More on 2008 Candidate Visits

Let's look a bit deeper at the 2008 presidential candidates data I posted the other day. Instead of looking at it in terms of raw percentage shares for each state, I grouped the states according to the size of those shares. These cut points are rather arbitrary, but it does drive home the point. Recall that if all states were created equally, each would receive two percent of the total number of candidate visits in each presidential cycle. And just by eyeballing it, that 2% mark is a good cut off for the uppermost grouping. That group, then, is comprised of those states that garnered at least a two percent share of total candidate visits. I wanted to allow for another couple of categories, but no natural breaking point really emerged. What I did was to set the upper bound of the bottommost grouping at .5%, but as you'll see below, an additional category could have been created to provide for further differentiation. [I'll discuss this a bit more below.] The resultant three groups, then were states that received a:

1. 0-.5% share of 2008candidate visits
2. .5%-2% share of 2008 candidate visits
3. greater than 2% share of 2008 candidate visits
   

If we look at the picture overall, here's how the states fall into those groupings:

[Click Chart to Enlarge]

In other words, only nine states got anything more than a two percent share of candidate visits (including both parties' candidates). Over three times that many states had a less that half a percent share of overall visits during the 2008 primary campaign. Now, this lowest category could further be broken down into states that got less than .25% of visits and between .25% and .5%. That would basically split that group in half with the former group containing 14 states and the latter, 16.

Looking at those below that .25% line, half (7 states) had concurrent Democratic and Republican contests on Super Tuesday. Of the other seven states, four had their Democratic contests on Super Tuesday while the Republican Party's contests came later (after the point at which McCain had wrapped up the nomination). There are several factors at work here. First, size is a common theme among these seldom-visited states. I'll use electoral votes as a proxy here. Of those 14 (<.25%) states, all fell at or below the 10 electoral vote line and nine have five or less electoral votes. The other obvious points here are that competition for candidate visits matters, and so too does the fact that a contest may fall after the point at which the nomination has been decided. Small states already fighting for attention are even more up against it when there are, say, 25 other states going on the same date. The saving grace for those Super Tuesday small states is that their voters at least had the opportunity to weigh in on both nominations. And while those states with split GOP contests (the ones with Democratic contests on Super Tuesday) were able to avoid the competition for attention, they missed out on the attention altogether by being so late in the process. The voters in those states were in a lose-lose situation. But shifting back to those top nine attention-grabbing states, we see that they accumulated 84% (57% in Iowa and New Hampshire) of the total amount of attention. Now granted, the advance build up of visits in Iowa and New Hampshire in the year(s) prior to the presidential election year skews these figures to some extent. However, when the Iowa and New Hampshire visits are dropped altogether, there are still only 11 states overall with visits shares over 2%. That's a net gain of two states in that category, but the cumulative share of visits to that group of states now drops to just under 73% of the total. Whether Iowa and New Hampshire are withheld does not change the fact that this group of states had one or more of three basic properties. These states were early, big and/or the only event on a given date. Ah, but what happens when these figures are separated by party?

[Click Chart to Enlarge]

The distribution of visits across Republican primaries and caucuses didn't stray too far from the overall distribution above. But once the same procedure as in the above example is employed there are some subtle differences under the surface.

If the large collection of seldom-visited states is split along the .25% line, 18 of the 31 states fall below that line and 13 above it. The thing about the Republican nomination race was that it conformed for the most part to previous nomination races, and that leaves us with two main sets of contests: the compressed states held prior to the nomination being decided and those that are more spread out yet fall after the contest is over. Those are the two categories represented by an overwhelming number of those 18 states below the line. Just three of those states weren't either on Super Tuesday or after March 4 when John McCain became the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party.

On the flip side of the chart, those 7 states in that (>2%) category made up 84% (52% in Iowa and New Hampshire) of the Republican candidate visits. That matches the percentage in the overall case. Yet, if Iowa and New Hampshire are dropped from consideration, there are only six states that exceed that 2% level and they only comprise just under 70% of the total Republican visits.

[Click Chart to Enlarge]

In the Democratic contests, the distribution looks pretty much the same, but there is a trade-off between the lower two categories, with the the two being closer in frequency than they were in the previous two examples. Splitting the lowest category along the .25% line doesn't have the same effect as it did in the previous two instances. 20 states fall below that point and just six above it. Three-quarters of those 20 very seldom-visited states were on Super Tuesday. And that is telling. Since the Democratic race extended to the final contest, many more states had an opportunity to have attention that otherwise would not have. The states that paid the price, then, were those in the most compressed environment, Super Tuesday.

And the attention-grabbing states? Well, those seven states received just under 80% (62% in Iowa and New Hampshire) of the Democratic candidate visits. And that number hardly changes when Iowa and New Hampshire are dropped. However, double the number of states fall into that (>2%) category when the two lead-off contests are withheld. Those fourteen states make up 76% of the Democratic contests. Again, that speaks to the longevity of the competition on the Democratic side. The tie that binds those contests (with or without Iowa and New Hampshire) is the fact that most were stand-alone contests or on a date where there was far less competition for attention.

NOTE: I have to confess that I've put most of these last two posts together for an exercise on descriptive statistics that I'm doing in one of my classes. But I thought I'd share and provide a bit of background information in the process. That will help us down the road if I get around to doing a projection model for 2008 based on candidate visits.


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2008 Presidential Candidate Visits by State and Party

Should Indiana Frontload in 2012? (Part Two)

Michael Steele by the Numbers

2008 Presidential Candidate Visits by State and Party

I don't know that I set out initially to put data directly up on this site, but since I've been looking into the candidate visits data from the 2000 and 2004 primary seasons (see here and here), I thought I might also look into the availability of similar data for 2008. The great thing about the 2008 cycle -- other than it being fantastic overall -- was that there was no shortage of data collection going on. The drawback in many cases was that it wasn't cataloged in a way that could naturally be transferred into a spreadsheet for the type of analyses I like to do. One case of this was the fabulous candidate tracker (with maps!) Slate.com ran during the primaries. The problem with Map the Candidates was that, despite the great documentation, there was only individual candidate aggregation of visits and not party by party visit tabulations. Easily remedied, right?

