Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Is confusion inevitable in the Nevada Republican Party primary/caucus situation?

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...
  • A belated look at the recent DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting. Yes, Iowa and New Hampshire stole the headlines -- and for good reason -- but there was some other interesting stuff that transpired in St. Louis. Some thoughts on Iowa, New Hampshire and all the rest: All the details at FHQ Plus.
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In the wake of the filing deadlines passing for both the Nevada presidential primary and the Republican caucuses in the Silver state over the previous two days, Natasha Korecki of NBC News had a piece up about the confusion the two contests may create for Nevada Republican voters next year. 

It is not the first time the notion of voter confusion has arisen in the context of the double dip elections taking place in Nevada in 2024. But it does raise some questions. Why are Nevada voters different from other voters who have encountered similar two-pronged processes like this in past cycles? Why (or maybe how) is the Nevada primary and caucus situation different from states that have had both previously? Is any of this primary/caucus conundrum in the Silver state unique at all? 

First of all, FHQ is of a mind that Nevada voters are not substantively different from voters in, say, Nebraska or Washington. Both had Democratic caucuses for allocating delegates and a state-run beauty contest primary as recently as 2016. Voters did not appear to be anymore confused than usual at the process in either case. Sure, more folks showed up to participate in the primaries than the caucuses, but that is not a new feature of the caucus/convention process. They are low turnout affairs by nature (if not design). 

Yet, one difference between those two sets of contests from 2016 and the Nevada situation in 2024 is their timing, or rather the time between the two events. Nebraska and Washington Democrats had March caucuses before May beauty contest primaries. That two months buffer (and the sequencing!) was different than what will take place in Nevada next February. Only two days will separate the state-run beauty contest primary on February 6 from the Republican party-run caucuses on February 8. And the binding contest will follow the beauty contest. So maybe that is a little different. 

But still, confusion? Texas Democrats did not seem to be muddling through the Texas two-step all those years. For much of the post-reform era Democrats in the Lone Star state held a primary and caucuses on the same day. The primary allocated about two-thirds of the delegates while the post-primary caucuses allocated the remainder later in the evening. [Incidentally, while the Texas two-step died on the Democratic side starting with the 2016 cycle, Republicans in the state have revived it and will use it again in 2024.] Voters seemed to make it through that process. Delegates were allocated. And all of it happened with no buffer between the two contests. 

But the real difference between Nevada in 2024 and some other earlier similar examples is that there will be interesting cross-pressures in the Silver state next year. Some debate-qualifying candidates will be urging Nevadans (at least to some extent) to participate in the primary for which they already have a ballot in the mail. Others, and it is most of the big-name candidates, will be trying to get out the vote in the caucuses two days later. 

That is different than previous examples. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were on the primary and caucus ballots in Nebraska and Washington. Barack Obama and Clinton were both participants in both phases of the Texas two-step in March 2008. None of those candidates were working against another group of candidates who were only vying for delegates or attention in one or the other of the two contests in a given double dip state. 

What this Nevada Republican situation is akin to is like what happened in the Michigan Democratic primary in 2008. Under rules new to the DNC that cycle, candidates were not supposed to campaign in states like Michigan (or Florida for that matter) that held unsanctioned primaries earlier than allowed by the national parties. But some Democratic candidates -- Obama and John Edwards among others -- went a step further and removed their names from the January 15 ballot in the Great Lakes state. Clinton did not. The former group asked their supporters to vote for "uncommitted" in the primary in the hopes of swinging some delegates in any subsequent fight, but that Obama and Edwards were not on the ballot had some impact on turnout. 

And it is likely that the split filings across contests will have some impact on turnout in the Nevada beauty contest primary. But that dampening effect and any felt by the primary being a beauty contest may be masked to some extent by the convenience of voting by mail on a ballot provided to all registrants. Even without that masking effect, the turnout is very likely to be higher, if not much higher, in the primary than in the caucus. And participation in the primary may even be a drag on later caucus participation. 

That may or may not also be by design. 


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Monday, October 16, 2023

In Nevada, a choice between a symbolic win and delegates

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...
  • Over the weekend, The New York Times had yet another "Trump is working his connections in state parties to affect the delegate rules" stories. The article and others of its ilk keep falling into the same trap in considering the depth of Team Trump's efforts without contextualizing either it or the lacking outreach from other campaigns. It was not all bad, but we go over the good, the bad and the ugly from the piece. All the details at FHQ Plus.
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Today is the filing deadline in Nevada for the state's newly established presidential primary. It comes a day after filing closed for the Republican caucuses in the Silver state. 

Since the Nevada Republican Party is prohibiting candidates who file in the primary to also file in the caucuses, the nearly overlapping filing deadlines offered a split screen comparison of sorts. Some candidates -- Mike Pence and Tim Scott -- opted for the primary while others -- Donald Trump, Doug Burgum, Chris Christie, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis -- have filed in the caucuses. 

[It is not clear that Nikki Haley filed or not in the caucuses, but if the former UN ambassador has not yet filed in the caucuses, then the primary will be the only remaining option.]

