During a working session Friday morning, March 24, the state Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee (FSA) convened to markup SB 321, the bill to create a one-off presidential primary election for the 2024 cycle in Kansas.
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Friday, March 24, 2023
Invisible Primary: Visible -- National Scrutiny has Arrived for DeSantis
Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...
There have been hints of this nestled in all the changing tides stories about Donald Trump's fortunes in the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race, but it has come into clearer focus of late. Governor Ron DeSantis is "trending downward." After riding high as the clearest and best-positioned alternative to the former president, DeSantis was due for an inevitable down cycle in coverage.
And those types of stories are starting to trickle out as indictment watch whips itself into a froth.
Again, all of this was inevitable. Recall that, until now, there was a steady stream of caveats to DeSantis' top challenger status. And they all collectively warned that the Florida governor had not been tested on the national stage. He had not been scrutinized. Well, that was going to come and this may be the first clear wave of it. The crux of it all is that it was going to happen, but how DeSantis responds -- or probably more accurately weathers -- this and subsequent waves of scrutiny and/or the slumping news cycle or two will likely define whether he is able to maintain his perceived positioning as the invisible primary marches on.
What is difficult for DeSantis and others vying for the Republican nomination is that the indictment circus is likely to take up a lot of the oxygen in the near term, keeping the focus on Trump and less on those seeking to challenge him. It is tougher to counter flagging coverage when most eyes are elsewhere.
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Actions not words in New Hampshire. Focus less on the repetition of the same tired lines from the Granite state governor and more to what the New Hampshire Democratic Party is now doing as 2024 -- and a likely rogue New Hampshire primary -- approaches.
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It has been one of those mid-session weeks in state capitals across the country. Legislation, generally, is moving, but presidential primary legislation is moving in particular. Hawaii, Idaho and Kansas have been active this week in shifting or establishing presidential primaries.
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On this date...
...in 1992, Jerry Brown narrowly beat Bill Clinton in the Connecticut primary, starting a short streak of small state victories to end March and start April (the last of his wins that cycle). President George H.W. Bush coasted to victory on the Republican side.
...in 2012, Rick Santorum scored the last of his victories before dropping out in early April with a win in the Louisiana primary. The delegate allocation Pelican state Republicans used that cycle was (and is) a good reminder of the variation that can and does exist across states in the Republican allocation rules.
...in 2020, it was to have been the date of the Georgia primary, a departure from what had become a string of Super Tuesday primaries. But the coronavirus pushed the election in the Peach state back to June 2020. This was also the date on which the Delaware presidential primary was delayed due to the pandemic.
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Thursday, March 23, 2023
Idaho Presidential Primary Bills Pass Senate
The two bills that would eliminate the stand-alone March presidential primary in Idaho and merge it with the May primaries for other offices passed the state Senate on Thursday, March 23.
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Kansas Presidential Primary Push Faces Friday Deadline
The Kansas state Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee convened on Thursday, March 23 to conduct a hearing on the newly introduced SB 321. Brought forth formally just one day prior, the measure would establish a presidential primary election in the Sunflower state for the 2024 cycle.
The Thursday hearing was revealing for several reasons:
1. This bill is going to move fast if it is going to move at all. Across the legislature, committees face a deadline of Friday, March 24 to complete work on certain bills. SB 321 is among those certain bills. It faces a very quick trip from introduction one day to public hearing the next and finally followed by a working session after which there will be action to either pass the bill on to the Senate floor for consideration or leave it in committee. That working session will fall on deadline day and is still awaiting a fiscal note being delayed by counties who have been asked to quickly ascertain how much an additional election would cost at the local level.
2. The principal driver behind the effort to reestablish the Kansas presidential primary is the state Republican Party. The state Democratic Party was unaware of the possible change.