Well, that's what I've tried to provide below:



Let me add a few notes:

1. Only visits where there was an "active" competition going on were counted. That does include the Republican primaries after McCain wrapped up the nomination on March 4, but only because those contests were still scheduled to happen. In other words, there was some, albeit small, draw for the candidate(s) there. This also includes Democratic caucuses past their initial steps. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton showed up at the North Dakota State Democratic Convention in early April, for instance, after the initial caucuses took place on February 5. Those visits count. The two candidates were seeking delegates. GOP contests of a similar ilk were not included (though Ron Paul supporters tried to and in some cases did overrun some of those state conventions).
2. I highlighted the top 5 states overall and for each party. The key is at the bottom of the spreadsheet. Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina (in that order) were the top three draws overall and for both parties. Florida was fourth overall and in terms of GOP visits. The half-delegation penalty by the Republican Party did not have an impact on Florida's share of attention and overall the Sunshine state was not terribly negatively affected by the Democrats stripping the state of its entire delegation for a period. Michigan wasn't hurt too badly either; garnering the fifth slot in the percentage of GOP visits. California drew that distinction overall, while Pennsylvania claimed the final spot for the Democrats. The rules mattered in this regard for the Democratic Party. All four exempt states -- Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada -- placed one through four (Nevada was fourth), while the two penalized states -- Florida and Michigan -- fell much further back.
   

Interesting stuff that I'll have to come back to at some point. Maybe another projection could emerge?


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Should Indiana Frontload in 2012? (Part Two)

The View from 2004 Continued

I left off the other day having predicted that Indiana would have received a much greater share (nearly 60 times greater) of candidate attention during the 2004 Democratic primaries and caucuses had the Hoosier state government opted to move their presidential primary from May to the earliest possible, non-exempt date (February 3). That Indiana would have gotten what amounted to about 5.25% of the total candidate attention -- in terms of both candidates visits and ad buys -- did not really leave us with any hard numbers in terms of what the state tangibly would have received. Instead of collectively then, let's look at the percentage of candidate ad buys and visits individually and parse this out a bit.

The model(s) here is (are) the same as it was in the previous post. All that is changing is the dependent variable. The result is that we'll construct two separate models (visits and ad buys) to get a clearer picture of what Indiana would have gotten out of an earlier presidential primary in 2004. Let's start with ad buys...

A Model Based on Candidate Ad Buys

Regression Analysis of State-level Ad Buy Shares (2004)
Variable	Coefficient	Indiana Value (actual/earlier)	Explanation of Measurement
Delegates	.026	1.87	Percentage of total Democratic delegates
Timing	.0001	106/15	Number of days since first contest
Primary?	.941	1	Dichotomous: 0 = Caucus 1 = Primary
Candidates	2.117***	2/7	Number of candidates vying for nomination at time of contest
Events/Day	1.569***	0/7	Number of other simultaneous events
Events/Week	-2.034***	0/7	Number of other events in the same week (Wednesday-Tuesday)
Neighbors?	.018	0/0	Percentage of neighboring states holding simultaneous events
Ad Buys (DV)	--	0	Average percentage of candidate ad buys
Constant	-4.646
R2 = .63 | n = 41 | Significance: *.05 **.01 ***<.01

In the 41 states where ad data was available for 2004, the number of candidates in the race during a particular contest and the number of events during a given Wednesday-Tuesday campaign week were significant factors (...as they were in the cumulative model). However, the number of simultaneous primaries and caucuses was also significant in this case. As was the case previously, though, the resultant relationship runs counter to what was hypothesized. It was expected that as the number of contests on any given day increases, the amount of attention -- in this case candidate ad buys -- would decrease. Again, this may have much to do with the high level of correlation between both "events" variables. To check this out, I ran the model twice more but without the events/day variable in one and the events/week variable in the other. In the events/day model, that variable loses its statistical significance, but the relationship with candidate ad buys is in the hypothesized direction. In the alternate model, events/week remains both statistically significant and in the hypothesized direction.

Before we get into interpreting what we see in the table above or the prediction, let me at least mention the model's fit. Performance-wise, this collection of variables explains nearly two-thirds of the variation in ad buy shares across states. That is an improvement over what was witnessed in the overall attention model. But effect of the statistically significant variables is largely the same (...save the events/day variable). A one candidate increase in the number of active candidates in the race creates an added 2.1% ad buy share for a state. Additionally, a one state increase in the number of states in a given Wednesday-Tuesday campaign week makes for a 2% decrease in a state's ad buy share. Beyond that, primary states got a bump of nearly 1% increase in their ad buy share over caucus states. Though that isn't a statistically significant finding it is substantively significant.

Fine, but what about Indiana? If the state had held its presidential primary on February 3, how much would the state's ad buy share have increased? After adjusting the timing (15 days after Iowa), the number of active candidates at the time of the contest (7), the number of other simultaneous events (7) and the number of other events in the same campaign week (7) variable values to reflect the that primary shift, Indiana would have significantly improved its stock. The Hoosier state had no ads bought/aired on its airwaves for its May primary (and thus a 0% share of the total ad buys). In February, however, the state's share of overall ad buys would have increased to nearly 8%, going from no ads to over 3000 ads aired. The other states holding delegate selection events on the same date (excluding Delaware and North Dakota because they had no data) averaged about 2700 ads aired. And while Indiana is predicted to have exceeded that number, the average of actual ads was weighted down by a relatively low number of ads aired in Missouri ahead of the Show-Me state's primary (see Gephardt discussion from the previous post).

Basically then, Indiana moves from getting nothing in May to garnering -- as the other states on the date had individually -- about half the ad buys as Iowa did to kick off the 2004 campaign.

