Let's talk about the state of Republican delegate selection rules for 2024 (Part One)

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

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• California Republicans have new delegate selection rules for 2024. And it seems like some folks are racing to score the change as a win for Trump. It might be! But that is not guaranteed. There are some California-sized caveats, but CAGOP may be the big winner. All the details at FHQ Plus.

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FHQ will level with you. I have found the Washington Post's coverage of the evolving Republican delegate selection rules to have been fabulous all year. Reporters there have done a fantastic job of digging up state-level changes, large and small, and have furthermore done well in contextualizing them for a unique 2024 Republican nomination race. Look, the Post has a much larger, much broader audience than FHQ, and the stories are crafted with such an audience in mind. 

They do not necessarily get down in the weeds. And they do not have to! Leave that to niche sites like FHQ with equally niche audiences. Hey, we are happy to fill the void. 

And while that overall view of WaPo coverage has not changed, FHQ did find their article on delegate selection rules following the change in California from this past weekend lacking. And some of this is just cranky blogging, pet peevish stuff for FHQ. But there were also some nuggets in the piece that left me shaking my head, stuff simply not backed up by the facts. So let us endeavor to set the record straight on a Monday. 

Winner-take-all by congressional district

Right out of the gate, Maeve Reston and Michael Scherer hit readers with this:

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign notched a major victory Saturday when members of the California Republican executive committee voted to parcel out convention delegates based on the statewide vote next year — doing away with the state’s longtime system of awarding them by congressional district, which had been perceived as a more level playing field for lower-tiered candidates.

Okay. That is a loaded clause highlighted there. And some of it is technically correct even if it glosses over the nature of delegate selection rules changes made by California Republicans in recent cycles. It is true that California Republicans have had a winner-take-all by congressional district allocation scheme for most of the 21st century. And it was still on the books until its death sentence was signed this weekend (technically for 2024 and for good afterward). 

However, that allocation method was overridden in 2019 for the 2020 cycle with a contingency provision that called for the proportional allocation of the entire California Republican delegation. [Yes, that sounds an awful lot like what the Republican Party in the Golden state just adopted. It is quite similar.] That temporary condition was added in 2019 because the Republican National Committee rules prohibit winner-take-all by congressional district methods of allocation before March 15. Therefore, the state party had to make a change because the 2020 primary fell on Super Tuesday, before March 15. 

But again, that was a temporary contingency that expired at the beginning of 2021, leaving California Republicans with the same default winner-take-all by congressional district method in place. Time passed and the RNC carried over the same winner-take-all prohibition for the early calendar into the 2024 rules. So that was never going to be the method Golden state Republicans used in 2024. Look, California Republicans were not going to give up the one feather in their cap in this process. Theirs is the most delegate-rich state on the Republican calendar. The state party was not going to give up half its delegation -- the penalty for using an unsanctioned winner-take-all by congressional district allocation method in an early March primary -- to keep that method. They just were not. 

That brings the timeline to May of this year when the LA Times had an article describing how California Republicans were going to have this strategically unique delegate allocation method for 2024. The method? Winner-take-all by congressional district. Yes, the very same noncompliant method detailed above. FHQ raises the LA Times piece because it set a baseline that has subsequently poisoned the discourse on these changes that California Republicans have actually made for 2024. 

It was that article that made it seem as if California Republicans were going to use that noncompliant method when all it ever was was a placeholder until the state party set rules for 2024 this summer (just as the party did in the summer of 2019). Indeed, before the new plan was adopted over the weekend, there was an alternative proposal that called for a proportional districted method of allocation. Still districted, but proportional and compliant.

Moreover, that baseline set in the LA Times piece from May has led subsequent news accounts to compare changes relative to what was never going to be a winner-take-all by congressional district allocation method. In reality, the comparison should have been to the rules used by the state party in 2020, rules that were compliant. Yes, those rules expired, but to better understand the nature of the change for 2024, the 2020 rules are the better comparison and the better encapsulation of the state party's thinking on how to craft compliant rules for an incumbent cycle (2020) versus a competitive one (2024). 

The press has dropped the ball on this one. 

Fortunately, the newly adopted 2024 California Republican delegate allocation rules sunset at the end of next year. Not just the subsection detailing the compliant proportional allocation, but the whole section including the legacy winner-take-all by congressional district method. Make note of that now. Hopefully that means we all will not be talking about these same noncompliant rules in California in 2027. No one should be comparing any changes then to that method anyway. 

To circle back to the WaPo reference to "the state’s longtime system of awarding them [delegates] by congressional district," it really was not necessary. That is a false point of comparison for the new method. And it is one that did not need to feature as prominently as it did in that story or the similar story about the rules change from the LA Times. 