The choice confronting the campaigns is one between a symbolic win in the primary two days before the Nevada Republican caucuses or of claiming some share of a small pool of delegates on the line in the February 8 caucuses. That the campaigns standing behind known quantities like the former vice president and a current US senator from South Carolina (one with significant financial backing) opted to forgo even a small share of delegates suggests something about the state of their campaigns and their thinking about how Nevada fits into the broader 2024 Republican presidential nomination process. 

For starters, the qualifying threshold for delegates in the Nevada caucuses is relatively low. "All candidates who receive the percentage of vote required for one or more delegates" qualify under the standing rules of the Nevada Republican Party. The state party suggests that is roughly 4.5 percent.1 And all things considered, that is a pretty low bar. 

Yet, Pence and Scott have taken a pass on any of those delegates by filing in the beauty contest state-run primary. That strongly suggests that both campaigns view the odds of succeeding in the caucuses as long and/or that, even set so low, the qualifying threshold is too high. There are also alternative ways of looking at either of those. The odds can be seen as long because the rules put in place for the caucuses by the state party appear to advantage Donald Trump. As for the delegate threshold, it may be less that the bar is too high and more that the payoff is so low in the Silver state. After all, there are just 26 delegates at stake that will be divided among the qualifying candidates. 

Through that lens, the gamble may be worth it to Pence and Scott. A win in a statewide primary -- even a beauty contest -- with likely more participants than the caucuses later in the week may grab some attention. That may be worth something. But what exactly that something equates to is harder to pin down and likely destined to quickly dissipate. The effects may not wear off before the caucuses two days later, but will certainly trail off well in advance of the next contest, the South Carolina Republican primary on February 24. 

Is that worth more than taking some small share of 26 total delegates in Nevada? 

In the very short term (next February), maybe. But long term, probably not. At some point candidates are going to have to start treating the race for the Republican presidential nomination as a process to keep delegates away from Trump. Delegates, after all, are the currency of the process in the end. And whether a campaign views Nevada as a lock for Trump or not, it is probably a mistake to cede any delegates. 

However, it is worth pointing out that the Nevada Republican caucuses of 2024 are not some Harkin-in-Iowa-1992 scenario. Pence and Scott may have opted out of the Silver state contest where candidates are vying for delegates, but others have filed for the caucuses. And that may be enough to trim some delegates from Trump's total in the state. There is no winner-take-all trigger, so there is only so much that the former president can run up the score on the rest of the field. 

Still, proportional states are where the field has to collectively dent Trump's haul.


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From around the invisible primary...
  • In the filing primary, Tim Scott filed in South Carolina today ahead of the deadline there at the end of the month. And DeSantis opted for the Nevada caucuses on the last day of filing.
  • The AP has a go at a Trump-bolsters-his-campaign-in-Iowa story. Folks are making the obvious comparisons to Trump's 2015-16 efforts in Iowa, but here is another: this slow build feels a bit like the pace of the Romney operation the Hawkeye state in 2011. There are differences, of course. Iowa was never really a good fit for Romney in the 2012 cycle. That is not exactly the case for Trump in the state in 2023. But polling suggests a weaker Trump advantage there than nationally. And while Trump 2023 may be emphasizing Iowa differently, he has not exactly pushed all of his chips into the Iowa-or-bust pot. ...because he does not have to. 
  • Over in the money primary, Q3 reports continue to be released. President Biden and the DNC jointed posted a $71 million figure for the period ending on September 30. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum raised $3 million in July-September. Former Vice President Pence raked in $3.3 million for the quarter but debt accrued to this point is starting to be a drag.


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1 There is some wiggle room on that figure based on the full language of the rule, but that is a story for a separate post. Plus, how NVGOP interprets its own rules matters in this context regardless of any variation in interpretation of the qualifying threshold.


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Wednesday, September 6, 2023

The incentives of chasing delegates in California's Republican 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...
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A new LA Times/UC Berkeley poll of Republicans in the Golden state demonstrates again the tricky spot the delegate jewel that is the California presidential primary will likely always be in with an earlier-than-most contest. 

As Seema Mehta notes, at 55 percent support, former President Donald Trump would be in line to rake in each and every one of the 169 delegates at stake in the state on Super Tuesday next year. Under the new rules the California Republican Party adopted in July, a bare majority statewide for any candidate in the March 5 primary would trip the winner-take-all trigger. That Trump is already over that mark may have a chilling effect on other candidate activity in the Golden state. Never Back Down, the super PAC aligned with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has, for example, already ceased door knocking/canvassing in the state. Additionally, California, the most populous state in the country, is unmercifully expensive to campaign and advertise in. Yes, a lot of voters are concentrated in areas, but it is across a number of areas throughout the state. That adds up quickly.

All of that points to candidates potentially steering clear of the California or strategically approaching it with a light touch in the near term. 

Only, to cede 169 delegates to a frontrunner candidate is to come as close to waving a white flag of surrender in presidential nomination politics as there is. If anything, opposition candidates almost have to throw some resources into California. Trump is not that far beyond the majority mark in this or any other poll in the state and the adopted California Republican delegate rules for 2024 are enticing in their own right. With no qualifying threshold, the number of delegates all non-Trumps would collectively receive would be maximized as long as Trump does not hit 50 percent. 