3. While the state Republican Party entertained an earlier Super Tuesday date for the primary, March 19 -- the first Tuesday after March 15 -- was chosen in order for the party be able to allocate delegates in a winner-take-all manner. March 15 is important because that is the date before which truly winner-take-all allocation methods are prohibited by Republican National Committee rule. [This is something FHQ raised on social media earlier.]
4. The sponsor of the competing Senate bill to reestablish the presidential primary but pair it with the primaries for other offices spoke in favor of the new legislation. But Senator Caryn Tyson (R-12th, Anderson) urged the committee to consider consolidating the primaries to cut down on the total costs associated with carrying out nominating elections. [The Kansas secretary of state's office at the hearing roughly estimated -- again, without full input from the counties -- that the price tag would come in around $4.5 million. That expenditure may or may not be an issue for legislators.] Tyson continued that her bill was intended as a conversation starter on shifting to a primary and that the first Tuesday following the first Monday in May date was a suggestion based on how little it would overlap with the legislative session. A consolidated primary any earlier would have legislators campaigning and raising funds during the legislative session, a conflict of interest issue that often pops up in states when consolidated primaries are discussed. The cost savings may be tempting to legislators but the campaigning conflict may offset it. The bottom line with respect to Tyson's bill (SB 290) is that it is not going anywhere and the May timing may or may not be workable. One thing consolidation would do would be to permanently schedule all the primaries for a particular time.
5. On a similar note, as mentioned in the post about the introduction of SB 321, this is a one-off action for 2024. That there would just be a presidential primary in 2024 was confirmed in the course of the hearing. Kansas would revert to a system in which the parties run the process in 2028 and beyond. The consolidation path would avoid that drawback.
6. The state Democratic Party was not present to comment on the bill or whether they would opt into a primary, if available. Kansas Democrats held a party-run primary by mail in 2020.
Given the haste with which this measure has already moved, it is likely that it will come out of committee in some form after the working session on March 24. There may be some changes, but it seems unlikely that any of the thornier issues like consolidation will be addressed. It would open a can of worms in a process that has already been maximally streamlined and can afford no delays given the deadlines facing the committee.
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Hawaii Committee Shakes Up Presidential Primary Bill
Invisible Primary: Visible -- The Republican Race is Over?
Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...
The indictment of a former president is something new in American politics. Not in modern American politics, but in American politics, period. And that says nothing about how an indictment (or multiple indictments) would impact a former president seeking his party's presidential nomination for a third time. We do not have a clear understanding yet as to how any of that will impact the race. But that has not stopped folks from racing to conclusions or hypothesizing about the the effects without actually waiting for the hypothesis to be even minimally tested.
Count Tina Ngyuen from Puck News among them.
Look, FHQ noted earlier this week that "it's Trump's until it's not," but that is not anything new. The majority of invisible primary signals have been pointing in that direction for some time if not all along, but with the caveat that the former president's position in 2023 is not like it was in 2019 when Trump could lean on the advantages of incumbency. That is the story of the 2024 invisible primary on the Republican side: assessing where Trump's bid stands between the two poles of his previous two runs.
Any apparent momentum Trump has enjoyed in 2023, after the midterms were a drag on the former president at the tail end of 2022, buoys the notions that 1) things have improved for Trump in the near term and 2) that nudges him closer to his 2019 position than to where he was in 2015. Part of what buttresses the improved outlook for Trump 2024 (at least with respect to the Republican nomination process) is that his poll position had improved and was improving before "indictment watch" really heated up this week. And the fact that elite Republicans are rallying to the former president as formal criminal charges loom may or may not trickle down and resonate at the rank and file level among potential Republican primary voters (who will not start voting on the nomination for another nine months or so).
But first let's see and maybe test that again over time. Trump may win the 2024 Republican nomination, but that does not mean that a dynamic process does not lay stretched out before us. As has been said, the fun is in the journey. It may not exactly be fun, but the process very definitely has an impact on, if not the outcome of the nomination race, then how the party transitions to the general election. That is meaningful.