Did the winner-take-all by congressional district method warrant a mention somewhere in either story? Sure, but the endless parade of quotes from Republicans in California seemingly pining for the "old system" just made those folks look out of touch. To repeat, the California Republican Party was not going to sacrifice half of their delegates to allocated delegates the old way (2016 and before). 

Okay. FHQ got that one off its chest. What else? 

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Are the Republican debate qualification rules hurting business as usual in Iowa?

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

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• The Trump campaign influenced frontrunner-friendly delegate allocation rules on the state level for 2020. One of the state parties that made it that way was Massachusetts, but Bay state Republicans are eyeing rules changes for 2024 that may diminish the frontrunner advantage in the allocation. All the details at FHQ Plus.

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The Des Moines Register had a fantastic and well-researched piece on the impact the Republican National Committee debate qualification rules may be having on the regular rhythms on the campaign trail in Iowa, home to the first-in-the-nation caucuses. Visits are down versus previous cycles. Ads are up.

What's different? For one there is a more stringent set of RNC debate criteria requiring both a polling and donor threshold for the first debate rather than the either/or requirement Democrats had four years ago. It is a persuasive argument about the nationalization of the presidential nomination process overall. But that is not new in 2023. And it was not new in 2019 either. But this is the latest manifestation of the nationalization of the process that has been going on for quite some time, pushing further and more meaningfully into the invisible primary every cycle. 

Look, it is not that Iowa does not and will not matter. There will continue to be value in being first (no matter which state is there). It is only that the Hawkeye state, first or not, is just another state. Still first, but first after significant jockeying in the invisible primary. The debate qualifications build on that evolution. 

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Benjy Sarlin had a nice piece up at Semafor today that kind of builds on something Amy Walter touched on last month. It is one of those 2024 is not 2016 because Trump is more popular pieces. But it takes things a step further, pushing back against the recent Romney notion that Republicans should consolidate behind a Trump alternative before Super Tuesday next year. 

And the argument is simple enough: Republicans already did that for 2024. They massed behind the idea of DeSantis and it is not going at all well to this point. As Sarlin points out, there are not alternatives waiting in the wings who can save this thing in the way that only the rosiest depictions of Rick Perry (pre-launch) could in 2012. [Or Jeb Bush. Or some other white knight.]

It just does not work that way. And it is not that parties cannot coordinate in that way. It is that a broader party network cannot coordinate in that way that quickly, try as it might. Folks might respond that Democrats coordinated quite quickly, aligning behind Joe Biden after South Carolina in 2020. And while that is true, Biden had been the frontrunner throughout much of the invisible primary in 2018-19. He was the former vice president. He was not coming into the race anew at that point in late February 2020. In other words (and probably too simplistically), Biden was an easier point of coordination. 

Trump is popular and DeSantis may still be the best point of alternative coordination for Republicans in 2023-24. And that may be a cause for celebration among DeSantis fans as much as it is depressing for a certain segment of Republicans. 

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From around the invisible primary...

• There may have been some complaints in recent days about the paid canvassing operation that Never Back Down, the super PAC affiliated with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, but the group hit one million doors knocked last week in Greenville, South Carolina. One may question the effectiveness of the canvassing effort across seven states, including the four early voting states, but that is a notable milestone even if the success rate is not one hundred percent. More than half of the interactions have been in South Carolina (390,000 knocks) and Iowa (211,000 knocks).
• New Jersey 101.5 dug into the FEC reports from the Garden state and former President Donald Trump so far leads the way in receipts with more than half a million dollars to his credit.
• Also in the money primary, DeSantis is expected, although it is not confirmed, to attend a fundraiser in Greenwich, Connecticut in September. The event is said to be host by Scott Frantz and his wife, who have held similar fundraisers in the past for George W. Bush and Mitt Romney. 
• Elsewhere in the travel primary, DeSantis will headline South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan's Faith and Freedom BBQ in the Upstate next month. 
• In the endorsement primary, Florida Senator Rick Scott remains on the sidelines and seems intent on keeping his endorsement in the non-endorsement category at the presidential level. 
• Vivek Ramaswamy filled the room in in Muscatine, Iowa and had to cancel an event in Nevada over the weekend because demand was so high. 

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Revisiting the Frankenstein's Monster

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

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• There is some great reporting in the recent AP account of the under-the-radar battle to set the Republican delegate rules for 2024. But there was some important context missing from the state-level updates in that article. FHQ attempts to bridge the gap. All the details at FHQ Plus.

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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

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A month before Ron DeSantis officially entered the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race, FHQ described the basic organization of the nascent campaign as "a bit of an attempt at a better Frankenstein's monster in 2023, taking elements of the Bush super PAC build out in 2015 and melding it with the deep organizing -- staff, grassroots and delegate efforts -- of the Cruz campaign. Neither were particularly successful against Trump separately in 2015-16, but fused in some respects in 2023, it may prove different."

