Frontloading HQ

Excuses, excuses

2012-05-24T14:45:00.000-04:00

In case you haven't noticed, the output here at FHQ has been, well, paltry of late. A confluence of factors including the end of the semester, family stuff and a trip last week to Boston all conspired to slow things down in May to a level not witnessed around these parts since 2010. Anyway, the break offers an opportunity to take a step back and hit the reset button moving forward.

About the only thing that I have tried to keep on top of is the state-by-state look at delegate allocation rules. That will continue for the upcoming states and until Utah brings up the rear on June 26. I even have a couple of draft posts that were never completed for a handful of Super Tuesday contests. I'll finish those up and post them for the sake of posterity. We may or may not need to consult them again in 2016.

Additionally, there a quite a number of loose ends on the 2012 primary season that I'd like to tie up. The reason I was up in Boston a week ago was to participate in an informal workshop with some of the principals from the rules making bodies in both parties. The intention there was to look back on 2012 with an eye toward 2016. As I was putting my thoughts together for that gathering it became quite clear that there is a continued need for examining the impact of the rules changes for 2012. I have a few (a lot of?) thoughts on the both the meeting and on primary season 2012 generally. Look for both in the coming days.

Finally, FHQ has been chipping away at the assembly of our quadrennial electoral college model. Expect to see that too in the coming days.

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Yeah, yeah. I need to update the delegate count, too. I know.

Recent Posts:
2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Kentucky

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Oregon

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Nebraska

Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Kentucky

2012-05-22T20:30:00.000-04:00

This is the thirty-ninth in a multipart series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation by state.¹ The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2012 -- especially relative to 2008 -- in order to gauge the impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. As FHQ has argued in the past, this has often been cast as a black and white change. That the RNC has winner-take-all rules and the Democrats have proportional rules. Beyond that, the changes have been wrongly interpreted in a great many cases as having made a 180º change from straight winner-take-all to straight proportional rules in all pre-April 1 primary and caucus states. That is not the case.

The new requirement has been adopted in a number of different ways across the states. Some have moved to a conditional system where winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon one candidate receiving 50% or more of the vote and others have responded by making just the usually small sliver of a state's delegate apportionment from the national party -- at-large delegates -- proportional as mandated by the party. Those are just two examples. There are other variations in between that also allow state parties to comply with the rules. FHQ has long argued that the effect of this change would be to lengthen the process. However, the extent of the changes from four years ago is not as great as has been interpreted and points to the spacing of the 2012 primary calendar -- and how that interacts with the ongoing campaign -- being a much larger factor in the accumulation of delegates (Again, especially relative to the 2008 calendar).

For links to the other states' plans see the Republican Delegate Selection Plans by State section in the left sidebar under the calendar.

KENTUCKY

Yes, much of the air has been let out of the balloon in the Republican presidential race for delegates. And even though everyone is kind of, but not really, waiting on Mitt Romney to inevitably pass the 1144 delegate threshold, there is actually some underlying intrigue to the way in which some of the remaining states are allocating national convention delegates. Kentucky is one of those states.

...but only just barely.

The last two weeks have witnessed contests a couple of states with proportional allocation rules -- something mandated by state election law in both North Carolina and Oregon. Kentucky follows suit with one exception: Election law in the Bluegrass state requires that candidates must receive at least 15% of the vote in the presidential preference primary to be allocated any of the delegates apportioned to Kentucky.² Neither North Carolina nor Oregon had similar minimum thresholds for delegates.

And lest you say this is of little consequence, well, you are probably right. However, if any candidate or the uncommitted line on the ballot should clear that 15% threshold in the Kentucky presidential preference primary, things could get somewhat interesting. You know, interesting in a more than likely less than suspenseful way. If said candidate has already withdrawn those delegate slots become uncommitted according to state law.³ Of course, no candidate has "withdrawn" as it is defined or under the terms defined in the KRS 118.641(2) -- in writing to the chairman of the Kentucky delegation.

Now, that isn't all. The delegates and alternates to the convention, then, upon call of a meeting by the chairman of the Kentucky delegate, vote to determine the allocation of delegates; not the uncommitted delegates, all of the delegates.⁴ That vote determines the proportional binding of delegates on the first convention ballot called for by state law.

This would mean a lot more if, say, Ron Paul got to 15% of the vote in the primary to qualify for delegates. Without that, the above is moot with only Romney over the 15% threshold. However, if Paul or another -- particularly a withdrawn -- candidate received a share of the vote over the threshold, it could trigger a vote by the delegates at the convention to determine the binding on the first ballot.

There is the potential for mischief on the binding until you realize that the state party's Nominating Committee is the one that actually nominates slates of delegates to be voted on/selected at district and state conventions. That committee does not have complete control but continues to nominate slates until one is agreed to by either the state convention or district conventions. There are party rule mechanisms in place in some states to give the state party more control -- not less -- over the actual delegate selection (not the binding) that others do not have (see a variety of non-binding caucus states and the Paul campaign delegate strategy for examples).

