#InvisiblePrimary: Visible -- CPAC 2021

Typically, FHQ does not put much stock in Conservative Political Action Conference, as it is one of the more visible mile markers during any invisible primary period on the Republican side. But it is one of those events that has a straw poll of the next presidential nomination race in the GOP for those who are interested in such things. Polls, straw or otherwise, have no real meaning this far out from the 2024 Republican nomination and a certain former president may have an inside track on winning this one of the straw variety in any event. 

However, that does not mean that the confab of conservatives in Orlando is without significance. It just means that there is probably none to be derived from that straw poll. But if one is trying to assess the invisible primary as it is developing, who is there at CPAC and who is not is noteworthy and at least something of an earlier indicator of who is running for and who might be running in 2024.

So who is in Orlando speaking this weekend?

former President Donald Trump

Governor Ron DeSantis (FL)

Senator Ted Cruz (TX)

Senator Tom Cotton (AR)

Senator Rick Scott (FL)

Senator Josh Hawley (MO)

former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

Governor Kristi Noem (SD)

Again, Trump is likely to dominate the event or at least much of the news coming out of it and overshadow all of the others. And that includes those who are not in attendance and/or speaking. Notable among that group are:

former Vice President Mike Pence

Senator Marco Rubio (FL)

former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley

Governor Larry Hogan (MD)

Surely there are others to list here, but that brief list of no-shows and the uninvited will suffice. They are the ones often discussed in the context of possible 2024 bids. 

Is CPAC the end all be all on the path to the 2024 Republican presidential nomination? Not in 2021 it isn't. But what it does represent is an opportunity to appeal to a particularly active constituency in the Republican primary electorate. And that is an opportunity that some candidates will have and others do not. And that is meaningful even with nearly three years until voters begin to cast votes for their presidential preferences. Will those voters remember CPAC 2021 then? Most likely not. But it may be a part of an aggregation of events and activities that candidates take part in to help form the candidates that they may become by 2023-2024.

The invisible primary marches on.

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Colorado Republicans Opt to Forgo Presidential Preference Vote at 2016 Caucuses

The Executive Committee of the Colorado Republican Party unanimously voted late last week to skip  the presidential preference vote at its precinct caucuses in 2016.

On the surface this is an interesting if not strange decision. As the Associated Press reported, it is a move to diminish the role of the state in the Republican presidential nomination process. Perhaps, but FHQ is not of the opinion that that tells the full story here.

For practical purposes, all this means is that Colorado Republicans will caucus on either February 2 (the day after the presumed February 1 Iowa caucuses) or March 1 (the day of the so-called SEC primary). The process will likely look the exact same as it did four years ago when the party conducted caucuses on the first Tuesday in February. The only difference is in 2016, that exercise will not have a presidential preference vote as part of the proceedings.

And bear in mind that the vote at the 2012 Colorado Republican caucuses did not bind delegates to the national convention. It was one of the non-binding caucuses. The very same sort of affair that the Republican National Committee sought to change at the 2012 convention in Tampa and in rules changes in the time since. At least part of the intent in that move toward binding contests was not only to eliminate fantasy delegates, but to create a more orderly delegate count over the course of primary season and ultimately a less controversial (lead up to the) roll call vote for the nomination at the next national convention.

However, the RNC provided one out to states wanting to maintain a practice of sending unbound delegates to the national convention. Basically, it gave the handful of caucus states that have in the past held non-binding caucuses the ability to opt out of a presidential preference vote altogether. Now, there is nothing in Rule 16(a)(1) that invites states to do this, but there is also nothing there -- no penalty -- to prevent states from not holding a presidential preference vote. The only penalty is that states taking that path are gambling with the attention they might receive in the nomination process.

And that brings this discussion back to the contention from the AP above; that Colorado Republicans, by making this decision, have counterintuitively shrunk their own role in the process. That all depends. Recall that the preference vote meant very little in 2012. It was a straw poll, a beauty contest. But that allowed us to say that Rick Santorum had "won" Colorado. We will not have the ability to as easily declare a winner in 2016 in the Centennial state.

Yet, that does not also prevent the candidates and their campaigns from spending time there. It just changes the incentives. The "winner" tag will be gone, but campaigns will still have decisions to make. Do you invest resources in a contest that pays no immediate dividends? Do you invest in the type of organization that gets candidate-aligned delegates elected to move from the precinct caucuses to county assemblies and from there to district conventions and from there to the state convention and beyond to Cleveland?

Perhaps Colorado Republicans did not just diminish their role so much as narrow the field of candidates who are willing to gamble; willing to expend those resources there. The party has condensed the field to three main categories: 1) those with grassroots support, 2) those who have the money and resources to organize or 3) those who have both. The rest won't bother and probably because they cannot afford to.

And if the Republican Party in Colorado opts for a February 2 date for its caucuses, it increases the likelihood that candidates would be willing to make that gamble. Remember also that with no binding presidential preference vote, Colorado would not be penalized any delegates under the RNC rules.

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One more thing that has not come out in the reporting here is that this -- the executive committee vote -- may only be step one in this decision-making process. When FHQ spoke with the party last month, party chief of staff, Tyler Hart, informed us that ultimately the state central committee will have to sign off on any changes coming out of the executive committee meeting during its own meeting next month. Given that the executive committee vote was unanimous, though, the direction of that vote seems quite clear.

They have a date decision to make as well.

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Date of 2016 Colorado Republican Caucuses Remains Unsettled

With New York officially moving back into compliance with national party delegate selection rules and North Carolina inching in that direction too, Colorado is the only state with any ties to a February primary/caucus position that is not also a carve-out state. Under Colorado state law, parties can call caucuses in a presidential primary year for either the first Tuesday in February or the first Tuesday in March. Democrats in the Centennial state have already staked a claim to the March 1 date, but on the Republican side, the choice is still unclear.

According to Colorado Republican Party chief of staff, Tyler Hart, that decision likely will not be made until late September (just prior to the October 1 Republican National Committee deadline by which state parties are required to have finalized delegate selection plans). The Colorado Republican Party Executive Committee will meet to discuss the options in a late August meeting and then the full State Central Committee will vote on the date as well as the method of delegate allocation.