But to do that means to crack the code of dragging the former president below the majority mark between now and early March. And that may best be achieved not by sinking money into California but instead investing in contests that precede Super Tuesday. The delegate incentives are there, but the costs are prohibitive in-state. 


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Speaking of that California poll, almost half (47 percent) of all respondents across partisan affiliations showed some interest in a third party option in the general election. With Labor Day apparently marking the unofficial kickoff to the 2024 campaign season and a public reluctant to accept a likely 2020 rematch in the presidential election, there is likely to be interest in the idea of a third party candidate. That has been clear.

But are any of the likely alternatives -- Joe Manchin, Cornell West, Larry Hogan, fill in the blank -- going to capture the imaginations of folks who are receptive to an alternative? That transition from idea to identity is always key and the reality rarely matches up to the idealized notions survey respondents may have. So yes, some folks of all partisan stripes may entertain alternatives at the prospect of a Biden-Trump general election, but partisans are very likely to come home in the end. The bigger question in all of this may be whether more folks drift into the third party column or stay home in November 2024. 


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From around the invisible primary...


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Wednesday, August 30, 2023

The 14th amendment and presidential primary ballot eligibility

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...
  • Add Missouri Democrats to the 2024 presidential primary calendar. Democrats in the Show-Me state finally released a draft delegate selection plan with proposed details of their process for 2024. That and delegate allocation will look different for Massachusetts and Montana Republicans than it has in past cycles. All the details at FHQ Plus.
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Discussion about former President Donald Trump and his eligibility under the 14th amendment given the events of January 6, 2021, have been en vogue during August, set off first by a pair of conservative scholars associated with the Federalist Society and then reignited in recent days by Michael Luttig and Lawrence Tribe, writing at The Atlantic. FHQ has kept most of it at arm's length, choosing to focus instead on the evolving state-level delegate allocation rules on the Republican side. Mainly that is a function of the whole thing being compartmentalized in my head as a general election question.  

But then came questions about and lawsuits pertaining to Trump's eligibility for presidential primary ballots. There have been questions raised in first-in-the-nation New Hampshire and in Arizona and lawsuits filed or threatened in the Granite state and Michigan as well. But in FHQ's eye, those actions face a much steeper climb to success in the courts. And that is not to suggest that the case for Trump's eligibility on the general election ballots across the country are a slam dunk. [David Frum is probably right.] But those general election access challenges would be a cleaner proposition than the comparative legal thicket challengers would wade into with respect to primary ballot eligibility. That is probably why Baude and Paulsen, the conservative scholars who started all of this, did not dwell on the primaries but in a handful of passing references in 120 plus pages. 

The primary side of the equation is messy (or messier) for a few reasons. First of all, a primary is an election for a nomination and not an office. Does the 14th amendment address eligibility for nominations? Yes, a primary is a step toward an office, but it does not solely hand someone said office if a candidate wins it. Furthermore, presidential primaries are different than primaries for other offices. The winner of a presidential primary will not necessarily appear on the general election ballot. Ted Cruz, for example, won the 2016 Texas Republican presidential primary but was not on the ballot on the presidential line in the Lone Star state in the November general election. When Cruz won his Senate primary in 2018, he was on the general election ballot.

And then there is the whole issue of primaries -- well, nominations -- being the business of political parties, entities that have certain free association rights under the first amendment. Sure, that veers into questions of political parties opting into state-run (and subsidized) primary elections, a complication that arises in other contexts. The linkage to a state sponsored election may serve to weaken the argument against primary eligibility. 

All of this merely scratches the surface. There are probably other complexities in addition to those above, but each and every one of those would be added to list above and on top of the ones that will be raised in any challenge to Trump's eligibility to appear on the general election ballot should it come to that. The primary questions are just messier, but that does not mean that someone more litigious than I will not wander down that path. In fact, they already have. But they have quite the legal minefield to get through.


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A new survey of the Republican presidential nomination race in Utah from Deseret News offers an interesting hypothetical in terms of delegate allocation in the Beehive state next year. First, the results from the poll:

So Trump is ahead but by a narrower margin than in some other states. How would the delegate allocation look in this situation? 

Before FHQ answers that, I should note that the Utah Republican Party adopted rules in June 2023 that carried over the allocation rules from 2020. Yes, the party will use a caucus system rather than the state-run primary option in 2024, but the basic allocation scheme is the same. No one has a majority in this poll, and thus no candidate trips the winner-take-all trigger. Two candidates -- Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis -- hit the 15 percent qualifying threshold called for in the Utah rules and would be entitled to a proportional share of the 40 delegates at stake in Utah. 

But there is a catch. Under Utah Republican Party rules, if three or more candidates clear the 15 percent hurdle statewide, then they are entitled a proportional share of the delegates based on the qualified vote, the combined vote of just those over 15 percent. If, however, two or fewer candidates win 15 percent statewide in the caucuses on Super Tuesday, then the threshold is dropped altogether. All of the candidates who could mathematically round up to a full delegate would claim a share. That would take delegates away from Trump and DeSantis under the results above (assuming there was a universal 15 percent qualifying threshold that applied in all cases except when one candidate wins a majority). 