Kentucky delegate breakdown:

45 total delegates
24 at-large delegates
18 congressional district delegates
3 automatic delegates

At-large and congressional district allocation:
Quite simply, candidates over 15% of the primary vote receive a proportionate share of the delegates. If Romney is the only one over 15%, the former Massachusetts governor would be allocated all 42 of the non-automatic delegates.

Automatic delegate allocation:
Similar to the type of autonomy the Republican Party of Kentucky has over the nomination of delegate slates, the Republican State Central Committee is the body that elects the party chairperson, the national committeeman and national committeewoman. The Executive Committee of the state party puts forth a slate of candidates including those offices or the RSCC to vote on (see RPK rule 2.04(j)). The election of the two national committee members and the party chair is not a duty of the delegates to the state convention. There will not, then, likely be turnover in any of these positions in 2012. None of the automatic delegates from Kentucky has publicly endorsed any of the candidates for the Republican nomination.

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¹ FHQ would say 50 part, but that doesn't count the territories and Washington, DC.

² Kentucky Revised statute, 118.641(1)(a):
The candidates receiving the highest number of votes, provided each candidate receives at least fifteen percent (15%) of the total vote cast by his political party, shall be awarded a pro rata portion of the authorized delegate vote of his political party.

³ Kentucky Revised statute, 118.641(2):
Each political party shall, on the first ballot at its national convention, cast this Commonwealth's vote for the candidates as determined by the primary or party caucus and calculated under this section or under party rules, whichever is applicable. Provided, however, that in the event of the death or withdrawal of a candidate receiving votes under this section prior to the tabulation of the first ballot, any delegate votes allocated to such candidate shall be considered uncommitted. Withdrawal shall mean notice in writing by the candidate to the chairman of the Kentucky delegation prior to the first ballot.

⁴ Republican Party of Kentucky rule, 8.04:
8.04. National Convention Delegates: With regard to the allocation of delegate votes of the Kentucky Republican Party at the Republican National Convention pursuant to the Kentucky Presidential Preference Primary Statutes, the method of allocation set forth in KRS 118.641(1)(a) shall be the method used by the Kentucky Republican Party. In the event that a candidate dies or withdraws and the delegate votes allocated to such candidate become uncommitted pursuant to KRS 118.641(2), the Chairman of the delegation shall call a meeting of the delegates and alternate delegates at the convention by giving notice to each delegate and alternate delegate of the time and place of the said meeting. At the meeting the delegates (or alternate delegates who replace any delegates who fail to attend) in attendance shall vote by secret ballot for any candidate for the Republican nomination for President each may choose. The number of votes cast for the various candidates shall be converted to a percentage of the total votes cast by the delegates at said meeting, and the delegate votes which have become uncommitted as provided above shall be allocated to the candidates in accordance with their said respective percentages, and these said delegate votes shall be cast on the first ballot in such proportion for the said candidates. All fractions shall be rounded to the nearest whole number.

Recent Posts:
2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Oregon

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Nebraska

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: West Virginia

Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Oregon

2012-05-15T22:00:00.000-04:00

This is the thirty-eighth in a multipart series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation by state.¹ The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2012 -- especially relative to 2008 -- in order to gauge the impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. As FHQ has argued in the past, this has often been cast as a black and white change. That the RNC has winner-take-all rules and the Democrats have proportional rules. Beyond that, the changes have been wrongly interpreted in a great many cases as having made a 180º change from straight winner-take-all to straight proportional rules in all pre-April 1 primary and caucus states. That is not the case.

The new requirement has been adopted in a number of different ways across the states. Some have moved to a conditional system where winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon one candidate receiving 50% or more of the vote and others have responded by making just the usually small sliver of a state's delegate apportionment from the national party -- at-large delegates -- proportional as mandated by the party. Those are just two examples. There are other variations in between that also allow state parties to comply with the rules. FHQ has long argued that the effect of this change would be to lengthen the process. However, the extent of the changes from four years ago is not as great as has been interpreted and points to the spacing of the 2012 primary calendar -- and how that interacts with the ongoing campaign -- being a much larger factor in the accumulation of delegates (Again, especially relative to the 2008 calendar).

For links to the other states' plans see the Republican Delegate Selection Plans by State section in the left sidebar under the calendar.

OREGON

The Oregon Republican Party method of delegate selection is similar to the method used last week in North Carolina. The main differences are that there are fewer delegates overall and that the automatic delegates are unbound as they are in most other states. Other than that, however, Oregon and North Carolina are just alike: proportional allocation of delegates but without a vote threshold for receiving delegates. The only threshold is the vote share required to round up to one delegate. Given Oregon's apportionment of delegates that mark is just over 2% of the vote. None of the candidates on the ballot last week in North Carolina flirted with that level of support and it should not be an issue for Romney, Santorum, Gingrich or Paul in Oregon either.