A Model Based on Candidate Visits

And what about the other piece of the puzzle, candidate visits to the state? The results here are very similar to what we saw in the candidate ad buys model above.

Regression Analysis of State-level Visit Shares (2004)
Variable	Coefficient	Indiana Value (actual/earlier)	Explanation of Measurement
Delegates	.851	1.87	Percentage of total Democratic delegates
Timing	-.016	106/15	Number of days since first contest
Primary?	.156	1	Dichotomous: 0 = Caucus 1 = Primary
Candidates	1.414*	2/7	Number of candidates vying for nomination at time of contest
Events/Day	.855	0/7	Number of other simultaneous events
Events/Week	-1.627*	0/7	Number of other events in the same week (Wednesday-Tuesday)
Neighbors?	.020	0/0	Percentage of neighboring states holding simultaneous events
Visits (DV)	--	0.18	Average percentage of candidate visits
Constant	-1.303
R2 = .43 | n = 50 | Significance: *.05 **.01 ***<.01

Overall, the visits model isn't as good of a fit as the ads model. The included variables account for only 43% of the variation in the number of visits to a state (and that's despite the fact that there was visits data for all 50 states). However, the same basic group of variables was significant. Again, it is all about the number of candidates actively competing for the nomination at the time of a contest and the number of events in a week that matter at least statistically. The same phenomenon we saw above in terms of the two events variables is at play in this model as well. Namely, the events/week variable is significant and its relationship with visits is in the predicted direction, but events/day is neither significant nor in the hypothesized direction. Excluding each from the model has the same effect as well. Events/week doesn't change while events/day approaches statistical significance and has a negative effect on the number of visits to a state (as hypothesized).

Finally, a state's percentage of delegates also has a significant impact on a candidate deciding to touch down and actually campaign in a state. For each 1% increase in a state's share of delegates, the average state receives a bonus .85% of candidates visit shares. No, that doesn't seem like much, but the hypothetical difference between Indiana and, say, California would be 7% of the overall number of visits (based on delegates alone).

If Indiana would have moved its presidential primary to the earliest possible date in 2004, though, what would its share of candidate visits have been? The increase wasn't as great as it was in the case of ads, but Indiana's share of overall candidate visits increased nearly four and three-quarters percent by hypothetically shifting its presidential primary from May to February in 2004. At 4.69%, Indiana's predicted February share of candidate visits was 26 times greater than it was in actuality in May. A mere 6 candidate visits in May would have been nearly 160 visits had the Indiana primary been on February 3. The other seven states on February 3 averaged 57 visits, so the Indiana prediction greatly exceeds that average. The problem there is that the seven state average includes the depressed totals from Delaware and Missouri and the complete absence of visits to North Dakota for the state's caucuses. With those three states dropped from the average, the February 3 states averaged 88 candidate visits. Indiana, then, would have had a share of visits on par but shy of the number of visits South Carolina received on the same date.

Conclusion

In 2004, Indiana could have significantly improved the amount of attention it received from the candidates in the race had it shifted its presidential primary from May to February; going from 0 to 3051 ads aired and 6 to 158 candidate visits. But 2004 was unique in the opportunity it provided states in regard to moving delegate selection events in exchange for the spoils of the system. Only the Democratic Party had a contested nomination and their allowing for February contests opened the door for states to move, but only a handful of states took advantage of that rule change. However, those states on average increased their share of candidate attention. Yet that was probably a one and done proposition as many more states joined those seven at the front of the queue in 2008. The result was that those states saw a drop in the amount of attention each received. So, while Indiana could have significantly increased the attention the state received in 2004, that same increase would not have been available to the state in 2008 or in 2012 simply because, unless the rules change to regulate which states go when, there will be too much competition at the earliest allowable date (February 7, 2012).

The lesson? If the party rules change to allow for early dates, a state would be smart to move earlier rather than later to capture an increased share of candidate attention. Of course, Indiana was not in the most advantageous position prior to 2004. The Indiana House was controlled by Democrats who could potentially have been interested in moving the state's primary date for a competitive Democratic nomination (but never introduced a bill to do so). However, the state Senate was controlled by the Republicans. Had a bill to move the primary been introduced, the divided legislature could have proven a significant obstruction to such a move. It may, then, appear that Indiana missed an opportunity prior to 2004, regardless of legislative politics.

Up next? The 2000 primaries.


Recent Posts:
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Michael Steele by the Numbers

or A Look at the Potential for the Current RNC Chair Being Removed

Speaking of that possibility and with chatter ramping up of late, the removal of the RNC chairman requires a two-thirds vote of the RNC according to Rule 5(1)(a)[See page 7 in rules here.]. Now, whether that is probable is beside the point. Chris Cillizza thinks it is unlikely, but let's look at this from a numbers standpoint. We know that 112 RNC members (out of 168) would have to vote to remove Steele. We also know that Steele got 91 votes on the sixth and final ballot of the chair election in January. The 77 votes that went to runner-up Katon Dawson would have to be augmented by 35 of those 91 Steele supporters to remove the current chair.

RNC Chair Votes by Ballot
Candidate:	Steele	Dawson	Anuzis	Duncan	Blackwell
1st ballot	46	28	22	52	20
2nd ballot	48	29	24	48	19
3rd ballot	51	34	24	44	15
4th ballot	60	62	31	--	15
5th ballot	79	69	20	--	--
6th ballot	91	77	--	--	--
Source: National Review Online

But not all of those 91 were initially among Steele's supporters. In fact, of those 91, at most 45 were not with Steele on the first ballot. [That assumes that all of the original 46 stuck by Steele throughout.] That's 45 soft Steele supporters who could potentially be swayed by an effort to assemble a successful vote of no confidence to oust the chairman. Of course 78% of those 45 would have to be persuaded that Steele needs to removed to make that a reality (or to break into the original 46 hard supporters) and I'm not sure that's anywhere close to happening. But more statements like those given to GQ and/or Republican James Tedisco failing to win new Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's vacated NY-20 congressional seat in the upcoming special election likely wouldn't help.