Yes, there are still 13 percent who are undecided in this survey and Super Tuesday is a long way off. But this is one of those rules quirks that bears watching. [Yeah, there are a lot of them in the Republican process.]


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From around the invisible primary...


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Thursday, August 24, 2023

About that debate last night...

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...
  • It is kind of obvious why non-Trumps would go after legacy winner-take-all triggers in state-level delegate allocation rules. At least on some level. However, there is a longer term strategic consideration in that push that is not getting a lot of daylight in Trump rolls/crumbles binary that exists around the race for the Republican presidential nomination right now. How about a quick look at that? All the details at FHQ Plus.
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The first Republican presidential primary debate of the 2024 season was a bit like a multi-vehicle accident in a coastal community at the height of a hurricane. There is the bigger problem surrounding those involved in the crash -- flooding, flying debris, downed power lines, the hurricane basically -- but everyone ends up pointing fingers and assigning blame for the pile-up. In Milwaukee last night, the eight candidates participating may have entered with some sense of a need to attack the frontrunner, but quickly got bogged down in the heat of the moment, in the need to forcefully respond to any perceived slight or mention that would provide some opening to talk. ...or jab. 

Call it a threat proximity hypothesis. The threats were in the room last night. They were not Donald Trump (even if some of the candidates saw some need to try to bring the former president down a notch). And that is part of why the pre-debate narrative about the potential gamble Trump was making in skipping the debate rapidly morphed into how that gamble -- if it even was a gamble -- paid off. 

Trump won the debate last night. 

However, others acquitted themselves well. Vivek Ramaswamy got attention -- both good and bad -- and that will likely buoy his support in polling of the race in the near term. It was a Trumpian performance the Ohio entrepreneur turned in. Attacking and being attacked -- constantly -- kept Ramaswamy front of mind throughout the two hour debate. That gobbled up time that might have gone to another candidate. And Ramaswamy definitely gobbled up time. It is the sort of thing, especially for a largely unknown candidate on the national stage for the first time, that can fuel a surge during the discovery phase of a possible discovery-scrutiny-decline sequence. 

However, there are reasons why any surge in support for Ramaswamy may be limited. First, there is that whole Trump in Georgia thing at the Fulton County jail today. Remember that? More importantly, remember that whole thing about Trump scheduling his surrender in the elections interference case in the Peach state to clip the wings on any momentum candidates may take from the debate? That is still a thing. Few may have thought going into the Milwaukee showdown that Ramaswamy would be that candidate, but here we are. So the whiplash back to the Trump 24/7 news cycle may dampen any big Ramaswamy gain. 

Second, FHQ does not want to go down a lanes lane, but Trump and Ramaswamy occupy a similar space within this field of candidates and among the Republican primary electorate. Ramaswamy may tick up, but it likely will not be at Trump's expense. There may be some "Trump without the baggage" support that has drifted back over to the former president as DeSantis has declined in recent months and may be in play. But it could be just as, if not more, likely that a Ramaswamy push more firmly into the double digits comes from those who may be second guessing the staying power of the Florida governor. 

And speaking of DeSantis, his debate was not bad per se, but it was a lot like playing prevent defense without the requisite big lead. Clearly the strategy was to do no harm (or do no further harm) in the absence of a barrage of attacks. And he did not really do any harm. However, that is a strategy that is limited in its capacity to right the ship. With the two of them center stage, DeSantis and Ramaswamy may have been two ships passing in the Milwaukee night. 


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FHQ does not want to go back in time too far, but some late summer family time kept me from commenting on the recent NYT op-ed from New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu on the state of the Republican race for president, pre-debate. My knee-jerk reaction reading it was that the call for also-rans -- those who do not make the first two debates -- to drop out of the race was overkill. In other words, the thought was that those candidates have already been effectively winnowed or will be. But rather than treat Sununu's comments as an excuse to link back to something already written here at FHQ, it may be better to elevate another concept. 

Sununu was basically creating -- or adding to the existing -- winnowing pressure on those also-ran candidates and those who squeezed onto the first debate stage. His is not the only voice or the only source of that pressure, but it is an example of that pressure that in a non-Trump cycle may manifest itself more quietly in the background as low polling numbers or poor fundraising or any number of other back channel communications that collectively serve as the writing on the wall, more or less. In 2024, with Trump seeking a third straight nomination, these signals -- the winnowing pressure -- is a bit more overt. Instead, this race gets op-eds like Sununu's or aggressive debate qualification criteria like the RNC has used thus far. And together they represent (officially or not) a more public pressure campaign on candidates to put up or shut up than one might otherwise witness in a non-Trump cycle. 

It is not that these things do not happen in a "normal" cycle. It is just that they do not tend to happen quite this early. 


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Yes, I just talked about that CNN delegate story yesterday, but has anyone figured out this section of that story yet?

"The savvy of Trump’s delegate operation this time around is a stark change from 2016, when the then-first time presidential candidate often complained that the delegate system in the Republican primary was rigged against him. He pointed to the victories and resulting delegate hauls of Ted Cruz, ultimately Trump’s main rival in the 2016 primary. For instance, when Cruz won his home state of Texas in the primary the senator got all 34 delegates with that victory.Trump advisers have studied Cruz’s strategy, so this time around they can ensure the lion’s share of all delegates go to him."