Two months after the Florida governor announced his campaign, it appears that Dr. Frankenstein has lost control of the monster. From Playbook: 

But behind the scenes, there are serious doubts whether the layoffs will do anything to address a fundamental weakness of DeSantis’ presidential bid: the rising tension and distrust brewing between his campaign and the main super PAC supporting him, Never Back Down.

Look, DeSantis and company may yet turn this thing around, but this is more evidence that there is a certain balance to be maintained between a campaign proper and its affiliated super PACs (and other groups). The broader DeSantis effort very simply seems to have outsourced a lot to Never Back Down and that makes it tough for a candidate and the campaign to rein in without the ability to directly coordinate. 

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

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

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

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

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From around the invisible primary...

• In the money primary, Donald Trump has a nearly five to one advantage in Oklahoma-based fundraising according to an analysis of FEC data by The Oklahoman.
• It has not been a mystery that DeSantis has done better among big donors than those giving small amounts, but a little less than one in five dollars coming into the campaign has come those giving less than $200 to the DeSantis campaign. 
• Hamptons fundraiser cancelled for lack of interest is not a good look when a campaign is already trending downward. But that is where DeSantis was last weekend. 

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It is not a national primary, but...

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

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• Haven't had a chance to read the piece on the proposal California Republicans have for delegate allocation in 2024 yet? Go check it out. There is a story there that is floating under the radar about how the changes could affect the sort of delegate bonus a primary winner will take from the Golden state. It will not be like 2020 for a lot of reasons. All the details at FHQ Plus.

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Monmouth just released a new national survey on the Republican presidential nomination race and at first glance it appeared to be a reality check for the sort of consolidation theory that Senator Mitt Romney described in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed:

Despite Donald Trump’s apparent inevitability, a baker’s dozen Republicans are hoping to become the party’s 2024 nominee for president. That is possible for any of them if the field narrows to a two-person race before Mr. Trump has the nomination sewn up. For that to happen, Republican megadonors and influencers—large and small—are going to have to do something they didn’t do in 2016: get candidates they support to agree to withdraw if and when their paths to the nomination are effectively closed. That decision day should be no later than, say, Feb. 26, the Monday following the contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. 

First of all, that resembles in some respects the reaction Democrats had in 2020 after Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary and Nevada caucuses. Candidates like Pete Buttigieg and Amy Kobluchar withdrew and aligned with an alternative, Joe Biden, after his victory in South Carolina and before Super Tuesday. That is basically what Romney is describing. 

Of course, win though Sanders did early in the 2020 calendar, he did not represent the sort of force that Donald Trump currently does at this juncture in the invisible primary ahead of 2024. And the Monmouth poll demonstrates the difference. 

When asked whom they would like to see as the Republican nominee for president in 2024, 46% of GOP-aligned and leaning voters name Trump and 20% name DeSantis without any prompting. In a primary ballot question that explicitly lists 14 announced candidates, Trump’s support increases to 54% while DeSantis’ vote share barely moves (22%) and no other candidate gets above 5%. In a head-to-head contest between just the two, Trump garners 55% support and DeSantis gets 35%. These results are similar to a Monmouth poll taken two months ago when DeSantis officially launched his campaign.

Sanders was successful enough, but the Vermont senator never consistently approached majority support in primary surveys or at the ballot box in 2020. Trump has consistently hovered around the 50 percent mark for a while now. And even if one theorizes that the former president's position in the extant polling is a sugar high, the consistency of his position over time augurs against that conclusion. 

Moreover, that Trump is around 50 percent in national polling is instructive for how one thinks about the delegate battle that lies ahead. FHQ has spoken on occasion about how DeSantis has been flirting with the qualifying threshold since he officially jumped in the race, but Trump is doing some flirting of his own. 

Look, this is one poll and it is a national poll of contest that will play out sequentially from state to state during the first half of 2024. But if Trump is flirting with 50 percent when the votes start coming in next January, then the conversation will quickly turn to the former president tripping winner-take-all triggers when the race actually turns more national in scope on Super Tuesday next March 5. The chatter in some Republican circles may now be about stopping Trump in one of the early states, but the former president may be looking to stop his opposition and with an emphatic exclamation point on Super Tuesday if he is triggering those winner-take-all thresholds. 

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There is more news on DeSantis below, but it is not all bad. The Florida governor pulled in an additional six endorsements in New Hampshire, five state representatives and a county commissioner. And he has not done poorly in the endorsement primary. No, more often than not, they are not high profile endorsements. But as Newsweek reports, DeSantis has quietly put together a robust roster of lower profile backers, the sorts of folks who can help organize in caucuses in both the allocation and selection phases and who can also serve as national convention delegate candidates on down the line. 

Of course, Ted Cruz followed a similar path in 2016. 

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From around the invisible primary...