But put it this way: It is closer now than it was on January 30 when Steele was elected.


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GOP Temporary Delegate Selection Committee for 2012

I had a link to a full version of the Republican National Committee rules (2009-2012) come into my inbox this morning and thought I would cut and paste the relevant language concerning delegate selection for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination here. Additionally, the full text of those rules is appended at the bottom of the post.

The section, Rule 10(d) follows [See page 17 of rules below.]:

(d) There shall be a temporary committee to review the timing of the election, selection, allocation, or binding of delegate and alternate delegates pursuant to Rule No. 15(b) of these rules to the 2012 Republican National Convention. The Temporary Delegate Selection Committee shall be composed of fifteen (15) members, which shall include one (1) member of the Republican National Committee from each of the four (4) regions described in Rule No. 5, elected by the members of the Republican National Committee from each region at the 2009 Republican National Committee Winter Meeting; further, the chairman of the Republican National Committee will appoint three (3) additional members of the Republican National Committee and six (6) Republicans who are not members of the Republican National Committee. The chairman and general counsel of the Republican National Committee shall serve as ex-officio voting members. The chairman of the Republican National Committee shall convene the Temporary Delegate Selection Committee as soon as practicable after the 2009 Republican National Committee Winter Meeting. The Temporary Delegate Selection Committee shall make any recommendations it deems appropriate concerning additions to Rule No. 15(b) of these rules, provided that such additions shall preserve the provisions of Rule No. 15(b) adopted by the 2008 Republican National Convention, which shall be voted upon without amendment by the Republican National Committee at the 2010 Republican National Committee Summer Meeting and which shall require a two-thirds (2/3) vote to be adopted. Any action adopted would take effect sixty (60) days after passage. The Temporary Delegate Selection Committee shall disband following the 2010 Republican National Committee Summer Meeting.

Thus far, the membership of the Temporary Delegate Selection Committee (TDSC) has been scrutinized to some extent (see here and here), but not fully and the other related rules have been ignored as well. An important question emerges:

• How much power does the newly-instated Chairman Michael Steele actually have in this process?

At the outset, Steele has an immense amount of power over the membership of the committee. The very same meeting where Steele was elected also elected four RNC members to serve on the TDSC. Additionally, Steele, himself, and the RNC's general counsel (To be a Steele appointee according to Rule 5(c) [See page 8 in the rules below], though I can't find any documentation that current counsel, Blake Hall, was among those let go by Steele in the February wave of staff resignations/firings.*) both serve as members of the committee. Steele also has nine other appointments; six from among the members of the RNC and three from outside those ranks. If reform is the desired outcome then, Steele can choose among those within and outside of the RNC that really value a change, significant or otherwise.

The membership aspects have been discussed, but what is lost in this is the fact that two-thirds of the RNC still has to vote in favor of any change. Now, the committee already voted in favor of the Ohio Plan, but had that derailed by the McCain campaign at last year's St. Paul convention. Hypothetically then, this could be pushed through again without the same obstruction. Whether that comes to pass or not depends on the changes made at the state level for each state's member(s). Then again, these are the folks that elected Steele in the first place.

In other words, this situation is a bit fluid. And with chatter ramping up the last couple of weeks that Steele may be out of a job, the formation of the committee is even more up in the air. If you are betting on when the TDSC will be up and running, I'd opt for later rather than sooner if I were you.

Republican National Committee Rules, Adopted 2008

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Business & Legal republican national

*Incidentally, when I was searching for news about Blake Hall, I came across this podcast where he addresses presidential primary reform; specifically the Ohio Plan, which at that point -- summer 2008 -- had been passed by the RNC to be voted on at the national convention. The vote failed, but did lead to the crafting of the rule creating the Temporary Delegate Selection Committee. There were some interesting notes in this interview. Number one, Hall, whether he is retained as general counsel and is on the TDSC or not, supports primary reform of some sort. He indicated that the RNC penalty for violating a hypothetical Ohio Plan would be the same as it was in 2008 (a loss of 50% of a state's delegates). However, he also indicated that there had been discussion about increasing that penalty. Hall closed by discussing the tradeoff there, citing the Democratic problems in 2008. Namely, if a party is going to have a severe delegate penalty, said penalty has to be enforced.
[Original link to podcast here.]


Recent Posts:
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2008 Electoral College by Congressional District

Should Indiana Frontload in 2012? (Part One)

The View from 2004

A couple of weeks ago I laid out a simple model for examining the variation in the amount of attention (candidate visits and ad buys) states receive during any given presidential primary season. I further offered that one could use the information from this model to then predict the amount of attention a state would have gotten had it been in a different, more advantageous, calendar position. Let's reproduce the list of factors hypothesized to have an effect on the amount of attention a state would garner:

• Delegates: As I have alluded to before, size maters. California is likely to get more attention from moving than Indiana.
  
• Primary or caucus?: Despite all the chatter about caucuses in 2008, primaries still get the most attention from candidates.
  
• Event Scheduling: This site is pretty much predicated on the idea that in the current system, earlier is better.
  
• Number of candidates: Obviously, the greater the number of candidates in the nomination race at the time of a state's contest, the more attention that state is likely to get.
  
• Number of simultaneous events: A crowded field of contests on any one day translates into candidate resources stretched thin. Look no further than Arkansas on this one.
  
• Number of events in the same week: The reasoning above holds true here as well. If a state has a contest on the weekend following Super Tuesday, it may receive short shrift from the candidates than if it had not been as close to so many other contests.
  
• Number of nearby states on the same date: Finally, resources are hypothetically more efficiently spent if a cluster of contests in neighboring states occur simultaneously. If John McCain is already in Missouri it is much easier (and more likely) to go campaign in nearby Oklahoma or Arkansas or Tennessee prior to February 5, 2008.

