would allow them disarm in any potential fight with the rules committees in both national parties. Colorado parties can choose the March caucuses option laid out in state law. All the parties in Minnesota have to do is agree on a date they would like to conduct caucuses (by the end of February), otherwise the caucuses are automatically scheduled for the first Tuesday in February. The issues with Utah are twofold. First, and less problematic, the the Beehive state would only be on the first Tuesday in February if the legislature appropriates funds for a Western States Primary (WSP). That most likely means that there will not be an appropriation is there is no WSP. The second factor in Utah's case is perhaps more tension-ladened than the first. That has more to do with the attempt to move Utah to the first position on the calendar with online voting that popped up in 2014 and died on the final melee during the close of the legislative session after having passed one chamber. The very short session in Utah kicks off on January 26. We may begin to get some answers there then.

Regional primaries
Most of the talk thus far has been about southern primaries clustering on March 1, the earliest date on which the national parties allow non-carve-out states to hold primaries or caucuses. Florida, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia (and Oklahoma) are already scheduled for March 1 primaries. In 2014, Louisiana moved to the weekend following those contests and does not appear to be headed to an earlier point on the calendar as of now. Mississippi and Arkansas convene legislative sessions over the next couple of weeks and could join the fray with legislation to move primaries then. The state legislative session kicks off in March in Alabama. Alabama and Mississippi are easier to move (only a move up of a week) while Arkansas has some conflicts that make a move up from mid May tough but not impossible.

Regional clustering may not be done there. There was chatter about a midwestern primary in late 2013. Illinois and Missouri have already staked out a position together on March 15. Others may be interested in joining. Early in 2015, keep an eye on Ohio. The legislature in the Buckeye state opens its session on January 6. A later western primary may materialize as well (see Utah above).

Caucuses to Primaries or Primaries to Caucuses
Finally, one other factor to be mindful of is states switching from caucuses to primaries or vice versa. 2012 saw more of the primary to caucuses movement as Idaho Republicans abandoned the primary in the Gem state. Florida Democrats made a similar move but to avoid the sanctions associated with participating in a non-compliant January primary.

Fewer and less successful have been the attempts to shift from a caucuses/conventions system to primaries as a means of allocating national convention delegates. Minnesota tried it in 2009 and Maine did likewise in 2013.

There are always a few of these shifts. Typically, they do not develop in state legislatures; not the successful moves anyway. Rather, the changes in mode of delegate allocation that are witnessed tend to happen because of legislative inaction. State legislatures not moving non-compliant (too early) or very late primaries. Regardless, it is something to watch for as legislatures swing into action in the coming days, weeks and months.


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Happy New Year

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