All of this hinges on whether the party votes to hold a straw poll (to determine presidential preference). If the State Central Committee opts against a straw poll, then the caucuses are likely to be scheduled on the first Tuesday in February date; February 2 (the day after the proposed February 1 Iowa caucuses). Recall that in 2012, Colorado Republicans held early February caucuses, but conducted a non-binding straw poll that Rick Santorum won. Any straw poll vote like that -- concurrent with precinct caucuses -- in 2016 would bind any subsequent delegate allocation in the state based on rules changes that came out of the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa. The rules change was partially motivated by contests like those in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri that had beauty contest votes that had little or no bearing on the simultaneous and subsequent delegate selection process (through precinct caucuses to county/district caucuses to the state convention).

Attempting to thread that needle -- early caucuses with no direct presidential preference vote¹ -- echoes to some degree the experience Minnesota Republicans earlier this year. Minnesota was in a similar boat with Colorado in 2012 as alluded to above. Both state parties held early February caucuses and both parties allowed caucus participants to vote on their presidential preference in meaningless straw poll votes. However, both now face a cycle that will operate under a set of rules that prohibit a repeat of the non-binding straw polls at caucuses.

Minnesota Republicans, after agreeing with Democrats in the Gopher state to hold caucuses on March 1 next year, petitioned the RNC to allow its delegation to remain unbound heading to the national convention in Cleveland next July as has been the custom in Minnesota throughout the post-reform era. The party even considered skipping its own straw poll (with the March 1 caucuses) as a means of circumventing the new binding rules. Minnesota Republicans technically could not have gotten away with the maneuver since the state law requires a straw poll vote. Regardless, the RNC denied the request to allow the Minnesota delegation to remain unbound heading into the national convention. According to reports out the state at the time, that ruling did not address the potential for not holding a straw poll vote.

This is what Colorado Republicans are also considering now. And it is likely something that the RNC will have to address if the state party votes to go forward with a plan to forgo the straw poll. As the caucuses are likely to indirectly affect the delegate selection process (who the delegates are and are aligned with), the likelihood of it ending up like Minnesota -- request denied -- is high.

But the Colorado Republican Party could avoid all of that by choosing the March option for its 2016 caucuses. That decision will not (officially) come until September though.

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¹ Instead caucusgoers would be voting on delegate candidates (likely) aligned with particular candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination. Delegates would be selected/elected from that pool of (aligned) delegate candidates to move on to the next step of the caucus/convention process.

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Race to 1144: Southern Tuesday/Puerto Rico

Source:
Contest Delegates (via contest results and rules, and RNC, Georgia Secretary of State)
Automatic Delegates (Democratic Convention Watch)

Delegate breakdown (post-Southern Tuesday, Puerto Rico):


Notes:
1) The allocation of the delegates in Georgia is based on the most recent vote returns published online by the office of the Georgia Secretary of State. The allocation here differs from the RNC allocation in Georgia. The above grants Gingrich two additional delegates (which have been taken from Romney's total).

2) The Alabama primary results by congressional district have not been released by the Alabama Republican Party. The allocation above is based on the RNC interpretation of the allocation.

3)  Iowa Republican Party Chairman Spiker was a part of the Paul campaign in Iowa and resigned his position upon taking up the post of party chair. While he has expressed his intent to side with whomever the Republican nominee will be, Spiker has not also directly signaled any neutrality in the race. The door is open for his support of Paul at a potential contested convention. While FHQ includes Spiker in Paul's delegate total, it is necessary to make note of the possible future subtraction of one delegate that would bring the Texas congressman's total to 26.


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Race to 1144: Super Tuesday, Kansas/Territories

Source:
Contest Delegates (via contest results and rules, and RNC, Georgia Secretary of State)
Automatic Delegates (Democratic Convention Watch)

Delegate breakdown (post-Super Tuesday, Kansas/Territories):    

Notes:
1) The allocation of the delegates in Georgia is based on the most recent vote returns published online by the office of the Georgia Secretary of State. The allocation here differs from the RNC allocation in Georgia. The above grants Gingrich two additional delegates (which have been taken from Romney's total).

2) The Tennessee primary results by congressional district have not been released by the Tennessee Republican Party. The allocation above is based on the RNC interpretation of the allocation.

3) Take note of the fact that both the percentage of total bound delegates and percentage of delegates needed to clinch the nomination have been added to the table for each candidate.

4) Iowa Republican Party Chairman Spiker was a part of the Paul campaign in Iowa and resigned his position upon taking up the post of party chair. While he has expressed his intent to side with whomever the Republican nominee will be, Spiker has not also directly signaled any neutrality in the race. The door is open for his support of Paul at a potential contested convention. While FHQ includes Spiker in Paul's delegate total, it is necessary to make note of the possible future subtraction of one delegate that would bring the Texas congressman's total to 23.


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Race to 1144: Washington Caucuses

Source:
Contest Delegates (via contest results and rules, and RNC)
Automatic Delegates (Democratic Convention Watch)

Delegate breakdown (post-Washington caucuses):
Romney: 136 delegates (New Hampshire: 7, South Carolina: 2, Florida: 50, Nevada: 14, Arizona: 29, Michigan: 16, Automatic: 18)
Gingrich: 32 delegates (South Carolina: 23, Nevada: 6, Automatic: 3)
Santorum: 19 delegates (Nevada: 3, Michigan: 14, Automatic: 2)
Paul: 8 delegates (New Hampshire: 3, Nevada: 5)¹
Unbound: 198 delegates (Iowa: 25, Colorado: 33, Minnesota: 37, Maine: 21, Washington: 40 Automatic: 11, Huntsman: 2)

Added since Arizona: Romney (Michigan: 16 delegates), Santorum (Michigan: 14 delegates, 1 automatic delegate), Unbound (Washington: 40 contest delegates, 3 automatic delegates, Wyoming: 26 contest delegates, 3 automatic delegates)

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How much do the Washington caucuses change or affect the current race for the Republican nomination? It is another win for Romney in a western, non-binding caucus; his second such win -- with Wyoming -- in a row and an in area (non-binding caucuses) in which Romney had been shut out through nearly the first two months of 2012. The win is important in the overall race (or the perception of the state of things within it), but it does nothing to alter the delegate count as neither Washington nor Wyoming allocated any delegates during the first steps of their respective caucus/convention processes.