That whole bit about Texas is mind-numbingly off base. Anyway, I break that down some over at FHQ Plus.



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Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Yes, Donald Trump is ahead in the delegate battle. That has not changed.

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...
  • Earlier this month Utah Republicans informed the state that the party would opt out of the state-run presidential primary and conduct caucuses on Super Tuesday instead. There has been some primary-to-caucus movement this cycle, but it has been muted and the maneuver by Beehive state Republicans is not exactly like the rest. All the details at FHQ Plus.
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FHQ appreciated the delegate story from CNN yesterday, but honestly, I cannot really tell what contribution it is making. The general story is that in the race for delegates in the Republican nomination process, former President Donald Trump is ahead. He is ahead in influencing the setting of what the Trump campaign considers to be favorable delegate rules. [They certainly are rules that benefit frontrunners, assuming said frontrunner hits some particular benchmarks in the voting across the country during parts of the first six months of 2024.] That, in turn, should give Trump a leg up when delegates are actually allocated. Or in the worst case scenario -- again, from the Trump campaign perspective -- insulate the former president to some degree should an insurgent (or insurgents) rise, prolonging the race for the nomination. 

But most of the tale that the folks at CNN tell is one covered throughout 2023 in reporting at other national outlets. In fact, it ends on essentially the same "rigging/Ken Cuccinelli" note that a Politico story from earlier in August detailed. There is not a lot of news here. However, that is not to say that there is none. 

It has been clear for much of the year that both Trump and the campaign apparatus around him have been working his connections with state parties built during the course of his presidency. That network is stronger in some areas of the country than others, but it is an area of strength that one would expect for a former president. Trump should be ahead in these efforts and he is. Actually, it would be a much bigger story if he was not. But the story beyond Trump is perhaps what is more interesting and it is twofold.

First, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his campaign continue to appear to be the only other entity putting up much of a fight on the delegate front. But the DeSantis effort is different as CNN describes: 
The pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down is running much of DeSantis’ political campaign from the outside. Many state parties only allow the campaigns themselves in the room for crucial talks, forcing Never Back Down to operate from a distance. DeSantis allies did not immediately respond to questions from CNN about this dynamic.
It is being run through its affiliated super PAC, Never Back Down. And that conduit to state parties is far less efficient, meaning that the DeSantis push to chip away at Trump's advantage here is being done on some level with one arm tied behind its back. That is another variation in the story of the Frankenstein's monster that the broader DeSantis campaign is attempting to assemble between its formal campaign and affiliated groups for 2024. Lobbying state party officials from afar is a tougher enterprise than doing so on a more intimate level as Trump has been doing for the last two cycles. 

The second thing is that if other campaigns outside of Trump and DeSantis are waging a delegate fight, then they are doing so very quietly. To be clear, it is still early to be organizing for any looming delegate battle next year. Those strategies may still be forming even in the top campaigns. One should actually expect those plans to be somewhat dynamic in nature anyway given the constant influx of new events and new inputs. However, it is way too late to be jumping into the game of influencing state party officials to put rules in place that are, if not beneficial, then clearly do not advantage one other candidate over all of the rest. 

Moreover, that those efforts from everyone not named Trump or DeSantis have been so quiet remains a big story under the surface of this race. After all, the rules are not yet set in stone at the state level. And they will not be on the Republican side until October 1. If campaigns have not already been out there advocating for particular rules for delegate allocation and selection already as they have locked in in fits and starts over the summer, then that says a great deal about either 1) their comfort level with the rules as they are or 2) that they just do not have the manpower to adequately make a push at all. Either way, that is an important invisible primary story. 

BONUS: For more reactions to other aspects of the CNN delegates story, see FHQ Plus.


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Look, I love James Pindell. He and I have had some great conversations over the years about New Hampshire and the primary calendar. But I am going to continue to point out what I consider to be journalistic malpractice when I see it on the broader 2024 story about New Hampshire and the DNC's revamped early calendar. I understand the audience to which Pindell's recent New Hampshire Magazine piece was directed. Readers are primarily going to be made up of folks who want to see the presidential primary in the Granite state remain first. So throwing some blame at the feet of the national party makes sense. They changed the rules. New Hampshire has a state law. The national rules and the state law conflict. Impasse. That is fine. More to the point, it is true. However, it is only part of the equation.

Try as New Hampshirites might, defusing this situation does not completely revolve around the DNC and it caving, letting New Hampshire Democrats hold a contest wherever the secretary of state schedules it. The DNC is not the only one "in a pickle." New Hampshire Democrats are too. The state party has options it has ignored but could "fix" this situation. And most everyone else is ignoring those possibilities too. 

Secretary Scanlan is very likely to set the date of the New Hampshire presidential primary for January 23. That will conflict with DNC rules. And no one expects that contest not to happen. No one. That is not the question here and has not been since December. However, New Hampshire Democrats do not have to use the results of that contest to allocate delegates to the national convention. The state party could do that in some alternate party-run process that is conducted under conditions compliant with national party rules. Something in addition to a neutered, beauty contest Democratic primary on January 23. 