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Nevertheless, they persisted. Trump's position may have improved, but the other candidates and prospective candidates are still, well, acting like candidates and not like the race is over. In fact, the broader DeSantis 2024 effort scored a bit of a coup in the staff primary a day ago when an aligned super PAC, Never Back Down, brought former Ted Cruz campaign manager, Jeff Roe, on board. This is no small thing. Yes, the Roe-led effort to help boost Cruz to the 2016 Republican presidential nomination fell short, but it also won some significant victories along the way. And it probably punched above its weight by out-hustling Trump in caucus states and in exploiting the delegate selection process as well.
What is different now is that, while running a tight ship on the rules end in 2016 may prove a useful feather in the cap of the broader DeSantis presidential effort, Trump's 2024 team is more savvy than it was in 2015-16. State Republican parties are also littered with Trump-supportive if not Trump-aligned operatives. And the Republican rules are different in 2024 than they were in 2016. Exploiting the delegate selection process may be more difficult this time.
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If the support from outside of Jefferson City is any indication, then it looks like Missouri might get its presidential primary back for 2024. But the election was eliminated last year by the state legislature for a reason, and despite support from both the Missouri Democratic and Republican parties, getting the presidential primary reinstated through the state legislature may be easier said than done.
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On this date...
...in 1976, Jimmy Carter bested George Wallace in the North Carolina primary, winning a majority of the vote and handing the Alabama governor a second loss in a southern state he had won in 1972. Also in the Tar Heel state that day, Ronald Reagan notched his first primary victory of the cycle, edging out President Ford.
...in 2015, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) entered the Republican presidential nomination race.
...in 2020, both Alaska (Democrats) and Rhode Island delayed delegate selection events due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Wednesday, March 22, 2023
Alternate Kansas Bill Would Reestablish a Presidential Primary in March
Committee Hearing Demonstrates Broad Support for Effort to Reestablish Missouri Presidential Primary
The push to reinstate the Missouri presidential preference primary finally got its day before committee on Wednesday, March 22. The House Special Committee on Public Policy heard testimony on two identical bills to put back in statute code that was eliminated as part of omnibus elections legislation that passed the General Assembly and was signed into law in 2022.
A few things quickly became clear in the course of the hearing. First, but for one opponent and a handful of informational witnesses, everyone in a long list of those providing comments -- from voters to state and county party chairs to statewide and local elections officials to union lobbyists -- was in favor of the move. Rep. Rudy Veit (R-59th, Cole), the sponsor of one of the bills (HB 347) leaned heavily into the idea of caucuses disenfranchising military and government personnel (fire, police, etc.) relative to the options available in a state-run primary election. The sponsor of the other bill (HB 267), Rep. Cyndi Buchheit-Courtway (R-115th, Jefferson) mentioned that she got into politics with a simple slogan, "fighting for our voices to be heard," an idea she said was violated with no presidential primary.
Notably, the leadership of both state parties -- Chair Nick Myers and Vice Chair Leann Green of the Missouri Republican Party and newly elected Missouri Democratic Party Chair Russ Carnahan -- supported the effort. Carnahan went so far as to say that hurting voters' ability to participate in the presidential nomination process would further erode perceptions about the legitimacy of elections.
Second, the costs of such an election -- a stand-alone March presidential primary -- were repeatedly raised. Rep. Veit and others cited the estimated $10 million price tag, but shrugged it off, saying it was the price of democracy. Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R) in his testimony noted that the cost would not come out of one year of the budget but be spread across four.
And while Ashcroft did not speak for or against the legislation, he urged lawmakers to "pick one," caucuses or a primary. But he also made a point, talking about the presidential primary, to say that he was "philosophically" against holding a vote that does not matter. The secretary did not mean that the March election would fall too late in the calendar. Rather, he wrongly suggested that the primary has no bearing on either delegate allocation or selection in Missouri; that delegates are not bound.