Ultimately, the bulk of the Washington delegates (40 of 43) will be bound, but not based on the precinct-level straw poll. Instead the delegates will be bound on the preferences of those in attendance at the district and state conventions. In Wyoming, all 29 delegates will head to the August Republican convention in Tampa unbound. Twelve of those delegates will be chosen during county conventions this coming week and while they will be unbound, they are free to choose whomever they prefer and may make that preference publicly known coming out of the conventions this week.

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¹ Iowa Republican Party Chairman Spiker was a part of the Paul campaign in Iowa and resigned his position upon taking up the post of party chair. While he has expressed his intent to side with whomever the Republican nominee will be, Spiker has not also directly signaled any neutrality in the race. The door is open for his support of Paul at a potential contested convention. While FHQ does not include Spiker in Paul's delegate total, it is however necessary to make note of the possible addition of one delegate that would bring the Texas congressman's total to nine.

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Fantasy Delegates

Look, FHQ has been stubbornly adamant that the bulk of the delegate counts for the 2012 Republican nomination race out there are artificially inflated.¹ This is due in part to either a misguided application of the Democratic Party's proportional delegate allocation rules (see Iowa, Colorado, Maine and now Wyoming) or an equally skewed application of winner-take-all rules (see Minnesota) in all the caucus states but Nevada which have held caucuses thus far. But this is a misleading practice and is obviously based on a flawed logic. I realize that we all want to get a grasp of what the true delegate count is, but over-inflating the count serves no purpose.² [I'll spare you having to read once again that delegates from these states attend the convention technically unbound anyway. Oops.]

Again, it is the caucus states that are driving the discrepancies in the various delegate counts.³ First of all, there are no rules at the state party level in any of these states (Iowa, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota and now Wyoming) that indicates either a winner-take-all or proportional allocation of the delegates. In fact, there are no guidelines in any of these states to determine how many of any given candidate's supporters in attendance at the precinct caucuses get selected to move on to the next step of the process; either the county, district or state convention level. All we know is what a non-binding straw poll of precinct caucus attendees tells us. But as I have pointed out repeatedly, there are plenty of opportunities for people to vote in the straw poll and opt out of the lengthy caucus meeting process before the county, district or state convention delegates are chosen from among the caucusgoers at the precinct caucuses.

Up until now, FHQ has made the point that this would advantage the Ron Paul campaign -- the campaign with the seemingly most committed supporters in the race.⁴ But let me flesh that point out a bit and offer a hypothesis. First, a question: Who are Rick Santorum voters at these caucuses? There are a few different ways of thinking about this:

1. They are sincere Santorum voters.
2. They are sincere not Romney voters, but not necessarily committed to Santorum.
3. They are Democrats attempting to prolong the Republican nomination process.

I'll dismiss the third option for now, as it is only going to affect things -- at the most -- at the margins. Plus the only clear evidence -- or actually push from the Santorum campaign -- of Democratic support has been in Michigan. But the other two types of Santorum voters are worth looking at in more detail. Are Santorum voters, then, true Santorum supporters or just committed to casting a protest vote against Romney?

The hypothesis: True Santorum supporters are more likely to stick it out through the whole delegate selection process at the precinct-level meeting, but "not Romney" Santorum voters are more likely to be satisfied with simply casting a not Romney vote in the non-binding straw poll.

The truth of the matter is that we don't know the answer to this question. And yes, I know, the Santorum folks are going to come after me on this one. But I don't think this is something that we can dismiss as a factor. The fact is that we simply don't know and that complicates even further our ability to project much of anything about the nature of the eventual allocation of delegates in these caucus states.

Until such time that someone/some outlet with the resources -- FHQ does not have them. -- can talk to all of the county, district or state convention delegates in these states and get an accurate feel for their candidate preferences, these delegates that the AP, New York Times and others are allocating to Paul, Romney or Santorum are fantasy delegates.⁵

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Post script: Now, to head off the likely Santorum backlash from this, FHQ will wholeheartedly admit that none of this is static; that either these Santorum voters are sincere Santorum voters or not Romney voters or that the line between those two groups is well-defined and consistent across states. It isn't. Again, it is an unknown. For one thing, raising $9 million in a short month is indicative of some level of enthusiasm for the Santorum candidacy. So before my good Santorum friends return the volley with stories of enthusiasm and committed support (and with claims that those levels can grow over time), please note that FHQ is in no way dismissing the possibility that that level of support exists or can grow over time. I am only attempting to point out that there is a discrepancy here driven by the fact that we don't have a firm answer to the above question. Nothing more, nothing less.

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¹ Yeah, I know. That description is redundantly redundant. ...but allow me to emphasize my point.

² It gets supporters' hopes up and forces them to counterintuitively throw, of all delegate counts, the New York Times' delegate count at FHQ as evidence of the "true" count.

³ FHQ has among the most conservative delegate counts out there, but the RNC's is by far the most conservative. They are not, as of yet, counting any automatic delegates who have endorsed a candidate already. For states that have held contests and in which the automatic delegates are not bound by the results of the primary or caucus, the RNC is considering those automatic delegates as unbound. That is consistent with the RNC delegate selection rules which call for those delegates to be unbound unless otherwise bound according to state party rules.

⁴ Even David Frum is starting to look into the Paul delegate strategy.

⁵ Newt Gingrich has as of yet been unable to cross the threshold (voter percentage necessary) to receive any delegates in most of these states. The former speaker's delegate total is fairly consistent across counts. That is because his delegates are all primary delegates from states with clearly defined rules on binding delegates.