Oregon delegate breakdown:

28 total delegates
10 at-large delegates
15 congressional district delegates
3 automatic delegates

At-large and congressional district allocation:
All 25 non-automatic delegates are allocated proportionally based on the vote in the Oregon presidential preference primary. Those delegates are pledged to the various candidates until they are released by the candidate, fail to receive 35% of the vote on any national convention ballot or barring the either of the first two release mechanisms, after two ballots at the convention (OR Revised Statutes, 248.315; Oregon Republican Party Bylaws, Article XVII, Section B).² If a delegate refuses to uphold the pledge, the delegation chairperson will report to the floor the vote total that is in accordance with the results of the primary (ORP Bylaws, Article XVII, Section B). That will occur until one of the release mechanisms has been triggered.

Automatic delegate allocation:
The national committeewoman and national committeeman are selected in presidential election years by the Oregon Republican Party state central committee (Article XIII, Section B). The same is true of the party chairman (Article VII, Section C). Each of the three automatic delegates are free to choose a candidate of their preference. Thus far one Oregon automatic delegate has already endorsed Mitt Romney.

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¹ FHQ would say 50 part, but that doesn't count the territories and Washington, DC.

² Oregon Republican Party bylaws (adopted 2/14/12):
Oregon Republican Party Bylaws

Recent Posts:
2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Nebraska

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: West Virginia

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: North Carolina

Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Nebraska

2012-05-15T15:30:00.000-04:00

This is the thirty-seventh in a multipart series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation by state.¹ The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2012 -- especially relative to 2008 -- in order to gauge the impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. As FHQ has argued in the past, this has often been cast as a black and white change. That the RNC has winner-take-all rules and the Democrats have proportional rules. Beyond that, the changes have been wrongly interpreted in a great many cases as having made a 180º change from straight winner-take-all to straight proportional rules in all pre-April 1 primary and caucus states. That is not the case.

The new requirement has been adopted in a number of different ways across the states. Some have moved to a conditional system where winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon one candidate receiving 50% or more of the vote and others have responded by making just the usually small sliver of a state's delegate apportionment from the national party -- at-large delegates -- proportional as mandated by the party. Those are just two examples. There are other variations in between that also allow state parties to comply with the rules. FHQ has long argued that the effect of this change would be to lengthen the process. However, the extent of the changes from four years ago is not as great as has been interpreted and points to the spacing of the 2012 primary calendar -- and how that interacts with the ongoing campaign -- being a much larger factor in the accumulation of delegates (Again, especially relative to the 2008 calendar).

For links to the other states' plans see the Republican Delegate Selection Plans by State section in the left sidebar under the calendar.

NEBRASKA

As if it wasn't bad enough that the Nebraska presidential primary is non-binding, now everyone other than Mitt Romney has stopped contesting the nomination in the remaining primary and caucus states yet to have voted. That makes the primary in the Cornhusker state even less consequential. It has been a while since the presidential nomination campaign saw its last non-binding contest with delegates not also directly on the same ballot. One has to go back to the North Dakota caucuses on Super Tuesday for the last non-binding contest. And typically that is the mark of the caucus state: an early start allows for the caucus/convention process to have culminated with national convention delegate selection in a timely enough manner prior to the start of the national convention. Nebraska is atypical in that regard. The process there begins with a May beauty contest presidential preference primary that has no role in the selection of delegates, continues with early June (June 1-10) county conventions where delegates are chosen to attend the July 14 state convention. It is from the pool of county convention delegates at the state convention that the at-large and congressional district delegates are chosen to go to, in this case, Tampa.

In other words, there is a reason that most are following the Nebraska senate nomination races as opposed to the presidential primary. Well, actually there are few reasons.

Nebraska delegate breakdown:

35 total delegates
23 at-large delegates
9 congressional district delegates
3 automatic delegates

At-large allocation:
Again, don't look to the primary as to how the delegates in Nebraska will be allocated. The state convention is where all the delegate action will happen. In terms of the at-large delegates, Article VII, Section 3.b,d of the Nebraska Republican Party constitution covers the selection of at-large delegates.² Delegate candidates file with the party no more than ten business days following the primary and are selected at the state convention. State law binds delegate candidates to the presidential candidate to whom they are aligned as indicated on the filing form. [Filing as an uncommitted delegate candidate is also an option.] This is a soft binding mechanism as delegates selected to attend the national convention are to use their "best efforts" to support the candidate to whom they have pledged. "Best efforts" is undefined in the statute and there is no specified penalty for not observing the intent of the pledge on the filing form.