Since Indiana is in the process of looking into whether they want to form a committee to look into whether they should reposition their own presidential primary, I've been using the Hoosier state as my test case. [And incidentally, SCR 28 has passed the Senate by voice vote and has been introduced and read in the House as of March 10.] The question then is, "How much more attention would Indiana receive if it held its presidential on an earlier date?"

For the purposes of this exercise, we'll define earlier as the earliest date on which a state could hold its delegate selection event without sanction from the national party. And we'll be looking at this in terms of the 2004 primary calendar (Not to brag, but it is awfully nice to be able to reference all the primary calendars back to 1976 now.). I'll add in a 2000 projection later, but it is a bit messier with both parties having contested nominations. There are a couple of additional factors to consider. For now though, I'll focus on 2004, when only the Democratic nomination was at stake. In 2004, the earliest a non-Iowa/New Hampshire state could hold its contest was a week after the New Hampshire primary, February 3. Indeed, six states moved into the brave new world of February for the 2004 cycle, the cycle when the Democratic Party initially allowed for contests that early. In other words, there was some competition on that date but not anywhere close to the level of competition for attention on that same first Tuesday in February of 2008.

If Indiana had moved from the first week in May to the first week in February for the 2004 cycle, then, what would the Hoosier state have taken home? I looked at the descriptives of this recently and found that a handful of similarly-sized states to Indiana frontloaded in 2004 and gained as a result of the move. Tennessee and Wisconsin essentially went from nothing to around the amount of attention a state of their sizes would be expected to be if all other factors were equal. The other state, Missouri, unfortunately suffered because its favorite son, Dick Gephardt, was running and the contest had been pre-emptively ceded to the Congressman by the other candidates. [Yes, Gephardt had dropped out by this point, but the amount of attention the state got was far less than it would have been if Gephardt hadn't been in the race at all. He had only dropped out a couple of weeks prior and other states on February 3 -- especially South Carolina -- were getting much more attention.] Moving into February, then, had its advantages.

The Model

Before we look into the ramifications of Indiana having been the eighth state on February 3, 2004, let's look at how the underlying model performed.

Regression Analysis of State-level Attention Shares (2004)
Variable	Coefficient	Indiana Value (actual/earlier)	Explanation of Measurement
Delegates	.434	1.87	Percentage of total Democratic delegates
Timing	-.011	106/15	Number of days since first contest
Primary?	.569	1	Dichotomous: 0 = Caucus 1 = Primary
Candidates	1.496***	2/7	Number of candidates vying for nomination at time of contest
Events/Day	.753	0/7	Number of other simultaneous events
Events/Week	-1.366*	0/7	Number of other events in the same week (Wednesday-Tuesday)
Neighbors?	.022	0/0	Percentage of neighboring states holding simultaneous events
Attention (DV)	--	0.09	Average percentage of candidate visits and ad buys
Constant	-2.136
R2 = .47 | n = 50 | Significance: *.05 **.01 ***<.01

Looking at Indiana in particular, we're talking about a primary 106 days after the nomination race began -- well after it was over in fact -- that basically got nothing in terms of attention. Despite the fact that it is around the median for size and the fact that Indiana held the only event on its date or week, the Hoosier state primary just fell too far after the point at which the nomination had been decided to matter.

The Results

Across the board, though, what factors did matter?* I'm not terribly surprised that the percentage of delegates wasn't a significant variable. As I've said before, it just doesn't seem to matter in the context of frontloading. Timing didn't even matter, but that may have more to do with the fact that it is fairly highly correlated (>.8) with the number of candidates in the race at the time of the primary or caucus, which was a significant factor. Multicollinearity is a potential problem with the events/day and events/week variables. Obviously there is some amount of overlap between those two concepts, but the two are nearly perfectly correlated (>.9). That said, when events in a week is dropped, the simultaneous events on a date variable is still not significant. In events/day's absence, events/week remains significant. The oddity here is that with both are included in the model, they run in counter directions, which is not consistent with the hypothsized (the more events, the less attention). As it turns out, it is the significant variable (events/week) that runs in the proper direction. [Fortunately.] Together, these seven variables account for just shy of half of the variation in attention we see across the fifty states. Not a great fit, but not all that bad for a first pass.

The Prediction

With that baseline set, what level of attention can we predict Indiana would have gotten if it had shifted its presidential primary to February 3? We'll have to alter Indiana's numbers on events/day (7 events), events/week (7 events), percentage of neighbors going on the same date (0%) and the number of days after Iowa (15) to make this prediction. With those numbers imputed into the regression equation Indiana's predicted share of candidate attention rises from essentially nothing in reality to over five and a quarter percent had the Hoosier state's primary been held during the first week in February. That is consistent with the amount of attention Arizona actually got. Now, size doesn't matter in this model, but Arizona is a similarly-sized state to Indiana. Arizona did get the benefit of having a primary simultaneously with its eastern neighbor, New Mexico, which got a similar share of the total attention for the cycle.

Great, so, Indiana would have gotten about 60 times as much attention as it got in 2004 by moving from May to February, but how do we go about interpretting a share of attention. What does that mean in terms of the number of ads bought or the number of candidate visits to the state? I'm glad you asked. I'll pick up there tomorrow with part two.

*Yeah, but how do we go about reading those coefficients from the table above? We can see that the number of candidates in the race at the time of the contest and the number of events occurring in the same week as any given contest matter, but what do those numbers mean? In the case of the candidates variable, we can interpret that coefficient to mean that a one candidate increase translates to a 1.5% increase in the amount of attention a state receives. In a somewhat counteractive fashion, a one contest increase in the number of events in a given Wednesday-Tuesday week causes a 1.4% decrease in the share of attention a state garners. Of course the other variables play a role in determining this as well despite not being statistically significant. Substantively, both the percentage of delegates and primary/caucus distinction are significant, though the latter isn't as much as the extant literature might lead s to believe. In the case of the former, a one percent increase in the share of delegates a state had means a .4% increase in the amount of attention that state got.