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A Follow Up on the Maine Republican Caucuses

A great many folks have happened upon FHQ's "No Conspiracy in Maine" post from last Sunday throughout the week, and apparently have felt obligated to either push back against that notion and/or fill me in on all the news that has subsequently come out on the matter. Grant me a few follow up comments:

1. First of all, that post was written on Sunday morning; the morning following the release of the caucus results by Pine Tree state Republicans. The main premise of the piece was to point out that looking back at 2008 caucus turnout, there simply weren't enough votes in either Washington County -- the one county with a grievance in all of this vote counting because of its scheduled-on-time-but-postponed meeting -- or the remaining caucus areas that will either caucus this weekend or on March 3. Even if the vote totals from 2008 were adjusted to reflect the rise in turnout statewide in 2012 relative to 2008 (152 votes), it still would not have provided enough votes -- if split among candidates -- to put any candidate ahead of Mitt Romney. Even if Ron Paul was able to win all those votes, he still would have come up short.

Now, it should be noted that by taking the stand that it did -- that only caucuses on or before February 11 would be counted -- MEGOP raised the stakes in Washington County in particular, increasing the likelihood that more caucusgoers in that area could be mobilized in a way that overperformed the increase in turnout witnessed elsewhere in the state relative to 2008.

2. To that end, the Maine Republican Party has attempted to defuse the situation:

AUGUSTA, ME -Today the Executive Committee of the Maine State Republican Party met to discuss the Presidential Preference Poll results and have approved the following statement from Chairman Charlie Webster. 

“We have worked diligently to contact town chairmen throughout Maine to reconfirm the results of their individual caucuses. These totals once confirmed will be posted on the Maine Republican Party Web site 

All Republicans are keenly aware of the intense interest in the results of the Maine Republican Party Presidential Preference Poll. In fact, I have had numerous conversations with Senate President Kevin Raye and Washington County Commissioner Chris Gardner regarding their concerns that the Washington County poll results be included in our final tally. As a result of these conversations I called a meeting of the Executive Committee to discuss this matter. 

The results of the Washington County caucus will be reviewed at the March 10 Republican State Committee Meeting. The Executive Committee voted unanimously to recommend to the State Committee that they include the results in the final tally for the Presidential Preference Poll as their caucus had been scheduled to occur by the February 11 deadline, however it was postponed due to inclement weather.” -- MEGOP press release "Chairman Webster Meets with Maine Republican Party Executive Committee", 2/16/12

Regardless, a new vote total showing the Romney lead increasing by a "not significant number" is expected from the party today that should remedy the "spam folder" votes that were never counted. Now, whether that lessens or increases the turnout in Washington County and other areas tomorrow or on March 3 won't be known until later. But there is some ray of light in the above release that the Washington County votes may be added to the total when the Executive Committee meets again on March 10. [At that point why not just count the other areas as well?]

3. That question above gets us back to the rules to which the Maine Republican Party has stuck. A portion of the flak I have gotten over the Maine aftermath post was from Ron Paul folks arguing that FHQ was missing the point by focusing on past turnout and not the efforts that could be made to further mobilize in Washington County. Point well taken, but the idea of Washington County making the difference in the outcome was entirely dependent upon the Maine Republican Party backing off on its stubborn February 11 or before stance that excluded Washington County from the count. Now, that the party has seemingly backed off that stance -- or at least appeared open to considering the inclusion of those votes -- this is a non-issue unless and until the Washington County vote overperforms turnout elsewhere in the state and provides Paul with a margin that helps the Texas congressman surpass the 194+ vote margin Mitt Romney now has in the eyes of the Maine Republican Party.

4. As for the rest of the conspiracy theories that are and have been floating around out there, FHQ never really commented on those -- just the mathematically insignificant previous vote totals in the outlying areas yet to caucus. We'll (thankfully) defer to the Maine Republican Party on that matter.

But as I tweeted yesterday, we aren't likely to see any of those results rom Washington County or even the other areas until Super Tuesday -- or now later, given the March 10 Executive Committee meeting. By then the focus will have shifted to the state of the race for the Republican nomination after Super Tuesday and the other upcoming contests.


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No Conspiracy in Maine

UPDATE (2/17/12): Please see our follow up post on Maine.

There was quite a bit of ex post facto finger pointing going on in the Twitterverse -- FHQ's tiny circle of it anyway -- last night after the Maine Republican caucuses results were released by the state party. There was a lot of handwringing over the -- according to Google Elections -- nearly 17% of precincts that were not reporting results last night. Now, the Maine Republican Party advised those localities holding caucus meetings to hold them between February 4-11. But as FHQ has pointed out, several areas caucused early and others will caucus on either February 18 or March 3. However, only those caucuses that were conducted on or before February 11 were -- and will be -- counted in the final straw poll count. Well, in a close election -- one decided by just 194 votes¹ -- having votes not counted in the straw poll from anywhere is a problem.

...on its face anyway.

But that leaves two unanswered questions:
1) Is not counting those caucuses in the final non-binding straw poll really a problem?
2) If so, how big of a problem is it?

Now, as is our custom, FHQ will avoid the normative question of whether caucus votes totals being excluded from the total straw poll vote should be viewed as a problem. That is a question that the Maine Republican Party is best positioned to answer. But the answer is pretty obvious as to why the totals are not being counted. [The problem is that it has not been explained all that adequately by the Maine Republican Party.]

How obvious? For that, let's glance back at the vote totals from the 2008 Maine Republican caucuses. [Here are the relevant localities isolated from the full dataset.] First of all, there is an equivalence issue here as the Maine Republican Party in 2008 reported total towns reporting and not the precincts reporting that Google, the AP and others are using in 2012. From the party's perspective, 95.95% (332 of 346) of all towns reported results in 2008. That denominator -- 346 towns -- is based on the number of towns that had announced caucuses.² FHQ does not know how much of an issue that is in the grand scheme of things in this case, but it is worth noting.

The towns yet to hold caucuses are in three counties -- Hancock, Kennebec and Washington. With the exception of Washington County -- where snowstorms postponed until February 18 caucuses that were originally scheduled for February 11 -- the sites within Hancock and Kennebec were previously scheduled outside of and after the window designated by the state party for holding caucuses. In other words, if there is a gripe about the certification of these results without certain areas, then the complaint about Washington County should be the loudest.