• The DeSantis campaign cut 38 jobs from its payroll and moved other staff into new positions as the attempt at a pivot continues.
• North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum bought his way onto the debate stage in Milwaukee next month. An aggressive advertising strategy since his launch and gift for donation quid pro quo got the governor over the polling and donor thresholds set by the RNC.
• Best of America PAC, a super PAC aligned with Burgum announced a $5.5 million TV and radio ad buy, but scaled it back to $1.4 million after the governor qualified for the debate. 
• Vivek Ramaswamy will headline a Dorchester County Republican Party fundraiser next month in the Lowcountry of South Carolina just ahead of the first debate.

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On this date...

...in 2000, Texas governor and presumptive Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush tapped former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney as his running mate. On the same date and in answer to a reporter's question, Alan Keyes announced that he was no longer a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. 

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Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Post or subscribe by Email. Oh, and find us on Threads: @fhq.plus.

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On "the nitty-gritty battle for delegates" for 2024

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

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• California Republicans were always going to have to do something with their delegate selection plan to bring it into compliance with national party rules. But under those RNC rules there are variations in the proportional methods required before March 15. And consequentially, Republicans in the Golden state are planning to use a different proportional in 2024 than they did in 2020. All the details at FHQ Plus.

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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

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Look, I thought the AP story on Trump and the delegate battle now and ahead was a good and informative read. It did well in pulling together a number of disparate pieces to tell a story about how the Trump campaign has done well playing defense on the delegate rules it established in 2020 and even some of the offense it has played on a smaller scale. 

It is an important story. There have been more wins -- as measured by status quo maintenance -- for the former president than losses, and that is no small thing as the invisible primary pushes deeper into the third quarter of 2023. Whether this 2024 Republican presidential nomination race develops into an actual delegate battle or not is colored to a great degree by how the frontrunner (or front-running campaigns if there are multiples) shuts the door now on opponents in the delegate rules and across the various other invisible primary metrics (fundraising, endorsements, staff, etc.).

Yes, the polling support could collapse for Trump at some point, but for now the former president has some built-in advantages that insulate him to some extent. It is not the incumbency advantage, but this [understatement alert] has not been the typical competitive nomination cycle either. 

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Still, it can be tough for me not to read accounts like the AP's with anything other than a critical eye. There are a couple of things FHQ would highlight:

1) On Michigan Republicans' and the process they have laid out for delegate allocation and selection in 2024...

"In Michigan, where the state GOP has become increasingly loyal to Trump, the party’s leadership this year voted to change the state’s longtime process of allocating all its presidential delegates based on an open primary election. Under a new plan widely expected to benefit Trump, 16 of the state’s 55 delegates will be awarded based on the results of a Feb. 27 primary. The other 39 will be distributed four days later in closed-door caucus meetings of party activists."

There will be a congressional district caucus process in Michigan at some point, but it is not clear whether that will fall on March 2, four days after the state-run primary. Yes, that plan was adopted last month, but the caucus scheduling hit a snag with the RNC earlier in July.

2) On California Republicans and their plans for 2024...

"One potential opening for a challenger like DeSantis could be California, which has 169 delegates to dole out, more than any other state. 

"Thanks to changes passed by Democrats in the state Capitol, California’s primary contest will be on March 5, requiring the state GOP to change its delegate plan in order to comply with national GOP rules for early contests. 

"The changes, which the state’s Republican Party is set to consider and approve late this month, are set to award delegates proportionately to the candidate’s share of the vote, rather than award all delegates to the winner. 

"That could give a candidate trailing in second place a chance to make up ground—especially someone like DeSantis, who has made a point of campaigning in the state."

Democrats in Sacramento did change the primary date to Super Tuesday. 

...in 2017. 

California Republicans had to make a change to the winner-take-all by congressional district system -- NOT truly winner-take-all -- used before then for the 2020 cycle. The problem was that the changes to the CAGOP bylaws in 2019 were only temporary and reset to the same noncompliant winner-take-all by congressional method after 2020. That Republicans in the Golden state have to change back to a more proportional system for 2024 is a condition of their own making. There is really no need to place the blame on Democrats in 2017.

And FHQ does not know if a second place finisher in California is going to make up ground in the delegate count. They will lose less ground than if it were winner-take-all by congressional district, but they will not make up ground. 

There is much more on the proposed California Republican delegate allocation and selection plan at FHQ+.

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From around the invisible primary...

• In the money primary, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott are doing well raising funds back home in the Palmetto state. [Nice map by the P&C breaking it all down across South Carolina.]
• Over in the endorsement primary, West Virginia Governor Jim Justice has thrown his support behind Donald Trump.
• Early state polling from FOX in Iowa and South Carolina shows Trump way out in front. There are stories to be told about that second tier, but there is a lot of meaningful distance between the frontrunner and the rest of the pack. 
• Tim Scott may be ready for his turn in the discovery, scrutiny, decline ride.
• In the travel primary, Trump is on the cusp of opening an Iowa headquarters in Des Moines later this week. DeSantis is set to see the Hawkeye state by bus this week (among other future events laid out by Never Back Down). Mike Pence will deliver an address to the National Conference of State Legislatures next month in Indianapolis. 
• The staff shake up continues on Team DeSantis.
• A month out from the first Republican debate in Milwaukee, six candidates appear to have qualified.