That the Democratic Party in the Granite state has not given one inch toward that possibility, doubling down on "live first or die," is unlikely to play well with the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee after September 1, the new deadline for New Hampshire Democrats to comply. That is the same attitude that got Democrats in both Florida and Michigan in hot water in 2007. It is also what led to fairly significant penalties from the national party being levied against both. The DNC may again try to find an off ramp for New Hampshire, but at some point, whether that is immediately after September 1 or not, Democrats there are either going to have to take that off ramp or prepare for severe delegate penalties. 

It is a two-way street and all too often folks in and out of the media are only looking in one direction on this story. Look at what the state party is not doing too. That will play a role in how the DNC reacts and how this all plays out. 


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From around the invisible primary...


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Wednesday, August 16, 2023

A Winner-Take-All 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...
  • FHQ will say it: Nevada Republicans did not "jump" South Carolina on the 2024 presidential primary calendar. Well, they did not in the sense that close observers of the calendar might talk about the jockeying in this cycle's early calendar. It is different this time. Here is why: 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...
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Emerson had a new survey out yesterday checking the pulse of voters in the Granite state on the Republican presidential nomination race among other things. The consensus take away from the results at the presidential level was that former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had surpassed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

And while that is true, it also was not what caught FHQ's eye. Here is what did:

1. I have spent a fair amount of time over the course of 2023 charting the positioning of DeSantis in the various polls that have been released both nationally and on the state level. And it is not a mystery that the Florida governor's fortunes have followed a particularly downward trajectory. That has implications for winning delegates in primaries and caucuses next year. First DeSantis flirted with 20 percent in some polling on the race. Then it hovered around 15 percent. If a candidate is going to have any prolonged success in taking delegates in 2024, he or she will have to hit 15 if not 20 percent to stick around. Otherwise, such a candidate is very likely to be shown the door. Actually, failing to hit those marks will be  the manifestation of being shown the door. 

But now DeSantis has dipped below 10 percent in New Hampshire. Yes, it is just one poll. Yes, his average standing in the race there is marginally higher than that: 14 percent. But it tracks with the pattern of slipping support that has dogged DeSantis since the spring. 

2. By why does 10 percent matter? It matters because 10 percent is the threshold candidates have to hit statewide to qualify for delegates in the New Hampshire presidential primary. No, candidates are not necessarily contesting New Hampshire in order to win delegates. There are not that many to find in the Granite state after all. Instead, most are chasing a win or at the very least positioning to avoid having increased winnowing pressure heaped on them. Third probably gets DeSantis through, but it does not exactly speak to future success in winning subsequent contests much less winning delegates in big numbers once the calendar flips to March and the focus shifts to the delegate game. 

But the biggest footnote lurking in this particular Emerson survey is that even though Christie leapfrogged DeSantis, he did not break in to the delegates either. That means that Trump -- at 49 percent -- would hypothetically win 11 of the 22 delegates at stake in New Hampshire, leaving 11 unallocated delegates in the proportional method Republicans in the Granite state use. 

What happens to unallocated delegates in this scenario? They do not become unbound. No, under state law, any and all unallocated delegates in New Hampshire are awarded to the statewide winner. Mitt Romney tacked on an extra two delegates in New Hampshire that way in 2012. Donald Trump added three unallocated delegates to his total in the state in 2016. But in this hypothetical case, there are a lot more unallocated delegates. And they would all go to Donald Trump. 

Even in a state that uses proportional delegate allocation rules. 

Even in a state where the former president would have received less than a majority of the vote statewide. 

Incidentally, this is exactly what happened in the 2020 New Hampshire Republican primary. Trump won a considerably higher share of the vote (as compared to above), but Bill Weld just missed the 10 percent threshold and the remaining unallocated delegates all went to Trump. 

3. Folks, this is one poll. FHQ does not want to read too much into it. Plus, it is worth pointing out that both Christie and DeSantis are close to the 10 percent threshold in the Emerson survey and there are 13 percent of respondents who were undecided. Some of those may come off the fence and support Trump, but there is a good argument that if one does not already support the former president, then it is unlikely that he would gain their support in the primary. Would that 13 percent automatically go to Christie and/or DeSantis? Maybe, maybe not. But enough would likely jump into their columns to push them north of 10 percent. 

Hypothetically. 


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Over at Tusk, Seth Masket argues that the pivot (away from Trump) is not coming and it is all about the ebbs and flows of factional power within the broader Republican Party. Good piece.