[FHQ aside: Again, this is wrong. It is an impression that seems to have been forged during the 2012 cycle when Missouri lawmakers could not find a way to move or then cancel a primary that the Missouri Republican Party (who had the active nomination race that cycle) opted out of. The primary still occurred on the state's dime, but caucuses were where delegates were selected (and though unbound were largely committed to particular candidates). Missouri Republicans, however, did not operate in that manner during the last competitive cycle in 2016 (nor 2020 for that matter). The party allocated delegates based on the primary because RNC rules during that cycle mandated it and further backed up that binding in all states at the national convention.
Ashcroft also projects past Republican issues in Missouri onto Show-Me state Democrats, who do not and have not had those same problems as state Republicans because the process is more regulated at the national party level. But those problems have already been dealt with by the RNC.]
Finally, another theme that may end up affecting this legislation down the line was the idea of consolidating primaries. Elections officials in attendance and testifying described the difficulty of pulling off one presidential primary election in March only to have to turn around and do it all over again in April with nonpartisan local elections. But the same election administrators were cool to the notion of combining a partisan election with a nonpartisan election when it came up because of the impact it would have on correctly generating and distributing many different versions of a ballot to voters.
But if there is no state law requiring a primary, then none of this matters anyway. A state law would, of course, require elections officials, regardless of the burdens, to implement whatever state law calls for. And although a consolidated election may increase some headaches for elections officials across Missouri, it would both tamp down on the costs borne by the state and maximize turnout.
No votes were taken on either HB 267 or HB 347 in committee on Wednesday, but the hearing showcased some of the common tradeoffs involved in the presidential nomination process.
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Idaho Presidential Primary Inching Toward Move to May
The filing of a trailing bill last week to amend H 138 cleared the way for the original bill, intended to eliminate the stand-alone March presidential primary and merge it with the primaries for other offices in May, to move forward in the Senate. On Tuesday, March 21, H 138 came off of the purgatory 14th order calendar and was read again on the Senate floor for a second time. A third and final reading is all that stands in the way of Senate passage.
And S 1186, the amending bill to add the necessary legal infrastructure to the actually place the presidential line on the May primary ballot, cleared the Senate State Affairs Committee with a Do Pass recommendation and no dissenting votes. Both bills -- the entire package of which would end the separate March presidential primary and add it to the May general primary in Idaho -- are now ready to be considered on the floor of Idaho Senate.
Together, the package would save the state an estimated $2.7 million (from the eliminated extra primary), but the measures would also need to pass both the state Senate and head back (in the case of H 138) to the House in this likely final week of the regular legislative session. Idaho would be just the second state to change primary dates in 2023 and the first to move to a later date on the 2024 presidential primary calendar. Louisiana shifted back a few weeks for 2024 during the 2021 session.
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Invisible Primary: Visible -- Where are all the delegate selection plans?
Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...
May 3 is fast approaching. That date may carry less significance in 2023 because the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination process looks to be only nominally competitive at this time. But that does not mean that May 3 does not matter at all.
What is the big deal about May 3? That is the date by which state Democratic parties must have submitted draft delegate selection plans (DSPs) for 2024 to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (DNCRBC) for review (and ultimately approval in some form).
But May 3 is still more than a month away.
It is. But part of the submission process is that a state party's draft DSPs must be made public for comment for a period of 30 days before they can be submitted. In other words, if one does the backward math, then 30 days before May 3 falls on April 2, a little more than a week away. And so far anyway, there has not been a rush to get these draft DSPs in front of the public. Just seven states, territories or other jurisdictions of 57 have posted them at this point asking from public comment: Arkansas, Democrats Abroad, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington, DC. [Apparently there is some urgency in O states.]
None of this is hugely important ten months out from any votes being cast, but it does offer a glimpse into a few things. State laws dictate when most primaries will be held and lock in those dates until a legislature opts to change them. Some state legislatures across the country are considering their calendar options, but for caucus states or other states with 2024 question marks, the DSPs provide some insight into the plans of state parties (where state laws are not involved).