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

[From FHQ Plus] A second state-run primary option in New Hampshire?

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From A second state-run primary option in New Hampshire?:

Talk about burying the lede. This came in over the wires from NBC News this morning...

New Hampshire Republicans would prefer to keep their primary in late January, after Iowa, rather than see [New Hampshire Secretary of State David] Scanlan have to leapfrog Iowa because of Democrats’ maneuvering. Republican state Rep. Ross Berry, who chairs the House Election Law Committee, said he is considering “contingencies” that might prevent that.

Berry said he is considering introducing legislation that would allow Scanlan to set two different primary dates, one for each party. He called it a “last resort option” that would give Scanlan a new tool if he makes the determination that Iowa’s Democratic caucus is functionally the same as a primary.

“We don’t want to get caught flat-footed on it,” Berry said. “If the secretary of state says, ‘You know what, I’m cool with Iowa mailing in their stuff,’ we have no problem, I see no reason to change things,” he continued.

The rest of the piece is standard fare for stories covering the back and forth over the calendar between Iowa Democrats and the New Hampshire secretary of state. It builds up the tension that seemingly exists without getting too far down into the weeds to explain that there probably is not much tension there at all. As the piece notes, it is not unusual for New Hampshire to string this decision out. Long-time and former Secretary Gardner pulled the trigger on a choice for 2008 the day before Thanksgiving in 2007 and waited into November again in 2011. In both cases, a decision was made roughly two months before January primaries in both cycles. Regardless of the timing of a decision from Scanlan, the choice boils down to answering one simple question. And Iowa Democrats are not showing their cards at the moment (even if the state party's actions seem to tip their hand).

But still, even if the early state calendar tension is on a low simmer (at most), the notion that there is a proposal for an emergency legislative fix in the Granite state is newsworthy. Well, it is newsworthy on the surface anyway.

Digging in a bit, creating an option for the secretary of state to schedule a second presidential primary would bail out Democrats currently at odds with the national party over the DNC’s new calendar rules for the 2024 cycle. That New Hampshire Republicans would even consider that is enough to raise eyebrows. And that is without considering the costs associated with a second state-run presidential primary election. The state footing the bill for that is one thing that is almost unbelievable, but creating a carve-out for (what some perceive as) Democrats’ collective own-goal in a battleground state would seem to be a bridge to far for Republicans in control of the levers of power in the state.

But it also goes to show just how far at least one Republican is willing to go to preserve the first-in-the-nation tradition in the Granite state.

Of course, none of this appears necessary at the moment. There are questions surrounding the scheduling of the all-mail Iowa Democratic presidential preference vote. [The Democratic caucuses will be on January 15.] But why would Iowa Democrats go to the trouble of devising this bifurcated caucus/preference vote process in an incumbent cycle if they were just going to break the rules. The system is one that allows Iowa Democrats to have their cake and hopefully (from their perspective) eat it too. The caucuses will remain first (the same night as Iowa Republicans), but the delegate allocation (through the preference vote) can conclude later than that at a time that is either in the Democrats’ early window (with a waiver from the DNC) or on or after March 5. It is a system designed to preserve tradition and comply with DNC rules. It is also a system that allows Iowa Democrats to stay out of the way of business as usual in the New Hampshire secretary of state’s office.

So maybe NBC News did not bury the lede here. Maybe they just got an interesting quote from a legislator in New Hampshire with a proposal for a novel rip cord the state could pull in case of emergency. The only thing is that there does not appear to be an emergency in the near term or on the horizon.

All there actually is is an inability in the press to dig in on this story and describe what is happening between Iowa and New Hampshire. Less than meets the eye.

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Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Post or subscribe by Email. Oh, and find us on Threads: @fhq.plus.

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

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

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

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• How about an update on some quiet calendar and rules stories from around the country that maybe have not seen much of a spotlight? We dig into a few 2024 things in Delaware, Georgia, New York and South Dakota. All the details at FHQ Plus.

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

In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

...

Look at one more thing from that recent Granite State poll from the University of New Hampshire:

Six in ten New Hampshire residents support a New Hampshire law that requires the state's Presidential Primary to be held before any similar contest.

It was interesting the ways in which this finding was reported. At home in New Hampshire, WMUR headlined an article, "New UNH poll shows most support law requiring New Hampshire hold first presidential primary." 

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

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

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

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

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

...but this is an interesting poll result. 