Still, combined, caucuses in those same areas -- if they had announced caucuses in 2008 -- only accounted for 148 total votes (out of 5431 votes statewide) four years ago.³ That's 2.7% of the total vote in 2008. More importantly, 113 of those 148 votes were in Washington County. Both totals are less than the margin by which Romney edge Paul last night in the straw poll.

Of course, as the Paul campaign pointed out last night, the straw poll is less important to them than the delegate count. Whether Paul is/was able to cobble together enough votes in the remaining precinct caucuses to pull ahead of Romney is not as important -- to the Paul campaign -- as is gobbling up delegate slots to the district/state conventions from not only those straw poll-excluded areas but statewide.

But back to the, uh, main questions: Were the Maine caucuses rigged as some are claiming? No. First of all, the Maine Republican Party did not go out of its way to single out these areas that will hold caucuses over the next two weeks to go later than everywhere else. The localities voluntarily opted for a time outside of that window, knowing that the state party planned to release straw poll numbers on February 11. Secondly, even if it was rigged, the state party could not have picked a collection of areas  less equipped to swing the election. Is it a problem that those areas will go later than the rest of the state? FHQ will leave that question to someone else. The bottom line is that Ron Paul could have won all the votes in those areas and still come up short in the straw poll. Now, having said that, the Paul campaign could certainly focus on dominating those caucuses over the next two weeks and gathering all the available district/state convention delegate slots.

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¹ Eyeballing it, that looks like a small number, but the reality is that that 194 vote margin was enough to provide Mitt Romney with a fairly comfortable 3.5% victory in an election with 5585 votes cast. That is a level that would not trigger an automatic recount in a general election.

² One additional point of clarification needed here from the Maine Republican Party is whether towns with "announced" caucuses were states that held them on or before the February 1-3 window in which caucuses were held in 2008. If they were announced but perhaps after February 3, were they "announced" in the eyes of the party in the linked tabulation above? FHQ doesn't know. Whether there were any localities with caucuses after February 3 is also unknown.

³ Adjusting that 148 vote total from 2008 for the modest increase in turnout from 2008 to 2012 would only increase the total number of votes in these areas to 152 in 2012. Admittedly, that's a crude estimate, but it provides a decent baseline for comparison.


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On Non-Binding Caucuses and Straw Polls

FHQ got a very astute email over the last weekend about the caucus procedure in Wyoming, and how FHQ categorizes some of the events on our calendar. Basically: Which ones make the cut and which ones don't? This is particularly problematic when it comes to the non-binding caucuses that are starting to pop up all over the early part of the 2012 presidential primary calendar.

Our policy here is that those contests matter. As I alluded to in the Colorado post in the wee hours of this morning, non-binding can be a misleading description. No, the results of the presidential preference straw polls that are held at the precinct level  are not binding on the ultimate allocation of delegates. If Romney were to get 60% of the vote in a precinct it would not necessarily mean that 60% of the delegates chosen in that precinct would move on to the county level. At the same time, it doesn't mean that those delegates are not aligned with or sympathetic to a particular candidate or campaign. It does not mean, then, that 60% of a precinct straw poll vote for Romney could not end up translating into no delegates to the county level or all the delegates from that precinct moving on to the county level. The two are not directly linked, but that doesn't mean that Romney and Perry and Paul and/or their surrogates are not working very hard to insure that their delegates are the ones to move to the next round.

In the end, yes, the delegates are not formally allocated until the state convention, but that doesn't mean that the fingerprints of the campaigns are not/have not been on the process from the precinct level on. It is a loophole in the Republican National Committee rules on delegate selection. Iowa and Nevada brought attention to that in 2008 and now a handful of state parties are using the rules -- not the toothless penalties in this case -- against the national party.

Having established that, one additional question remains from that aforementioned email: Why are Maine and Minnesota (and potentially Colorado) and their non-binding caucuses on the calendar and the precinct level straw polls planned for 10-25 days prior to the county caucuses in Wyoming not?¹ The answer is that it has to do with several reasons. First of all, with such a wide range of dates on which these straw polls can take place the potential campaign effects are not as clear -- at least from the candidates'/campaigns' perspectives -- as if the precinct straw polls were on one uniform date. Yes, that appears to be a nitpicky point, but there is a reason that caucus states tend to hold precinct-level events on one day, more often than not. It is more efficient for them and as it turns out for the campaigns as well.

Secondly, and this is the bigger point, the straw polls in Wyoming are in isolation of the delegate selection process in a way that they are not in, say, Minnesota. As I mentioned above, concurrent with the straw poll in Minnesota, there is a process of selecting delegates to represent the precinct at the county level going on. That is not the case in Wyoming. An unknown number of precinct committeepersons -- those who can take part in the straw poll -- were elected during the August 2010 primary in Wyoming. Now, there is a process whereby others can become committee members outside of the primary process, but it is unknown how many vacancies exist and whether there is a cap on the number of committee members in the first place. Additionally, there is no filtering from the precinct level to the county level in Wyoming. In other words, all of the precinct committeepersons move on to participate in the county caucuses where part of the Wyoming Republican delegation will be determined directly. So, there may be Romney, Bachmann, Perry and Paul supporters who are precinct committeepersons, but there is no jockeying among them for a reduced number of county-level delegates.

Think of it like a game of musical chairs. If you, hypothetically, have 50 precinct participants who are up and walking around while the music is playing and then forty chairs are removed before the music stops, ten people will then have seats and can move on to the county level. That would be what would happen in Maine or Minnesota or Colorado from the precinct to county levels. In Wyoming, though, all fifty chairs are still there when the music stops and all the precinct committee members move on to the next round of music playing at the county convention level. Then the chairs begin to be removed.

As a result, the candidates are much more likely to pay attention to the placement of campaign loyalists in precinct committeeperson positions during the invisible primary -- to the extent they can add to that total or fill out vacancies -- but not really revisit the idea of delegates in Wyoming until the caucuses kick off in March.