Congressional district allocation:
Nebraska state law calls for district conventions to be held for the purposes of selecting congressional district delegates -- among other business -- "immediately after the adjournment of the state postprimary convention". That will take place on July 14. Article VII, Section 3.c further defines the procedure, calling for the district delegate candidates, like the at-large candidates, to file no later than 10 business days after May primary.

Automatic delegate allocation:
Though the national committeeman and committeewoman are elected at the state convention in presidential years (Article IV, Section 1), neither assumes office until after the national convention in the same year. Nebraska Republican Party state chairmen are elected in odd years (Article IX, Section 4). All three automatic delegates from Nebraska are in place then and will not change hands prior to the Tampa convention. All three are unbound and free to endorse or vote for any Republican presidential nomination candidate of their preference.

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¹ FHQ would say 50 part, but that doesn't count the territories and Washington, DC.

² Relevant sections of the Nebraska Republican Party constitution related to delegate selection:
Article IV
Representatives on Republican National Committee
Section 1. In each year when a President of the United States is to be elected, the State Convention shall elect a National Committeeman and a National Committeewoman to take office at the close of the succeeding National Convention. The State Chairman shall certify the names of the National Committeeman and National Committeewoman so elected to the National Committee.

Article VII
Post-Primary Conventions
Section 3. National Convention Delegates
(a) In each Presidential election year, delegates and alternates to the Republican National Convention shall be elected in the manner specified in this Section 3, as authorized by the Rules of the National Convention.

(b) All National Convention delegates designated by the Rules of the National Convention as at-large delegates shall be elected at-large by the State Convention. All National Convention alternate delegates designated as at-large alternates shall be elected at-large by the State Convention following the election of at-large National Convention delegates.

(c) All National Convention delegates and alternates designated by the Rules of the National Convention as district delegates or district alternates, respectively, shall be elected by the caucus of delegates of that U.S. House of Representatives district at the State Convention in accordance with the Congressional district boundaries delineated under Nebraska State law. Candidates for National Convention District delegate and District alternate delegate shall file for election in person or by mailing a notice of intent to the State Headquarters postmarked no later than the 10th business day after the state primary election. Only persons elected and credentialed as delegates or alternates to the State Convention shall be qualified to be elected at the State Convention as District National Convention delegates or alternates.

(d) At-large candidates for National Convention delegate and alternate delegate shall file for election in person or by mailing a notice of intent to the State Headquarters postmarked no later than the 10th business day after the state primary election. Only persons elected and credentialed as delegates or alternates to the State Convention shall be qualified to be elected at the State Convention as at-large National Convention delegates or alternates.

(e) All candidates for delegate and alternate at the State Convention shall designate the presidential candidate to whom they are committed or state that they are uncommitted, and shall be bound by such commitment if elected, all in accordance with Nebraska State Law. Delegate and alternate candidates shall indicate their commitments by mailing a notice to State Headquarters, postmarked no later than five business days prior to the date registration for the State Convention commences.

Article IX
State Party Administration
Section 4. ELECTION AND TERMS OF OFFICE. The Chairman and Treasurer shall be elected by the State Central Committee at a meeting held no later than May 1 of each odd-numbered year. The Vice Chairman, the Assistant Chairmen, the Secretary, the General Counsel and the Finance Chairman shall be appointed by the State Chairman with the approval of the Executive Committee as soon as practicable after the election of the State Chairman and shall take office immediately, subject to the approval of their appointments by the State Central Committee at its next meeting. The term of office of the State Officers and members of the State Central Committee shall be approximately two years. They shall serve until their successors have been elected.

Recent Posts:
2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: West Virginia

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: North Carolina

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Indiana

Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: West Virginia

2012-05-08T20:00:00.000-04:00

This is the thirty-sixth in a multipart series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation by state.¹ The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2012 -- especially relative to 2008 -- in order to gauge the impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. As FHQ has argued in the past, this has often been cast as a black and white change. That the RNC has winner-take-all rules and the Democrats have proportional rules. Beyond that, the changes have been wrongly interpreted in a great many cases as having made a 180º change from straight winner-take-all to straight proportional rules in all pre-April 1 primary and caucus states. That is not the case.

The new requirement has been adopted in a number of different ways across the states. Some have moved to a conditional system where winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon one candidate receiving 50% or more of the vote and others have responded by making just the usually small sliver of a state's delegate apportionment from the national party -- at-large delegates -- proportional as mandated by the party. Those are just two examples. There are other variations in between that also allow state parties to comply with the rules. FHQ has long argued that the effect of this change would be to lengthen the process. However, the extent of the changes from four years ago is not as great as has been interpreted and points to the spacing of the 2012 primary calendar -- and how that interacts with the ongoing campaign -- being a much larger factor in the accumulation of delegates (Again, especially relative to the 2008 calendar).

For links to the other states' plans see the Republican Delegate Selection Plans by State section in the left sidebar under the calendar.