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Last week, FHQ had this to say about the state of the DeSantis campaign and circling the wagons in Iowa:

Much of the current negativity around the DeSantis campaign may be legitimate. It may also be overblown. Campaigns at this level are often on a knife's edge. But whether it is real or not, one of the things to eye (as a real operationalization of that) is how much emphasis Team DeSantis puts on Iowa. Yes, Trump and DeSantis have been "eyeing Super Tuesday states," but that is not anything that is new. However, if the DeSantis campaign and affiliated groups begin to put all or most of their eggs in the Iowa basket, then that could be a sign that the campaign's options (on a number of fronts) are waning. Wooing evangelicals in the Hawkeye state (before a gathering there) may or may not be evidence of that. But it is something to watch in the coming days.

This week Never Back Down, the super PAC affiliated with the DeSantis effort, is scaling up its activity in the Hawkeye state, host of the first-in-the-nation caucuses next January. Again, this is a super PAC and not the campaign itself, but it is somewhat telling.

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From around the invisible primary...

• In the travel primary, former Vice President Mike Pence finishes up his latest (three-day) swing through New Hampshire on Friday, July 21. 
• North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum will spend this evening at a rodeo in Montana. It is an unconventional stop not for the event but for the location. The primary in the Treasure state is not until June 4 next year. 
• President Biden, the DNC and state parties are aiming to present a unified front in their collective 2024 campaign fundraising and spending.
• Much of the erosion of Ron DeSantis's support among Republicans in recent months comes from those with a college degree, a group among whom the Florida governor excelled relative to Trump.

...

On this date...

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

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

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Recent posts:

A twist in the 2024 Republican endorsement primary

New Hampshire blinders in the Democratic nomination race

[From FHQ Plus] Yes, Iowa still matters

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Post or subscribe by Email. Oh, and find us on Threads: @fhq.plus.

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

A twist in the 2024 Republican endorsement primary

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

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• At least one state representative has given voice to some contingency planning in New Hampshire to circumvent any issues that may arise in the calendar back-and-forth with Iowa. Is it at all necessary? All the details at FHQ Plus.

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In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

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It has been a unique cycle for Republicans and the endorsement primary. There is no real precedent for a former and defeated president returning to run for a third nomination and a second term, not in the post-reform era anyway. But not surprisingly, Donald Trump's presence has had an impact on how elected officials have endorsed in the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race. First, the former president has the most high profile endorsements of any of those vying for the nomination. However, the support is far from unified as it was when Trump ran for reelection as president four years ago. Still, Trump enjoys a frontrunner's support based on the endorsement metric. 

Although, again, that backing is not unified. And while other candidates have won endorsements of their own, Trump being in the race has frozen some elected officials, creating a melange of non-endorsements, unendorsements and pre-endorsements that have not been typical in past competitive nomination cycles in either party. 

And Trump has upped the ante in the endorsement primary among the non-endorsement crowd of late, carving out a small group of folks who have remained on the sidelines but whom the former president clearly views as should-be endorsements. The arm twisting first went public last week when Trump questioned Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds' loyalty for remaining neutral in a contest that will kick off in her state next January. Now the list has expanded to include Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the former press secretary under Trump turned governor of Arkansas. She, too, has withheld her endorsement to this point and has subsequently drawn the ire of the former president for not backing him.

This is a new development. There may be behind-the-scenes cajoling between a presidential candidate and a potential endorsement under normal circumstances, but this is a very different form of public arm-twisting in an attempt to extract an endorsement. It is not exactly breaking a norm, but it is not something that is common either. And it serves as an extension of Trump's atypical return from defeat to run a third time, another series of perceived political transactions for the former president.

[Perhaps Montana Representative Matt Rosendale is on this list as well, albeit in a more indirect way.]

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The latest survey on the presidential primary in the Granite state has been released by the University of New Hampshire. On the Republican side, Trump (37 percent) and DeSantis (23 percent) are the only two candidates above 10 percent and thus, are the only two who would qualify for delegates if the poll represented the results of the primary. The former president's support flagged some from the last UNH survey in April but he maintains a relative high floor of support.

Among Democrats, Joe Biden (70 percent) is the only declared candidate north of the 15 percent qualifying threshold for delegates in the Granite state. But there are questions over whether the president will even be on the ballot for the primary if Democrats in the state opt to go rogue. Two-thirds of Biden supporters in the poll indicated that they would write the president's name in. 

...

I talked with Lou Jacobson for a piece at Politifact about the changes to the 2024 primary calendar and the dwindling number of unknowns related to it. 

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From around the invisible primary...

• Trust in the Mission PAC, a super PAC aligned with South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, has ponied up $40 million for traditional and digital ads to run into next January in, ahem, three of the first four states to vote in the nomination race next year. 
• North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum has gift-carded his way past the 40,000 donor threshold to appear on stage at the first Republican presidential primary debate next month.
• In the travel primary, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will make a return trip to Super Tuesday Utah later this week, a visit that will include a press conference from the state Capitol in addition to some private events. 