But those two very important factors are why FHQ does not include the straw polls in Wyoming on our calendar.²

--
¹ One additional point raised in the email was that FHQ mentioned early on that that 10-25 day barrier set up a range of dates for the precinct level straw polls to take place: from February 10-25. That is a range 10-25 days prior to the March 6 date on which the Wyoming county caucuses are set to begin. Recall, however, that some caucuses in Wyoming may not be able to be held until March 10. The guidelines in the Wyoming Republican Party delegate selection plan are fairly ambiguous in terms of how this 10-25 day time period is to be applied, and FHQ's initial range -- February 10-25 -- proves to be but one interpretation of what that range is supposed to be. Those later caucuses would, in another interpretation of the rules, have until February 29 to hold a precinct-level straw poll. Additionally, it appears as if the Wyoming Republican Party includes February 9 in the range of dates for these straw polls to take place. It is the party's set of rules, so FHQ defers to them. The dates on which the Wyoming Republican straw polls will take place is from February 9-29.

² That said, now that I've brought these straw polls up, I may be forced to include them.

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Romney Takes New Hampshire GOP Straw Poll

Former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, won Saturday's straw poll of New Hampshire Republicans by a more than three to one margin over his next closest competitor, Texas representative, Ron Paul. In a crowded field of candidates, Romney emerged with 35% of the vote (273 total votes cast of the 493 members in attendance -- 55% turnout) and won despite Tea Party-aligned state party chair candidate, Jack Kimball, winning that race. In other words, even with some Tea Party atmosphere to the proceedings, Romney -- not necessarily a favorite of the movement that grew from the grassroots up following President Obama's victory in the 2008 election -- won and did so by a margin that largely reflects what polls of the early primary state have shown.

Mitt Romney: 35%

Ron Paul: 11%

Tim Pawlenty: 8%

Sarah Palin: 7%

Michelle Bachmann: 5%

Jim DeMint: 5%

Herman Cain: 4%

Chris Christie: 3%

Rick Santorum: 3%

Mitch Daniels: 3%

Newt Gingrich: 3%

Mike Huckabee: 3%

Mike Pence: 3%

Rudy Giuliani: 2%

Judd Gregg: 2%

Gary Johnson: 2%

Other: 2%

Donald Trump: 1%

Haley Barbour: 1%

Jon Huntsman: ~1% 0*

John Thune: ~1% 0*

There isn't much to read into this other than the Romney-Tea Party angle discussed above. The fact that 220 members opted to sit on the sidelines is noteworthy, but may only indicate that it is still a little too early.

*I just got a nice email from James Pindell, the political director from WMUR, the station which held the straw poll vote. Jon Huntsman and John Thune not only got less than 1% of the straw poll vote, they each got 0 votes. That correction has been made in the results above.

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Lazy and Non-binding Saturday in Arizona and New Hampshire

2012 is on the agenda at two Republican state party meetings today. Both Arizona and New Hampshire are set to elect new state party chairpersons and both state parties are acting with an eye toward 2012.

Arizona:

Obviously, FHQ has already spent some space in the last day or so discussing what has turned out to be a non-binding resolution by Republicans in the Grand Canyon state. The resolution would call on Republican governor, Jan Brewer, to use her proclamation power to schedule an early presidential primary for 2012. Former governor, Janet Napolitano, used the same executive power in both 2004 and 2008 to move the state's primary to the earliest date allowed by the two parties (the first Tuesday in February). But Arizona Republicans are asking a bit more of their governor this time around (assuming the resolution passes and that seems likely). If followed, Arizona's delegation to the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa would be halved.

Brewer would be smart just to leave well enough alone and try to blame the state legislature for inaction. The state's presidential primary is already set -- according to state election law -- for the fourth Tuesday in February. Blame the lack of movement on a do-nothing legislature. The only question that would come out of this is whether the governor has the power to move the primary date back. The law granting the governor the power to move the primary date does not specify, though it implies, that the objective is to move the primary to an earlier and more advantageous date rather than a later and compliant date.

The only thing that will come out of today's vote in Phoenix is that there is some desire among Arizona Republicans to have a meaningful primary election regardless of RNC rules.

New Hampshire:

In the Granite state today, the state Republican Party is meeting in Derry to select a new chairperson, but is also holding a straw poll of the approximately 500 state party members in attendance. FHQ quipped the other day that this wasn't going to tell us much because it won't come close to approximating what will happen in the actual primary; one that is open to independents who obviously won't be at the Republican meeting today.

But here's the thing: It isn't an altogether meaningless exercise. First of all, that battle for Republican chair is one that pits an establishment candidate, Juliana Bergeron, against a Tea Party-backed choice, Jack Kimball. Who comes out on top there speaks to the direction of the state party. Secondly, with polls of the state consistently showing Mitt Romney as the leading choice among primary voters in the nation's first primary state, the odds-setting concerns how well the former Massachusetts governor will do in the straw poll.

Those two things don't necessarily jibe all that well. Romney is not a favorite of the Tea Party (and vice versa), and if they flex their muscle in the vote for New Hampshire state party chair, that doesn't necessarily bode well for his chances of a strong showing in the straw poll. Let's state that a bit differently. If Kimball wins the chair race, Romney is very likely to come in under the level of support he has had in polls of the state in the straw poll.

That's what should be looked at coming out of today anyway.

...with a mind toward the fact that independents aren't participating and will be in next year's primary.

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Expectations and the 2012 Republican Presidential Nomination

Coming off of the Value Voters Summit 2012 straw poll this past weekend, FHQ has been considering expectations. Expectations are an interesting thing. I often talk to my students (relieved ones, I might add) about having set the bar so low prior to or immediately after taking an exam, that anything C or better is seen as having been successful. [Mind you, I'm not encouraging them to do this; only acknowledging that it takes place.] If you follow college football at all, we saw this play out in the time leading up to and during the University of Florida's game against Tennessee this past weekend. Vegas oddsmakers thought the Volunteers to be a 30 point underdog to the number one Gators. And the talk all week was not about who would win the game, but how much Florida would win by. In other words, expectations were high for Florida and low for Tennessee. That the Volunteers kept it close, ultimately losing by ten points, exceeded the expectations that even the most devout Volunteer fan had going in to the match up. It also had the sports punditry questioning the strength of Florida's team and the odds that the Gators will repeat this year as national champions.