WEST VIRGINIA

The story with West Virginia Republican delegate allocation is simple: see Illinois. Well, as FHQ hopes our readers will understand, it is never really as simple as that. Yes, in terms the allocation of congressional district delegates in the Mountain state, the plan is exactly like the method used in Illinois: a loophole primary. Primary voters cast ballots for congressional district delegates directly. And as was the case in Illinois -- unlike Pennsylvania -- those delegates' candidate affiliations are listed with the delegate candidates on the ballot. The twist in West Virginia is that, unlike Illinois, at-large delegates are also directly elected on the primary ballot.² With the exception of the automatic delegates, then, all of the delegates who will attend the Republican National Convention in Tampa will be selected in the primary election.

West Virginia delegate breakdown:

31 total delegates
19 at-large delegates
9 congressional district delegates
3 automatic delegates

As FHQ has described in the past, loophole primaries -- even in instances when the delegates' candidate affiliations are listed on the ballot -- tend to favor the front-running and/or establishment candidate. That candidate is typically the one who is the most successful in enlisting the help of known political quantities in a state as delegates. And while that may be true in 2012 as well, this cycle and the candidate filings in West Virginia offer an interesting mathematical possibility. Now, to be sure, Mitt Romney did quite well in Pennsylvania by virtue of having locked in Pennsylvania Republican Party activists to delegate slots. As I said before Pennsylvania, Romney voters did not necessarily have cues other than name recognition that online-organized Paul voters had: a list of Paul-aligned delegates. That offered an interesting test case of name recognition versus organization and name recognition won over a small faction of organized Paul voters.

Similarly, there is an open door to Paul voters in Pennsylvania neighbor, West Virginia, as well. Romney will very likely have name recognition on his side in the Mountain state primary -- His name will be listed next to his delegates. -- but will more and potentially less disciplined Romney voters lose out mathematically to fewer Paul voters. Let me explain. The Romney campaign overfiled delegates in West Virginia. Instead of 19 at-large delegates, the Romney campaign filed 24. Instead of three delegates in each of the congressional districts, the Romney campaign filed at least seven. By contrast, the Paul campaign filed the bare minimum number of delegates in the state: three in each of the three congressional districts and 19 at-large delegates. All told, that means that Romney's likely greater number of total votes statewide and in each of the congressional districts will be split among a greater number of delegate slots. Voters are selecting delegates individually, not as candidate slates. That means that Romney voters may split their vote because the Romney campaign overfiled.

Paul voters, on the other hand, will not be diluting their voting power. If Ron Paul voters are voting for all of Paul's delegates and not for some of the uncommitted slots, then all of those Paul votes will go to all of Paul's delegates. They won't be split like the Romney vote.

The big question watching the West Virginia returns is whether there is enough of a split among Romney votes to allow Paul delegates to make up the likely differential between the two candidates statewide? We shall see.

[Hat tip to the anonymous commenters who asked about delegate vote dilution in the Question Time comments.]

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¹ FHQ would say 50 part, but that doesn't count the territories and Washington, DC.

² The at-large delegate slots in Illinois are chosen at the state convention.

Recent Posts:
2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: North Carolina

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Indiana

Delegate Selection is Never Easy in Nevada

Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: North Carolina

2012-05-08T19:00:00.000-04:00

This is the thirty-fifth in a multipart series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation by state.¹ The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2012 -- especially relative to 2008 -- in order to gauge the impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. As FHQ has argued in the past, this has often been cast as a black and white change. That the RNC has winner-take-all rules and the Democrats have proportional rules. Beyond that, the changes have been wrongly interpreted in a great many cases as having made a 180º change from straight winner-take-all to straight proportional rules in all pre-April 1 primary and caucus states. That is not the case.

The new requirement has been adopted in a number of different ways across the states. Some have moved to a conditional system where winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon one candidate receiving 50% or more of the vote and others have responded by making just the usually small sliver of a state's delegate apportionment from the national party -- at-large delegates -- proportional as mandated by the party. Those are just two examples. There are other variations in between that also allow state parties to comply with the rules. FHQ has long argued that the effect of this change would be to lengthen the process. However, the extent of the changes from four years ago is not as great as has been interpreted and points to the spacing of the 2012 primary calendar -- and how that interacts with the ongoing campaign -- being a much larger factor in the accumulation of delegates (Again, especially relative to the 2008 calendar).

For links to the other states' plans see the Republican Delegate Selection Plans by State section in the left sidebar under the calendar.

NORTH CAROLINA

North Carolina delegate allocation is mostly uniform across both political parties. That is attributable to the fact that the matter is covered by the general statutes in the Tarheel state as opposed to being dictated by state party rules as in a great many other states. What that means is that there is little suspense as to how the 55 Republican delegates will be allocated to particular candidates. Little suspense. Let's look at the delegate breakdown and FHQ will explain what we mean by that.