Recent Posts:
WA-SoS Urges Steele to Back a Regional Primary System

2008 Electoral College by Congressional District

2008 Presidential Primary Calendar

WA-SoS Urges Steele to Back a Regional Primary System

Well, indirectly...

The other day I was pleased, though not surprised, to see that Washington Secretary of State, Sam Reed was calling on newly-elected RNC chair Michael Steele to appoint secretaries of state to the Temporary Delegate Selection Committee that will shape the Republican primary system/calendar for 2012. [Pleased because any news on this front makes for more discussion here at FHQ. And not surprised because Reed, as a secretary of state and former president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, wasn't really going out on a limb to endorse a system that he and other secretaries of state have constructed and backed.]

However, as David Ammons, Secretary Reed's communications director, alludes to, Secretary Reed is getting out in front of a process that will take place between now and the summer of 2010 to craft the system for the 2012 nomination -- a system that will right the frontloading wrongs highlighted by the 2008 calendar. For my part, I'm less concerned with the specific reform in this case and more interested in the means by which Reed envisions it coming to pass.

Ammons was kind enough to share the secretary's letter to Steele with me and in it, Reed identifies the need to...

"...appoint Secretaries of State to this committee. It only makes sense to have people that are knowledgeable about the process and election procedures participating in creating the solutions to these problems."

Recall that the 15 person Temporary Delegate Selection Committee is comprised of 4 elected memebers from the RNC (one of those four, Fredi Simpson, happens to be from Reed's home state of Washington) and eleven members chosen by Steele himself. Of course, Reed then goes on to offer up both his and Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson's (also current president of the National Association of Secretaries of State) services to be two of those eleven chair-selected members.

So, what we are starting to see is the obvious.

1. Steele has quite a bit of power over this process.
2. Who those 11 members are matters.
   

To that second point, secretaries of state are going to be predisposed to supporting the NASS rotating regional primary plan. But that may not be the direction in which Steele wants to steer this process (...if Steele even hangs on to the position). Outside of occupation/elected office, though, what can we look at in terms of the future members' characteristics to get a sense of what the ultimate plan will be? As I've already stated, if the primary calendar remains unchanged in 2012, Mitt Romney is in a prime position to capture the GOP nomination. Much of that depends on Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee not only entering the race but splitting the vital social conservative vote in both Iowa and South Carolina. And that conclusion is not out of line with the results of the recent straw poll at the CPAC conference. Those two things (CPAC straw poll and Iowa/South Carolina nominating contests) don't necessarily equate to each other, but the same sort of dynamic could be at play. Regardless, support for Romney is essentially a proxy for support for the status quo in terms of the nomination system. Support for other candidates, then, could mean support of some measure of reform. [And that isn't to say that Romney supporters can't also support primary reform, but it won't happen unless the system is seen as something advantageous to the former Massachusetts governor.]

With that in mind, one thing I've already looked into is the FEC reports on contributions from the four elected members of the Temporary Delegate Selection Committee. This is something we can look at for the other 11 members when they are named as well. Here are those four members (via TheNextRight):

Region	Member	Defeated
Northeast	David Norcross (NJ)	Ron Kaufman (MA)
South	John Ryder (TN)	Morton Blackwell (VA)
Midwest	Pete Ricketts (NE)	Bob Bennett (OH)
West	Fredi Simpson (WA)	Ron Nehring (CA)

Norcross, for example, gave $2300 to Mitt Romey's campaign in early 2007. The other three, however, didn't appear to have national-level contribution activity other than to the RNC. Those three focused much of their donations on state parties and local senate candidates. As the other members are named, we may be able to draw similar conclusions.

But for now we're just playing the waiting game.

[UPDATE: The letter cited above is now posted in full on the Washington Secretary of State's web site now.]


Recent Posts:
2008 Electoral College by Congressional District

2008 Presidential Primary Calendar

2004 Presidential Primary Calendar

2008 Electoral College by Congressional District

I have been wanting to look into this for a while -- just to compare the 2008 election under the currently configured electoral college to the electoral college under the Maine/Nebraska system -- but neither the data nor a good map made themselves available. And even though the Swing State Project has had the data on this up for a while, CQ drew my attention back to the issue yesterday. From those sources, it can be discerned that Obama won 242 congressional districts and McCain 193. [We know, for instance, that the Democrats won 257 seats in the House and the Republicans won 178. Further, Obama won 34 of those districts where a Republican candidate won the House seat. McCain was able to win in 49 districts where a Democrat was victorious in the House race. That's a net gain of 15 districts/electoral votes for McCain.]

[Click Map to Enlarge]

The map above isn't the greatest -- it doesn't, for instance, include Alaska and Hawaii -- but it conveys the point. [Plus, I've yet to see a map on this.] The dark-shaded districts are the ones where Obama or McCain and a Democrat or Republican House candidate, respectively, won the district. In the lightly-shaded districts, McCain and Obama won while a House candidate of the opposite party carried the congressional race. Now, it should be noted that some of the smaller suburban/urban districts don't show up as well as those districts larger in area. However, below you'll see the list of all 83 districts where the vote for president and House were split between the two parties. These seats, or at the very least a fraction of them, are where the battlegrounds will be in next year's midterms.



House seats aside, under the electoral vote allocation system used by Maine and Nebraska, the winner of a congressional district receives one electoral vote and the overall statewide winner wins the two electoral votes that represent a state's two senators. Adding the 56 electoral votes from the 28 states Obama won (plus the three electoral votes from the District of Columbia), the president's electoral vote total would have equaled 301. McCain, meanwhile, would have started off with more electoral votes from congressional districts alone to have suprassed his total under the current electoral college system (173 electoral votes). By adding in the 44 electoral votes for overall statewide victories would have brought the Arizona senator's total to 237 electoral votes.