For example, there is no official date for the North Dakota caucuses at this point. The DSP will give us the first indication of where the contest will end up on the 2024 presidential primary calendar. The same is true for, say, Iowa as well. And that is kind of the point here. Iowa Democrats do not have a protected spot atop the Democratic calendar for 2024 as the state has for the entire post-reform era. The Iowa Democratic DSP will give some of the first clues as to whether the party will relent to the DNC calendar changes this cycle or buck the national party and hold unsanctioned caucuses earlier than allowed.
That goes for New Hampshire too. And Democrats in the Granite state posted their draft DSP earlier this week. In most cycles, New Hampshire Democrats would simply parrot the adopted DNC rules and give the date the national party had carved out for them with a simple parenthetical appended: (date subject to change). The message there from New Hampshire Democrats? "We will hold our primary on the date set aside for us unless some other state jumps in front, in which case the secretary of state will bump our primary up to protect our first-in-the-nation position."
Of course, 2024 is not going to be a normal cycle for New Hampshire Democrats. There is only a guaranteed early slot for the party if they follow the new DNC mandate and conduct a primary on February 6, 2024. And all signs have pointed toward an earlier position on the calendar. Earlier than February 6, anyway. The state party has basically signaled since December that it would follow the state law and the New Hampshire secretary of state, following said law, will likely take that primary into January 2024.
But now, New Hampshire Democrats have put a more official stamp on that sentiment. The newly released draft DSP specifies no date, a break from the past protocol. Additionally, it says what New Hampshire Democrats have been saying for months:
The “first determining step” of New Hampshire's delegate selection process will occur on a date to be determined by the New Hampshire Secretary of State in accordance with NH RSA 653:9, with a “Presidential Preference Primary.” The Republican Presidential Preference Primary will be held in conjunction with the Democratic Presidential Preference Primary.
The key there is the solidarity with Republicans in New Hampshire. In other words, there will be no break up, no severing of the two parties' processes. That would seemingly eliminate some alternative routes for the New Hampshire Democratic delegate selection process. It would also open the state party to penalties from the DNC. But this is just a draft after all. Consider it New Hampshire Democrats' official counter to the 2024 calendar rules the DNC adopted in February. There will be further back and forth as the New Hampshire plan goes through the review process, including representatives of the state party defending the current plan before the DNCRBC. There will be more clues to come, and probably some penalties from the look of it.
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In the travel primary, maybe Ron DeSantis is just heading to Michigan next month. Or maybe the Florida governor is trekking to a state with a late February primary in 2024. Michigan Republicans (and the Republican National Committee) still have some decisions to make on that front.
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In a busy week for committee hearings on presidential primary (movement) bills, there are updates on Connecticut's possible move up to early April and Ohio's potential push back to March.
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On this date...
...in 1980, Jimmy Carter swept the Virginia caucuses, garnering more than 80 percent of the vote on his way to a contentious Democratic (re)nomination.
...in 2007, FHQ was born with a simple mission to gather (and share) anecdotal evidence around presidential primary movement ahead of the 2008 primaries. Things blossomed from there.
...in 2016, there were contests in American Samoa (Republican caucuses), Arizona (primary), Idaho (Democratic caucuses) and Utah (caucuses). It was a microcosm of the processes in both parties that cycle as Sanders and Cruz won caucuses (except in American Samoa) and Clinton and Trump won the Arizona primary. There were exceptions throughout primary season, but in general the two eventual nominees performed better in primaries than in caucuses.
...in 2017, legislation funding the Utah presidential primary was signed into law. After not funding the election in either 2012 or 2016, forcing caucuses, the legislature ponied up the funds necessary to switch back to a primary for 2020.
...in 2020, the Wyoming Democratic Party nixed in-person voting for the upcoming caucuses due to Covid, shifting to a completely vote-by-mail structure, the window of which was also extended.
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