North Carolina delegate breakdown:

55 total delegates
13 at-large delegates
39 congressional district delegates
3 automatic delegates

As I said above, the North Carolina general statutes cover the method of allocation. Delegates will be allocated proportionally based on the vote in the presidential preference primary election. If Romney receives 60% of the vote, the former Massachusetts governor would be allocated approximately 60% of the delegate slots.² The question is: How many of those delegates will be proportionally allocated? The December RNC counsel memo indicated that the 52 non-automatic delegate slots are applicable -- bound -- but that the three automatic delegates remain unbound. However, the language of the North Carolina Republican Party rules leaves some doubt as to whether, in fact, that conclusion is accurate.³

Most of that doubt is a function of this line in the state party rules:

In order to comply with the rules of the National Republican Party and with the North Carolina General Statutes, specifically Section 163-213.8, immediately following the Presidential Preference Primary, the State Chairman, after consultation with the North Carolina Chairman for each Candidate receiving votes in the primary, shall allocate Delegate positions between the Candidates accurately reflecting the division of votes in the statewide primary, thereby requiring the election of the 3 Delegates and 3 Alternates 28 at the District Convention and the remaining Delegates at the State Convention, in such allocated numbers as to accurately reflect the results of the statewide primary

The use of the word remaining is similar to instances where state party rules in both Maryland and Wisconsin included the automatic delegates in the winner-take-all allocation in those states. In the North Carolina case, though, there is an out in the statute (Chapter 163, Section 213.8) that allows national party rules to take precedent over the statute should there be a conflict between the two. Yet, there does not appear to be a conflict here as the RNC rules leave the binding of delegates up to the state party, and the North Carolina Republican Party does not expressly indicate a specific binding mechanism for automatic delegates. Actually the NCGOP rules do not indicate that those three delegates are unbound. As such, the proper interpretation appears to be that those automatic delegates are included in the proportional allocation of the delegates by virtue of being included in the "remaining Delegates at the State Convention".

One additional note that should be made is that there is no vote threshold that a candidate has to meet in order to be eligible for delegates. A candidate only has to receive a share of the vote equal to or greater than percentage that would net said candidate at least half a delegate. In this case, 0.909%. In other words, 1% of the vote would make eligible a candidate for some share of the delegates. Both Gingrich, Santorum and a No Preference option are on the North Carolina ballot and may gain delegates. What becomes of the delegates -- the process for their release -- is not entirely clear, though all of the delegates with the exception of those committed to "No Preference" were McCain delegates in 2008.

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¹ FHQ would say 50 part, but that doesn't count the territories and Washington, DC.

² Those are bound delegate slots. Actual delegates have already been selected in congressional district meetings and will continue to be selected at the state convention. The at-large delegates and both the national committeeman and national committeewoman will be elected at the June state convention. The latter two positions will be elected in June and will begin serving immediately. The state chairman -- the final automatic delegate -- is elected at odd-year state conventions. There will be no turnover in that position at the upcoming convention.

³ North Carolina Republican Party rules (see Article VII-F):
2011 NCGOP Plan of Organization

Recent Posts:
2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Indiana

Delegate Selection is Never Easy in Nevada

Question Time: How Much Leverage Does Ron Paul Still Have?

Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Indiana

2012-05-08T11:45:00.000-04:00

This is the thirty-fourth in a multipart series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation by state.¹ The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2012 -- especially relative to 2008 -- in order to gauge the impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. As FHQ has argued in the past, this has often been cast as a black and white change. That the RNC has winner-take-all rules and the Democrats have proportional rules. Beyond that, the changes have been wrongly interpreted in a great many cases as having made a 180º change from straight winner-take-all to straight proportional rules in all pre-April 1 primary and caucus states. That is not the case.

The new requirement has been adopted in a number of different ways across the states. Some have moved to a conditional system where winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon one candidate receiving 50% or more of the vote and others have responded by making just the usually small sliver of a state's delegate apportionment from the national party -- at-large delegates -- proportional as mandated by the party. Those are just two examples. There are other variations in between that also allow state parties to comply with the rules. FHQ has long argued that the effect of this change would be to lengthen the process. However, the extent of the changes from four years ago is not as great as has been interpreted and points to the spacing of the 2012 primary calendar -- and how that interacts with the ongoing campaign -- being a much larger factor in the accumulation of delegates (Again, especially relative to the 2008 calendar).

For links to the other states' plans see the Republican Delegate Selection Plans by State section in the left sidebar under the calendar.

INDIANA

It really is a shame that the competitive portion of the Republican presidential nomination race did not stretch into May and the Indiana primary. In a year in which unique state-level rules have been under the microscope, the Hoosier state offered not a unique variation of proportional or winner-take-all rules, but an uncommon combination of contest types and allocation rules.