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On this date...

...in 1984, former Vice President Walter Mondale put forth New York Rep. Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate and accepted the Democratic presidential nomination.

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Recent posts:

New Hampshire blinders in the Democratic nomination race

[From FHQ Plus] Yes, Iowa still matters

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

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

New Hampshire blinders in the Democratic nomination race

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

First, over at FHQ Plus...

• Michigan Republicans had everything in place with respect to their 2024 delegate selection plan. ...until they didn't. The plan adopted by the state party last month hit a snag with the RNC and will require a tweak. But the state party has options. All the details at FHQ Plus.

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

In Invisible Primary: Visible today...

...

Al Hunt had an eye roll-worthy opinion piece up at The Messenger over the weekend and it was the 315 billionth one since December to inform readers about how the Democrats' Biden-led calendar changes for 2024 have "backfired, spectacularly" in New Hampshire. And again, this was not revelatory. There has been a steady stream of stories and opinion pieces in this genre that have followed the same basic formula: accentuate the negative in the only story outside of the president's age to move the needle in a nomination race that looks like a yawner, only gather quotes from folks inside of and tied to the state of New Hampshire and assume the worst for the president. 

Look, if folks have caught even a whiff of one of these Biden/New Hampshire stories since late last year, then they will likely understand that upsetting folks in a battleground state may have implications for the president in the general election next year. That has been and remains clear. 

However, Hunt, like many before him, has chosen the New Hampshire-centric path that leads to hypothetical chaos (or some lesser form of uncertainty in the 2024 Democratic nomination race). And that path always seems to place some variety of blinders on those who spin these yarns of incumbent woe. 

Folks miss that New Hampshire Democrats are not without options in this saga. Like other state parties, New Hampshire's Democrats can opt out of a state-run presidential primary in favor of some party-run contest to allocate national convention delegates. The Democratic Party in the Granite state has the very same free association rights under the first amendment that all parties across the country do regardless of any state law on the subject. Perhaps, then, the state party could diffuse the situation by going along with the calendar rules supported by folks from 55 of 57 states and territories and adopted by the Democratic National Committee for the 2024 cycle. [It honestly is like that Politico piece from May was never reported. It certainly was not internalized by very many.]

But even if New Hampshire Democrats continue along the route of defiance, does that necessarily mean that the Biden campaign will topple like a house of cards on the evening of (probably) January 23? Is a non-loss by the president in an unsanctioned primary really the death knell for Biden in 2024? It could be. But it could also very well be that the South Carolina primary comes along eleven days later on February 3 and starts a string of (actual delegate-allocating) victories for the president, things become boring and attention goes where it most always does when an incumbent is seeking renomination: to the other party's active contest. But, of course, Hunt did not reckon with that possibility. 

Neither did he consider the long-term implications of New Hampshire Democrats' defiance in the short term. Again, what if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Marianne Williamson wins a New Hampshire primary, the ballot of which the president is not on? That is not embarrassing for Biden. That is embarrassing for New Hampshire Democrats. The state party would lose face and set itself back even further for future discussions of the calendar for 2028, a cycle that will actually matter on the Democratic side. It is shaping up to be competitive. 

Iowa Democrats still have a chance to mess this up, but this is what separates them from New Hampshire Democrats in this calendar kerfuffle. Iowa Democrats are seemingly playing the long game. If they go along with the 2024 calendar rules and manage to pull off a successful mail-in presidential preference vote, then the party will have a leg to stand on in pitching a return to the early calendar for the Hawkeye state in 2028. They may be rejected again, but that is still a firmer foundation from which to argue than "we defied the national party the whole way in 2024 and some conspiracy theorist won our meaningless primary." The membership of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee may change substantially between now and 2026 when the calendar decisions are made for 2028, but unless the entire committee is made of DNC members from New Hampshire, then Granite state Democrats are very unlikely to find a receptive audience for their early calendar pitch. 

But Hunt does not consider that either. And it is understandable. It is not a flashy story at the moment (if it ever is for more than just FHQ and, like, seven other people). But at some point, Hunt and others will get beyond this initial set of questions about the Biden/New Hampshire situation and dig a little deeper. One can only hope.

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This addendum from Seth Masket to the most recent wave in his survey of Republican county party chairs includes a graphic that is just fascinating to look at. It charts the percentage of county party chairs considering various candidates against the percentage who do not want a particular candidate nominated in 2024. As he notes, there are caveats, but it does give a sense of the direction of movement in the race. And Tim Scott noticeably moved in a positive direction. The junior senator from South Carolina saw his consideration numbers go up and his against nomination numbers trail off. Neat graphic. Seth continues to do solid work over at Tusk. 

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From around the invisible primary...