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From around the invisible primary...
  • Indiana Senator Todd Young has already unendorsed Donald Trump for 2024. And like other Republicans, he doubled down in the wake of the latest indictment against the former president. Only, Young reiterated that the party needs to move on from Trump. Obviously, the opposition to Trump stands out, but at some point leaders within the Republican Party who want to chart a different path in 2024 are going to have to line up behind some alternative (or alternatives). But Young is keeping his powder dry for the time being. 
  • Also in the midwest, former Illinois House Republican leader Jim Durkin says that the "Trump fever needs to be broken." [See Masket above] He is not alone in Illinois. Other Republicans in the Land of Lincoln stand against Trump and some have even endorsed other candidates. Also from the Sun Times piece: "Last month, I reported on the call from Illinois National Committeeman Richard Porter to move on from Trump. State Sen. Sue Rezin, R-Morris — the deputy Republican leader in the state Senate — like Porter, backs GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor. Ron Gidwitz was the Trump-appointed U.S. ambassador to Belgium and the acting envoy to the European Union. In 2016, Gidwitz was the Illinois finance chair for the Trump Victory fund. He’s supporting Christie." But the state party remains firmly behind the former president. And Durkin, like Young in Indiana, has not thrown his support behind a non-Trump candidate yet. Those un- and non-endorsements matter. And they matter a lot in this race when they are not expressly affiliated with a Trump alternative. 


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See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies. 
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Monday, August 14, 2023

Effectively Winnowed

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...
  • It still is not clear where on the primary calendar the Pennsylvania presidential primary will land for 2024. However, there could be a pot of technically unbound delegates coming out of the contest regardless of where it is scheduled. For a deeper dive on that possibility in the Keystone state and a look at the overall picture of unbound delegates in the Republican presidential nomination race: 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...
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Last week, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie made some attempt to lay down a marker in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race. As he told Fox News:
"If you don’t make the debate stage, you should leave the field. I think it’s that simple. That’s the first winnowing process."
None of that is right or wrong. And it aligns with an argument Christie has been making all along about narrowing the field and taking on former President Trump head on. But it is worth pointing out that the invisible primary has been going on for some time now and the winnowing process has too. Several candidates who were looked on as potential candidates passed on running. These are the Ted Cruzes and Larry Hogans and Brian Kemps and Kristi Noems and Glenn Youngkins. [Although some are trying to keep the hopes of a 2024 Youngkin bid alive.] All surveyed the landscape in various unofficial ways since 2020 and opted out. All have already been winnowed from the field. 

So there is an argument that winnowing has already begun. And obviously it will continue regardless of whether that is before or after the upcoming first Republican primary debate, some time before the end of 2023 or during the primaries next year. But whether candidates who do not make the debate stage on August 23 and drop out is kind of immaterial. Not making the debate stage is a line of demarcation in this race whether Asa Hutchinson or Perry Johnson or Larry Elder call it a day or not. Arguably, not making the stage effectively winnows those candidates. 

That is to say that they would be effectively out of the race whether each continues on as a zombie candidate, unlikely to take any significant support or vote share away from the candidates still in the running.

And the last two competitive, big-field presidential nomination races speak to that. Neither the 2016 Republican race nor the 2020 Democratic race was overly populated with candidates who did not make the debate stage at one point and subsequently made an appearance later on. Chris Christie dipped to the secondary debate at one point only to return to the main stage after a one debate absence. Jim Gilmore managed to squeeze into one and only one secondary debate. And Rand Paul decided to skip a secondary debate in his one relegation before briefly coming back to the main debate stage and then dropping out. The same was largely true on the Democratic side in 2020. Once candidates were off the debate stage, they were mostly out for good. A few came back, but only for one debate. 

In other words, whether the 2024 Republicans do or do not suspend their campaigns after not making the first debate really does not matter. Those candidates are on borrowed time anyway. They will have been effectively winnowed.

...if they have not been already. 


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The DeSantis campaign seems to be all in on the Iowa caucuses. FHQ briefly noted the shake up at the top last week, but under the campaign manager, the campaign brought in David Polyansky from Never Back Down to be a strategist more closely in the Florida governor's orbit. Polyansky brings with him some Iowa knowhow that may serve the campaign well. In addition, DeSantis nabbed the endorsement of influential Iowa radio host, Steve Deace and continues to court Bob Vander Plaats. And that does not count the presence Never Back Down, the super PAC affiliated with DeSantis, has on the county level across all 99 counties in the Hawkeye state. Yes, there are the optics of the various candidates' appearances at the Iowa State Fair, but underneath all of that, Team DeSantis is signaling just how important the lead-off caucuses will be to any long haul operation. 


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This letter that the Trump campaign legal team distributed to all of the state Republican parties is an interesting maneuver. It may or may not have any legal basis -- this notion of a state party working with super PACs associated with any of the Republican candidates -- but the letter may have the effect of freezing the state parties, forcing decision makers within those entities to think twice about their actions. 

The whole episode speaks to the often precarious position state parties are in. And that is mainly in a financial sense. Allow FHQ a quick diversion. At the July meeting of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee, the use of ranked choice voting in primaries (and especially state party-run primaries) was on the agenda. Some of those state parties have taken money from Fair Vote, an advocate of ranked choice voting, to help implement the practice in a number of states. Again, those with state party-run contests. Some RBC members frowned on the exchange. Others called for clearer disclosure. But it was clear from those members on the committee closely involved in state parties that money like that can be vital to the those state organizations. 

And that is kind of the crux of all of this back on the Republican side. State Republican parties are probably all too happy to take any money from any super PAC willing to give it if it means helping to build out the party, not just the party coffers but the party itself. But Team Trump has interjected in that, basically saying, "We see you." And it is not as if Trump is not a moneymaker for the state parties on his own. 