Indiana delegate breakdown:

46 total delegates
16 at-large delegates
27 congressional district delegates
3 automatic delegates

At-large allocation:
The process of selecting/electing the 16 at-large delegates is perhaps what sets the Indiana Republican Party delegate allocation method apart from other similar methods the most. Like both Illinois and Pennsylvania, Indiana Republican voters will directly elect delegates. Unlike the two previous loophole primaries, these delegates are not delegates to the national convention but to the state convention. Those primary-elected state convention delegates will in turn elect the 16 at-large delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa. The twist, if there is need for another one, is that, like Pennsylvania, Indiana Republicans will place a blind vote for state convention delegates. The candidate affiliation -- if there is one -- of each of the delegates is not listed on the ballot. As FHQ discussed during the description of the Pennsylvania process, this tends to favor the front-running or establishment candidate the most because they have typically been able to corner the market on well-known elected (or formerly elected) officials who voters have tended to gravitate towards in these instances. It should additionally be noted that these delegates will vote on the at-large delegate recommendations from the state committee -- most likely in the form of a slate of delegates rather than individually -- as opposed to directly electing delegates from among those chosen on the primary ballot (see Chapter 9, Section 30²).

Congressional district allocation:
The three delegates apportioned to each of Indiana's nine congressional districts will be allocated winner-take-all based on the primary vote within each congressional district. This is not entirely clear in the rules of the Indiana Republican Party (see Chapter 9, Section 29).² There is no explicit mention of winner-take-all allocation within the rules. However, the RNC has interpreted the allocation as winner-take-all based on the primary vote and the rules on the state level have not been altered between cycles (see Chapter 9, Section 31 (2010)) and also Chapter 9. Section 31 (2008)). The elections at the congressional district meetings will be based on the recommendations of the district congressional committees.

Automatic delegate allocation:
The Indiana Republican State Committee meets and chooses a national committeeman and committeewoman outside of the state convention but before the Republican National Convention (see Chapter 10, Sections 3-5). However, those selected for these posts do not assume office until after the national convention in Tampa. That means that the current national committeeman and committeewoman will serve alongside the Indiana Republican Party chair as automatic delegates to the convention. Furthermore, all three delegates are unbound and free to choose a candidate of their preference.

The bottom line with the Indiana Republican Party method of delegate allocation is that there are a fair number of party-level filters through which the process has to progress. All of the delegates are selected based on the recommendations of party committees. Now, does that preclude any parliamentary/procedural maneuvers at, say, a state or district convention to override the recommendations of the respective party committees? Yes. The rules provide for an undebateable and unamendable motion to accept those recommendations, but if the motion is defeated then the process goes to the floor.

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¹ FHQ would say 50 part, but that doesn't count the territories and Washington, DC.

² Indiana Republican Party Rules (see Chapter 9, Section 29 and Section 30):2012 Indiana Republican Party Rules3.9.12

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Delegate Selection is Never Easy in Nevada

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Delegate Selection is Never Easy in Nevada

2012-05-03T16:30:00.000-04:00

Why is it that it often appears as if the political parties in Nevada are on the verge of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory concerning the matter of national convention delegate selection?

It mostly has to do with the scrutiny attendant to having the state's caucuses thrust into the early, pre-window portion of the presidential primary for 2008. Hillary Clinton brought suit against casino caucuses, won the 2008 Nevada Democratic caucuses anyway, but due to the construction of the state party delegate selection rules lost out in the delegate count to then-Senator Barack Obama.

On the Republican side, Mitt Romney won the 2008 Nevada Republican caucuses while almost every other campaign was focused on the South Carolina primary on the same day. The January caucuses were on the up and up, but that a candidate overwhelmingly won them and then withdrew from the race ultimately had the effect of throwing subsequent steps in the delegate selection process into chaos. The void created allowed Ron Paul supporters -- and leftover Romney supporters aligned with them -- to overtake the process, leading to the cancelation of the state convention and later selection of national convention delegates by the Nevada Republican Party State Central Committee.

In each case, the legitimacy of the overall processes was called into question by at least some faction within each party. And by all indications the Nevada Republican Party may be heading down that very same road -- but for slightly different reasons -- in 2012.

FHQ was less concerned than most in February with the molasses-slow count of just less than 35,000 precinct caucus votes on February 4,¹ but it looks like that may have been an omen of things to come. If that wasn't, then the Paul efforts to overrun the special -- and later-than-the-rest caucus -- set up for Jewish caucusgoers observing the Sabbath should have served as a signal. Of course, unlike the 2008 experience, the Nevada Republican Party had at least laid the groundwork for a more orderly process in 2012 by making the vote in the precinct caucuses binding on the ultimate allocation of delegates. The winner of the caucuses, also unlike 2008, stayed in the race. Undeterred by either of those changes, however, Paul supporters pressed on; striving to -- like 2008 -- win as many delegate slots to the county and state conventions as possible.