The bottom line is that the Democrats gained in 2008 from in the system as it is set up currently. And that is strange considering the party has been behind the eight ball in terms of the electoral college for the better part of a generation. If the system shifted to a completely Maine/Nebraska set up that would tilt things toward the GOP a little more. In the process, though, there would be a move from focusing on a handful of swing states to a finite number of swing districts. And despite the fact that a split between the presidential and House votes in a district does not make for a competitive presidential race in that district necessarily, we are talking about 83 such districts in 2008 from 37 states. From a strategic standpoint, it would be fun to see the system operate under this method for one election cycle.

[NOTE: I'd like to add a special note of thanks to those who contacted FHQ either via the comments or through email with corrections and/or suggestions. I think we've got it right now. The post is certainly better because of those comments.]


Recent Posts:
2008 Presidential Primary Calendar

2004 Presidential Primary Calendar

2000 Presidential Primary Calendar

2008 Presidential Primary Calendar

January

Thursday, January 3:
Iowa caucuses (both parties)

Saturday, January 5:
Wyoming Republican caucuses

Tuesday, January 8:
New Hampshire primary

Tuesday, January 15:
Michigan primary

Saturday, January 19:
Nevada caucuses (both parties)
South Carolina Republican primary (party-run, state-funded)

Saturday, January 26:
South Carolina Democratic primary (party-run, state-funded)

Tuesday, January 29:
Florida primary

February

Friday, February 1:
Maine Republican caucuses (through February 3)

Tuesday, February 5:
Alabama primary
Alaska caucuses (both parties)
Arizona primary 
Arkansas primary
California primary
Colorado caucuses (both parties)
Connecticut primary
Delaware primary
Georgia primary
Idaho Democratic caucuses
Illinois primary
Kansas Democratic caucuses
Massachusetts primary
Minnesota caucuses (both parties)
Missouri primary
Montana Republican caucuses
North Dakota caucuses (both parties)
New Jersey primary
New Mexico Democratic primary (party-run)
New York primary
Oklahoma primary
Tennessee primary
Utah primary
West Virginia Republican state presidential convention

Saturday, February 9:
Kansas Republican caucuses
Louisiana primary
Nebraska Democratic caucuses 
Washington caucuses (both parties)

Sunday, February 10:
Maine Democratic caucuses

Tuesday, February 12:
Maryland primary
Virginia primary
Washington, DC primary

Tuesday, February 19:
Hawaii Democratic caucuses
Washington primary (Republicans only)
Wisconsin primary

March

Tuesday, March 4:
Ohio primary
Rhode Island primary
Texas primary (both parties & Democratic caucuses)
Vermont primary

Saturday, March 8:
Wyoming Democratic caucuses

Tuesday, March 11:
Mississippi primary

April

Tuesday, April 22:
Pennsylvania primary

May

Tuesday, May 6:
Indiana primary
North Carolina primary

Tuesday, May 13:
Nebraska primary (Republicans only)
West Virginia primary

Friday, May 16:
Hawaii Republican state convention (through May 17)

Tuesday, May 20:
Kentucky primary
Oregon primary

Tuesday, May 27:
Idaho primary (Republicans only)

June

Tuesday, June 3:
Montana primary (Democrats only)
New Mexico primary (Republicans only)
South Dakota primary

[Primaries in bold; Caucuses in italics]

States that are split vertically had different dates for different party contests. The shade to the left of that line corresponds with the month in which the Democratic contest took place and the right side represents the Republican contest.

[Source: The Green Papers and news accounts from 2008. The latter was used to double-check the dates or discover missing ones.]


A few notes:
1) The 2008 election ended up doing what 2000 did not. [No, it didn't prevent use of the butterfly ballot.] With no one from the incumbent presidential administration seeking the Republican nomination, both parties had competitive primary races. Granted the widening of the window to allow for February contests helped, but the removal of partisanship* from the frontloading decision-making process certainly didn't hurt the states' motivation to shift to earlier dates. In other words, state actors on both sides of the aisle opted for an "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" strategy. Republicans and Democrats in state legislatures were much more likely to get along on this issue operating under the assumption that, "Hey, if your contest is early it won't hurt our party as long as our contest is early too." Of course, hindsight being what it is, Republicans in some states may have had some reservations about shifting forward given the competitiveness of the Democratic nomination race and what that meant in terms of organization for the Obama general election campaign. In 2008, then, conditions were much better in terms of enticing states to frontload than they had been eight years earlier.

2) Obviously, the somewhat "happy" balance of contests from the 2004 calendar was slightly disturbed in 2008. Again, in terms of primaries, there were in 2008 24 primaries before March 5 during March and 10 after March. That differed from the 11-14-13 primary distribution across the same time periods in 2004. On its face, then, most of the frontloading -- in terms of primaries -- came from those during March states from 2004.

3) The real issue with the 2008 primary calendar was the fact that a handful of states decided to defy national party rules and hold their delegate selection events prior to February 5. Florida and Michigan got all of the headlines because of the severe penalty initially imposed upon both states by the DNC. Well, the initial rule called for a loss of half a state's delegates in the event of a timing violation, but the DNC wanted to make an example of Florida.

...and then Michigan. While that was the big story, lost in the shuffle was the fact that all of the states that held January contests on the Republican side received a penalty of half their total convention delegates as well. Iowa and Nevada were exempted because the first steps in their caucus processes did not directly allocate any delegates to the Republican convention. However, Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Wyoming (and perhaps Maine. I'll have to check to see if the February 1-3 caucus in the Pine Tree state allocated delegates directly to the convention.) all lost voting rights for half of their delegations to the Republican convention in St. Paul (Read more about that situation here and here.). Moving forward to 2012 and beyond, though, the issue becomes whether or not this defiance was aberration or if there will be a greater number of rogue states challenging the national party rules.