That is the interaction here. Toss the legal questions to the side. This is about a not-so-quiet but indirect threat to the state parties: Trump can help your state party raise funds, but only if you knock it off with those other super PACs. That is a tough spot for state parties to be in, and likely has some impact on how just how streamlined decision making is within them. 
 

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From around the invisible primary...


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Posted by Josh Putnam at 12:00 PM 0 comments
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Tuesday, August 8, 2023

A Self-Fulfilling Contested Convention?

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...
  • Folks may sleep on the tightening Alabama Republicans did to their 2024 delegate selection over the weekend, but they will miss an important story. Last week in this space, FHQ discussed how the Trump campaign is "smoothing over any rough edges" in the delegate allocation/selection rules it missed last time around. The Alabama change illustrates that well and show the minute details Team Trump is nailing down for 2024. 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...
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Tim Miller had an interesting piece up at The Triad yesterday picking up on a line of thought within DeSantis World that parallels FHQ's thinking on the Republican presidential race in some ways:
But now at least one of Trump’s opponents is wondering if the frontrunner’s legal troubles could change the calculus and require candidates to stay in for the long haul in order to try and amass delegates in case there is a convention battle because the former president is . . . otherwise indisposed. 
This not the first mention of long-haul strategies from with the super PAC branch of the DeSantis campaign network. There is some delegate rules savvy there. But the broader point here, I think, is something Miller picks at but does not fully dig in on. And that broader point is that Trump's legal situation presents a level of uncertainty in a presidential nomination race that may, in turn, create incentives for candidates to stick around longer than they otherwise would, sans frontrunner legal trouble. 

But the game -- call it the self-fulfilling contested convention theory -- is about more than theoretically sticking around longer to gain as many delegates as possible to take into a convention that may be more open with a convicted leading candidate (or one under threat of such in the midst of a trial or trials). First of all, Miller notes that candidates may tough it out and win delegates in late proportional states. Well, that dog probably won't hunt. There just are not that many proportional states late in the process (depending on how one defines "late"). And honestly, there are not that many delegates late in the process. The 2024 calendar on the Republican side is one that will likely have allocated 80 percent of its delegates by the first week in April. 

And none of that considers funding for such an operation. The goal in theory may be to hold on, but candidates will need donors (or to convince donors) to fund that effort and delegate candidates to enthusiastically put themselves forward to fill any delegate slots that are allocated to any non-Trumps. If Trump is winning contest after contest next winter/spring, the well of support in both those areas is likely to be tapped out or at least less interested in expending the money, time and/or effort in a losing cause. 

In other words, the winnowing pressure will still be there despite the uncertainty Trump brings to the race. The calculus may be slightly different, but that pressure will still be there if other candidates are not winning. But that assumes Trump is still winning contests. He may not once the voting phase commences. 

But as of now there appears to be a bit of a deficit for others to overcome....


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The latest Morning Consult tracking poll of the Republican presidential nomination race has Trump with a commanding lead and DeSantis flirting with another, even lower threshold in the delegate game. Most states with proportional rules have a qualifying threshold. Of them, the vast majority of those states have a threshold set to 15 percent or higher. A 20 percent threshold to qualify for delegates continues to be the modal threshold. Where does DeSantis sit in the tracker? 16 percent.


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And the outlook may not be any better for non-Trumps on the state level. 

No, the former president's share of support in the Granite state in a new co/efficient survey is lower than in national polling, but no one else even clears the 10 percent barrier to be allocated any delegate slots under New Hampshire rules. 13 percent were undecided and those candidates who placed second through fourth in the poll were all within the margin of error of the Republican delegate threshold in the Granite state.

Three of those top four -- Trump, DeSantis and Nikki Haley (in addition to Asa Hutchinson) -- will all descend on New Hampshire today. 
 

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From around the invisible primary...
  • Generra Peck is out as campaign manager for the DeSantis campaign and James Uthmeier, the governor's chief of staff in Tallahassee is in. 
  • Former Vice President Mike Pence had already hit the polling threshold to make the stage for the first Republican presidential debate later this month, but had been struggling to get to 40,000 unique donors for that threshold. That struggle is now over (for the first debate anyway).
  • In the endorsement primary, Vivek Ramaswamy will gain the backing of Wisconsin state Rep. Nate Gustafson today.
  • Ahead of his weekend visit to South Carolina, Trump picked up the endorsement of Palmetto state Speaker of the House Murrell Smith. There are not a lot of big name South Carolinians who have either not endorsed Trump or launched a bid themselves, so another second tier endorsement coming off the board -- and siding with Trump -- merits a mention.
  • The Erie Times-News has a nice rundown of endorsements thus far on both sides in the presidential race in Pennsylvania.
  • FHQ is late to this, but in the money primary, there are several candidates who are spending money at a potentially unsustainable rate according to Axios.
  • There are four early states on the Republican primary calendar and all have Republican governors. One has made an endorsement. Henry McMaster (R-SC) has again lined up behind Donal Trump. But the remaining three are on the sidelines, and a second of those -- Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo -- has pledged to remind neutral in the race, joining Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds.


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Posted by Josh Putnam at 1:00 PM 0 comments
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