Well, politics is no stranger to the expectations game either. With overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress and Barack Obama in the White House, the sky was the limit for Democrats to get something done on a wide range of issues affecting the United States. However, things have gone anything other than smoothly since the beginning of the year for the Democratic Party and the president. It hasn't been all bad, but those numbers in Congress certainly inflated the expectations at the outset. And the party's inability to pass legislation on health care among other things has fed some of the frustration that is being felt primarily among independent voters. [Check out how the gap on the generic congressional ballot for 2010 has closed since last year's election.]

Expectations also play an outsized role in the presidential nomination process. And though this past weekend's straw poll was anything but representative of the Republican Party as a whole or the state of things over two years down the road, it is hard not to look at the results and think about them in terms of the expectations for each of the nine candidates included on the Value Voters' ballots.

Now let's look at those straw poll results again with expectations in mind. Here are FHQ's grades for each candidates relative to their expectations heading into the vote:

Mike Huckabee 28.48% (exceeded expectations)
Mitt Romney 12.40% (failed to meet expectations)
Tim Pawlenty 12.23% (exceeded expectations)
Sarah Palin 12.06% (failed to meet expectations)
Mike Pence 11.89% (exceeded expectations)
Newt Gingrich 6.70% (failed to meet expectations)
Bobby Jindal 4.69% (met expectations)
Rick Santorum 2.51% (met expectations)
Ron Paul 2.18% (failed to meet expectations)

Now some explanation. I think it is probably wise to draw a distinction among the exceeds expectations crowd. Certainly, Mike Huckabee's win -- the margin especially -- exceeded expectations, but given his background and his performance in last year's Republican primaries (not to mention the 2007 Value Voters straw poll where he placed a close second), it wasn't necessarily unforeseen. FHQ, then, would add the caveat here that Mike Huckabee slightly exceeded expectations whereas Tim Pawlenty and Mike Pence greatly exceeded the expectations that met each heading into the vote.

We often talk about bang for your buck in our posts on the 2012 candidates' usage of Twitter (see especially the Follower Ratio) and that applies here as well. The idea in the context of Twitter is that the more you use the service, the more followers you should have. What we could call the Expectations Ratio is comparable. Tim Pawlenty is running for president. Earlier this year, the Minnesota governor announced he would not seek a third term in 2010 and became vice chair of the Republican Governors Association after Mark Sanford's resignation as chair elevated Haley Barbour to the position and opened up the vice chair's spot. Pawlenty's travel schedule surrounding the RGA vice chair position affords him the opportunity to travel the country and get this name, face and ideas out there among the influential elites within the Republican Party. He has also spoken out more against the Obama administration and taken on a more visible presence in the media.

Contrast that with Mike Pence. Sure, the Indiana congressman's name has been quietly whispered in Republican circles as a 2012 possibility, but he hasn't been able to parlay that into any greater a voice than he had before.

But Pawlenty is very obviously working toward the nomination whereas Pence, though he may be quietly doing so, is not. Who got more bang for their buck? Both were in the pack that essentially tied for second place, but Pawlenty is the one who is publicly working to catch up to Huckabee and Palin and Romney in this invisible primary. Pence, on the other hand, though talked about as a possibility (and that certainly counts), just showed up and delivered a speech at the summit. Indiana's 8th district representative seemed to have gotten more for what he's put into it. However, given his current platform, Pawlenty may be able to utilize his showing the straw poll more effectively.

...but I'll have more on Pawlenty in a post later today.

Let's have a look now at the candidates who failed to meet expectations.

Mitt Romney was hurt by the fact that he won the straw poll in 2007, and failed to match that in 2009. Plus, the fact that the former Massachusetts governor is viewed, at least from a policy perspective (His background in business matches well with the current calls from the right for more fiscal conservatism.), as the frontrunner for the 2012 nomination, also made that 16 point margin between himself and Mike Huckabee seem that much wider. [The two basically tied atop the 2007 straw poll.]

Given that this was a group with which she was thought to be in good standing, Sarah Palin also failed to meet expectations. Now, Palin was working at a disadvantage here and her grade should be tempered by that fact. Unlike many of the others on the ballot, Palin was not in attendance, and as such, did not deliver a speech. In fact, there is a nice line of demarcation between the candidates who attended and those who did not. And it should perhaps not come as a surprise that four of the five candidates who were on the ballot and did not attend also ended up on the bottom in the results. The exception? Sarah Palin. That the former Alaska governor managed a second place finish when all the others not in attendance couldn't break the 7% mark in the straw poll, says something. Yet, given her position as the party's former vice presidential nominee and how she has done in some of the early polling (tightly clustered with Romney and Huckabee in the early primary polling for 2012), her showing amongst a group thought to be among her strongest supporters (though some of the early polling seems to refute that notion) places a certain amount of drag on her showing here relative to the expectations.

Finally, Newt Gingrich, for such a large and influential voice in the party, just simply failed to meet expectations. Yes, the former Speaker of the House has consistently polled behind the Huckabee/Palin/Romney troika, but he has also managed to outpace the "everyone else" category. That was not the case in this straw poll. The former Georgia congressman came in below a couple of heretofore "everyone else" candidates in Pawlenty and Pence.

Do the results hurt Romney or Palin or Gingrich? No, not as much as they help someone like Tim Pawlenty get mentioned in the same breath as that threesome or Mike Huckabee in relation to the 2012 Republican nomination.

*For more on the role of expectations in various aspects of the presidential nomination process please see Haynes, Gurian and Nichols (1997) and Haynes, Flowers and Gurian (2002).


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Huckabee Takes 2009 Value Voters Straw Poll

It wasn't a rout, but Mike Huckabee did win the 2009 Value Voters Summit straw poll by a margin greater than any of his opponents received. Huckabee won a plurality of the 597 voters with Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin and Mike Pence all jumbled up behind the former Arkansas governor.