*Florida Democrats may take issue with the phrase, "removal of partisanship." Granted, it wasn't until after the fact that the state had been stripped of all its Democratic convention delegates that Florida Democrats had a problem with partisanship. In this case it was a state government completely controlled by Republicans; Republicans who were unwilling to help Democrats out of the predicament. Of course, Florida's Democratic state legislators didn't really have a leg to stand on since the votes on HB 537 were nearly unanimous in both chambers of the Florida General Assembly.


Recent Posts:
2004 Presidential Primary Calendar

2000 Presidential Primary Calendar

Shoveling Out from Under...

2004 Presidential Primary Calendar

January

Friday, January 2:
Maine Republican caucuses (through March 19)

Tuesday, January 13:
Washington, DC primary (non-binding)

Saturday, January 17:
South Carolina Republican caucuses (through February 21)

Monday, January 19:
Iowa caucuses (both parties)

Sunday, January 25:
Hawaii Republican caucuses (through February 7)

Tuesday, January 27:
New Hampshire primary

February

Sunday, February 1:
North Carolina Republican caucuses (through March 31)

Tuesday, February 3:
Arizona primary (Democrats only)
Delaware primary (Democrats only)
Missouri primary
New Mexico Democratic caucuses 
North Dakota caucuses
Oklahoma primary
South Carolina primary (Democrats only, party-run)
Wyoming Republican caucuses (through February 29)

Wednesday, February 4:
Virginia Republican caucuses (through April 4)

Saturday, February 7:
Michigan primary (Democrats only, party-run)
Washington Democratic caucuses 
Louisiana Republican caucuses

Sunday, February 8:
Maine Democratic caucuses

Tuesday, February 10:
Nevada Republican caucuses 
Tennessee primary
Virginia primary (Democrats only)
Washington, DC Republican caucuses

Saturday, February 14:
Nevada Democratic caucuses
Washington, DC Democratic caucuses

Tuesday, February 17:
Wisconsin primary

Saturday, February 21:
Alaska Republican caucuses (through April 17)

Tuesday, February 24:
Hawaii Democratic caucuses 
Idaho Democratic caucuses
Utah primary (party-run)

March

Monday, March 1:
Delaware Republican caucuses (through May 15 -- State convention)
Kansas Republican caucuses (through June 15)

Tuesday, March 2:
California primary
Connecticut primary (Republican canceled)
Georgia primary
Maryland primary
Massachusetts primary
Minnesota caucuses (both parties)
New York primary (Republican canceled)
Ohio primary
Rhode Island primary
Vermont primary

Saturday, March 6:
Wyoming Democratic caucuses (through March 20)

Tuesday, March 9:
Florida primary (Republican canceled)
Louisiana primary
Mississippi primary (Republican canceled)
North Carolina Democratic caucuses
Texas primary (both parties & Democratic caucuses)
Washington Republican caucuses

Saturday, March 13:
Kansas Democratic caucuses

Tuesday, March 16:
Illinois primary

Saturday, March 20:
Alaska Democratic caucuses

Tuesday, March 23:
Utah Republican caucuses

April

Sunday, April 3:
Arizona Republican caucuses (through April 17)

Tuesday, April 13:
Colorado caucuses (both parties)

Tuesday, April 27:
Pennsylvania primary

May

Tuesday, May 4:
Indiana primary

Tuesday, May 11:
Nebraska primary
West Virginia primary

Tuesday, May 18:
Arkansas primary
Kentucky primary
Oregon primary

Tuesday, May 25:
Idaho primary (Republicans only)

June

Tuesday, June 1:
Alabama primary
New Mexico primary (Republicans only)
South Dakota primary (Republicans canceled)

Tuesday, June 8:
Montana primary (Democrats only, Republican beauty contest -- no delegates at stake)
New Jersey primary

Thursday, June 10:
Montana Republican convention (through June 12)

[Primaries in bold; Caucuses in italics]

States that are split vertically had different dates for different party contests. The shade to the left of that line corresponds with the month in which the Democratic contest took place and the right side represents the Republican contest.

[Source: The Green Papers and news accounts from 2004. The latter was used to double-check the dates or discover missing ones.]


A few notes:
1) North Carolina. It isn't often that we witness a traditional primary state -- one that has held a primary every presidential election cycle in the post-reform era -- adopt a caucus system for the purposes of delegate allocation. But that's exactly what North Carolina did in 2004. Of course, the move was one of necessity and not the state parties'/state government's desires. Due to a battle of redrawn congressional district lines, the North Carolina primary (typically in May) was postponed until the conflict was settled in the courts. The primaries for state and local offices occurred in July, but the state parties (mostly just the Democrats) had to scramble to put together a means of delegate allocation. So, while North Carolina technically frontloaded in 2004, it was not a purposeful movement forward. The reason most of the caucuses fall before April or May is so the first step in the process is early enough that the process will be at or near its completion by the time the window in which contests can be held closes.

2) With the Democrats opening the door to February contests, 2004 saw a host of states take them up on the offer. Democratic primaries in Arizona, Delaware, Michigan and Virginia followed GOP contests in those states four years earlier -- when the Republicans had first allowed for more widespread February contests. Plus, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wisconsin all shifted their state-funded primaries into February as well. Again, as was mentioned in the 2000 calendar discussion, those allowances by both parties set the stage for the massive shift that brought about 2008's de facto national primary on February 5.

3) In all, there were 11 primaries prior to March, 14 during March and 13 after March. That's actually not a bad distribution of contests. Basically, that means there were 11 contests in February (if New Hampshire is included), 14 in March and then 13 contests somewhat inefficiently distributed across the remaining two months of the process. Sure, that focuses on the primaries, but if you have that same distribution above across March, April and May/June and hold the caucuses in February, that's essentially the same idea as the Ohio Plan the GOP debated last year. Those caucus states are, on the whole, the smaller states which are frontloaded in that plan for the sake of retail politics. An interesting parallel.


Recent Posts:
2000 Presidential Primary Calendar

Shoveling Out from Under...

The Supreme Court Weighing in on Frontloading?