• In the staff primary, the DeSantis campaign trimmed its payroll over the weekend, cutting loose a dozen staffers. That drew parallels to Jeb Bush and Scott Walker and others who have busted out of the gates with hype to spare only to find themselves in a similar position: not meeting expectations (that they did not set), scaling back only to scare skittish donors which leads to further scaling back. Wash, rinse, repeat: doom loop. [Look, it is another troubling sign in a series of them for DeSantis and company in recent days. It may or may not be premature to write the obituaries of the Florida governor's campaign. But the simple truth of the matter is that DeSantis remains well positioned to do well in the 2024 race. [Well may mean something other than winning the nomination.] The governor has raised a lot of money -- with some caveats -- has the (endorsement) backing of a fair number of elected officials and has experienced staff in the broader campaign orbit. On those measures, DeSantis is well ahead of every other nomination aspirant but one.]
• In the money primary, Mike Pence and Chris Christie turned in FEC reports that fell below $2 million. For what it is worth, both entered the race for the Republican nomination just last month. 
• Wall Street donors are opening up their checkbooks for Trump alternatives, but that money is going to multiple candidates. 
• The chatter may be there, but Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is not running for president. ...again. 
• DeSantis has been in the Palmetto state the last two days and Chris Christie will make his first stop in South Carolina on Thursday, July 21.

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On this date...

...in 1984, former Vice President Walter Mondale is formally nominated in a roll call vote at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco.

...in 1988, the Democratic National Convention kicked off in Atlanta.

--

Recent posts:

[From FHQ Plus] Yes, Iowa still matters

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

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

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Post or subscribe by Email. Oh, and find us on Threads: @fhq.plus.

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

[From FHQ Plus] Yes, Iowa still matters

The following is cross-posted from FHQ Plus, FHQ's subscription newsletter. Come check the rest out and consider a paid subscription to unlock the full site and support our work. 

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From Yes, Iowa still matters:

Iowa Republicans have set a caucus date for 2024. That got some folks thinking about the caucuses place in the presidential nomination process:

“What if Iowa doesn't matter?”

That was a question Chris Cillizza recently posed. And FHQ gets the point. Cillizza is suggesting that either Trump will win the lead-off caucuses next January or will lose and do what he did in 2016, cry foul at the process before moving on to a more hospitable format -- a primary -- back east in the Granite state. 

And that point is well taken. It is a narrower variation on the 2024 is a repeat of 2016 line that has become standard in the discourse of the Republican presidential nomination race this time around. However, that does not mean that it is off base. It may be!

But where FHQ parts ways with Cillizza is on a broader distinction perhaps.

Of course Iowa matters. 

Of course Iowa will matter. Win or lose, things may play out with Trump in the lead role just as Cillizza suggests, but it does not mean that the caucuses will not matter. They will matter in the way that they always do. The caucuses will winnow the field.

But how will Iowa (and New Hampshire) winnow the field? That may be the more operative question heading into primary season next year. Do the early contests literally winnow the field, forcing candidates from the race or do they effectively winnow the field, significantly diminishing the chances of candidates outside the top tier (however that is defined at the time) to near-zero levels?

We may never get a good answer because often, at least in recent cycles, it has been a little bit of both. Viable, office-seeking candidates, like Kamala Harris or Cory Booker on the Democratic side in 2020, who do not want to be winnowed by Iowa or New Hampshire -- those who see the writing on the wall during the invisible primary -- will drop out before the calendar even flips over to the presidential election year. Others, call them the all the eggs in the Iowa or New Hampshire basket candidates, such as Chris Christie in 2016, are among those left to "force" out at that point. 

Often, however, candidates do not neatly fit into one or the other of those categories. While Harris and Booker bowed out in 2020, other viable candidates soldiered on through Iowa, New Hampshire and into or through the other early window states in the Democratic order leading up to Super Tuesday. And that is a story as much about field size as it is about money available to keep those campaigns afloat. 

Yet, it is also a story of zombie candidates, effectively winnowed but still in the race and gobbling up not only vote shares in subsequent primaries and caucuses but potentially (depending on the rules) delegate shares. And that is where these early contests matter. They shape or do not shape the field left to fight over votes and delegates on down the line. No, some to a lot of those candidates-turned-zombies after Iowa or New Hampshire may not even qualify for delegates, but their presence affects how and how many delegates the candidates who do qualify end up being allocated. 

So, no, Iowa may not matter in identifying the eventual Republican nominee in 2024 (not Cillizza's point) and it may not matter where Trump (and/or the winner) is concerned. But it and any other early contests, not to mention the invisible primary, will shape the field that moves forward and how. It will affect the way subsequent rounds of the delegate game are played. That is important. That matters.

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Recent posts:

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

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

Nevada GOP Primary/Caucus Lawsuit Shot Down in Carson City

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Post or subscribe by Email. Oh, and find us on Threads: @fhq.plus.

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