Here's the count (via GOP12):

Huckabee: 28% (~167)*
Romney: 12% (74)
Pawlenty: 12% (73)
Palin: 12% (72)
Pence: 12% (71)
*Raw votes in parentheses (via Jonathan Martin)
------------------------
Newt Gingrich, Bobby Jindal, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum all split the remaining 24% of the voters. Rick Perry pulled his name off the ballot on Friday.

One thing that struck me as curious was that, in looking back at the 2007 Value Voters straw poll, Romney won and there were approximately ten times as many votes cast. The total two years ago was inflated by online voting whereas this year's poll was comprised of those in attendance.

What does it all mean? Well, the top two are still the same as they were two years ago, but the ordering is reversed. Again though, it is still early yet to be thinking about the 2012 race (despite the fun). One thing that is interesting is that Huckabee's position in these results mirrors some of what we've seen in the 2012 polls conducted thus far. Especially in the case of the general election trial heats against Obama, Huckabee has consistently done the best. Head-to-head in the Republican primary polling, though, the former Arkansas governor has been trading the top honor with both Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney, with all three clustered atop the list well ahead of all other prospective candidates. Are those general elections trial heats driving this straw poll result or are these the type of voters that are being picked up in and supportive of Huckabee in those polls? It is an interesting question that I don't think we really have an answer to.

Regardless, this is an early feather in Huckabee's 2012 cap.

...but will he decide to run? (See, I told you it was early.)


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It's Never too Early for a 2012 (Value Voters) Straw Poll

Next week's Value Voters Summit is certainly not short on speakers doubling as potential hopefuls for the 2012 GOP nomination. And since many are going to be there speaking anyway, why not poll those in attendance to gauge the amount of support behind each candidate among this valuable group of Republican primary voters?

Why not, indeed? Why should Iowa and New Hampshire have all the fun?

Here's the ballot:

Newt Gingrich
Mike Huckabee*
Bobby Jindal
Sarah Palin
Ron Paul
Tim Pawlenty*
Mike Pence*
Rick Perry*
Mitt Romney*
Rick Santorum

*also scheduled to speak

That's a deep pool. But what? No Crist, no Barbour, no Thune?

Normally, I'd add the usual caveats that I include in any 2012 polling post. But in this case, I find this straw poll to be a fairly significant early indicator of how the 2012 field is going to shape up.

"The 2012 presidential primaries may be several years away but many value voters are already surveying the field of possible candidates," said Family Research Council Action President Tony Perkins. "This straw poll is an early test for possible presidential contenders who have shown leadership on the major issues facing our country."

It's no mistake that Mitt Romney will be speaking; this is a group he is absolutely going to have to convince of his conservative bona fides in some respects in order to gain their vote in just more than three years time. He is playing the current period correctly by staking out a firm, fiscally conservative line, but this is a group he will need if he is to be the frontrunner heading into the 2012 primaries. Things looked good on paper for Romney in 2008 as well, but it didn't work out.

One additional note we should make is that there are a few folks on the ballot that have been discussed in the context of splitting this segment of the Republican primary voting bloc in an early state like Iowa; making a Romney victory there more likely. It will be interesting also to see if the Sarah Palins and Mike Huckabees and Rick Santorums of the list split a sizable chunk of the vote in any noticeable way.


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Which Republican is the Biggest Threat in 2012?

This wasn't the question that Greenberg Quinlan and Rosner posed to the participants at Netroots Nation, but if you reverse the ordering of the results, you'd get a rough idea of who liberals and progressives find are the biggest threats to Barack Obama's re-election bid in 2012. First, though, let's look at the question and the results [pdf]:

Q.16 Of the main contenders for the 2012 Republican nomination for President, please indicate
who, in your opinion, would be the easiest to beat.
Total

Sarah Palin.......................................................................... 36
Rick Santorum..................................................................... 20
Bobby Jindal........................................................................ 12
Ron Paul .............................................................................. 7
Rudy Giuliani........................................................................ 5
Jeb Bush.............................................................................. 4
Jon Kyl ................................................................................. 3
Mike Huckabee.................................................................... 2
Tim Pawlenty........................................................................ 1
Mitt Romney......................................................................... 1
(No Answer) ........................................................................ 9

Margin of error: n/a
Sample: 252 conference participants
Conducted: August 13-14, 2009

252 respondents is hardly representative of Democrats as a whole (much less the Republicans who will largely decide who their 2012 nominee will be), but I would wager a guess that this result is a pretty good representation of those attending Netroots. Regardless, Palin is perceived to be the easiest for Obama to beat in 2012 (over a third of the respondents) with Romney and Pawlenty bringing up the rear with only one percent each. Again, this isn't necessarily the same question, but if we flip those results, we would likely have at least a close approximation of the Republican whom those at NN see as the best challenger to the president three years hence.

Other than telling me that some Republicans out there are now ready to write checks to Romney and Pawlenty, this list makes me think of the Democrats vying for the party's nomination in 2004. I've tried to link the prospective 2012 Republican presidential field to the Democratic field in 2008, but the the better comparison may be 2004, especially in lieu of the fact that the GOP will be in the same position the Democrats were in in 2004: out of the White House and out of power on the Hill. Who were the 2004 principals and who are their 2012 counterparts?

John Kerry: Mitt Romney (early frontrunner who may or may not stumble along the way to the nomination)

John Edwards: Tim Pawlenty (up-and-comer making a populist appeal)

Dick Gephardt: Mike Huckabee (solid, if uninspiring choice, but at the wrong place at the wrong time)

Howard Dean: Sarah Palin (heart-on-the-sleeve type who effectively uses technology to make their appeals to an enthusiastic base within the party)

Will it play out that way? Perhaps, though not in anything resembling the same order. Palin, for instance, may or may not have already had her Dean Scream moment. One thing I will say is that a Romney/Pawlenty ticket wouldn't be a bad choice for the Party of Lincoln.

Back to the poll: No Thune. No Barbour. And most glaringly, no Gingrich. Is that because none of those three would be "easy" to beat or because not one of the 252 respondents thought of them as potential 2012 candidates? I'd lean toward the latter, but I don't consider that margin to be very wide between those two camps. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I find I'm reconsidering that answer.

Hat tip to GOP12 for the link.


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