And that has the Nevada Republican delegate selection process at a crossroads heading into the state convention this coming weekend. On the one hand, Paul forces are well-positioned to affect a repeat of the 2008 state convention (...albeit, the campaign would hope without the cancelation and selection of delegates by the state central committee). But on the other hand, the Republican National Committee Legal Counsel's Office has intervened,² threatening the state party with just that: ensure that the delegate selection rules laid out carry the day or run the risk of a challenge to the delegation at the national convention in Tampa.

In sum, this is a recipe -- a match and a canister of gasoline -- for an interesting state convention. The first test case of this will occur early on Saturday (10:30a-12:15p) at the state convention when there is a vote scheduled to adopt the proposed rules. If onlookers are attempted to game where the potential points of derailment are, this is the first. Recall that the RNC legal counsel pointed out that it would find any attempt to alter any of the rules "improper". But it is just that sort of thing that the faction of Paul delegates at the state conventions to be held thus far have attempted.

Overall, both sides, I would argue, have pretty good arguments no matter how this progresses, but arguments not without flaws.

The RNC is making the case that rules are in place and that the delegate selection and allocation should reflect those guidelines. The proportional allocation of the state's 28 delegates, in the RNC's view, should allot Romney 20 and Paul the remaining 8.³ Of course, the reallocation of delegate positions bound to Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum is potentially premature. Both candidates have suspended their campaigns but the Nevada Republican Party rules call for a withdrawal from the race for delegates to be released. That is debatable, but the RNC seems to be assuming a withdrawal nonetheless. The key on this point is if there are any Santorum or Gingrich delegates at the state convention who are willing to fight for those spots. Additionally, it should be noted that the withdrawal scenario described in the rules fits in a different window of time: a withdrawal after the state convention but before the national convention. There is seemingly no pre-state convention withdrawal scenario accounted for in the NVGOP rules.

Expect to hear this from Paul-aligned delegates on Saturday. They will make the case that those Santorum and Gingrich bound-delegates are fair game and should not be redistributed based on a reallocation of the total number of delegates according to the collective Romney-Paul share and division of the precinct caucus vote. Instead, Romney should have his base 14 delegates allotted to him and Paul, his 5 with the nine other delegates still bound to Gingrich (6 delegates) and Santorum (3 delegates). If there are Gingrich and Santorum delegates there, then they can claim those slots. Otherwise, the remaining top vote-getting delegates -- be they Paul or Romney supporters -- claim those spots. If the Paul forces involved in Nevada are as strong as some are indicating, that would allow them to pick off all or most of those nine delegates. That would in turn equalize the delegate count between Paul and Romney in the state.

Granted, this all assumes that there is a relatively tame fight over the small segment of the rules discussing but not completely specifying the withdrawal of candidates. The Paul campaign could settle for a 14-14 delegate count out of Nevada, but it could also attempt to completely overwrite the proposed rules for the convention during that adoption vote, swinging even more -- or all -- of the delegation Paul's way.

Strategically, the split is probably a more reasonable route -- as opposed to completely rewriting the rules -- simply because attempting to bite off more than Paul state convention delegates can chew may force the Nevada GOP's hand. And by that, I mean, pulling the plug on the convention, as was the case in 2008. That would throw the delegate selection decision to the state central committee again. [The committee is slated to meet the Sunday after the convention is set to adjourn.]

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One other note (or perhaps notes): The national committeeman and national committeewoman posts are up for election at the state convention as well. Those are obviously two of the three automatic delegates (who are also proportionally allocated -- but bound to the candidate of their preference) from Nevada. The catch is that their term of service does not begin until they are ratified by the Republican National Convention. It isn't clear what would happen if there is a snag in that ratification process -- whether the current members would cast votes during the roll call or what. But a roadblock seems more likely if committee-people-elect come from what is viewed as an illegitimate state convention. Much, it seems, would depend on when that ratification vote took place relative to the roll call vote (likely before it as it has some bearing on the credentialing process).

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Buckle up, folks. This convention promises to be a fun one.

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¹ As I've argued, following the 2008 experience and what had happened just a month earlier in Iowa, the Nevada GOP was probably right to take their time counting ballots (...even if the outcome was not nearly as uncertain as had been the case in the Iowa caucuses).

² To follow up on the post from yesterday on Paul's leverage moving forward, take the RNC's letter as at least some evidence of the national party/the Romney campaign attempting to engage in this process to avert any chaos at the national convention.

³ Fabulous Las Vegas Sun reporter Jon Ralston cited the 20 Romney delegates in his write-up of the letter from the RNC last night and confirmed with FHQ that that is based on the reallocation of Gingrich and Santorum delegates from the first round.

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Question Time: How Much Leverage Does Ron Paul Still Have?

2012-05-02T17:00:00.000-04:00

The above is not the question that FHQ specifically received, but neatly encapsulates the breadth and depth of the questions that have rolled into either the comments section or my inbox concerning the Ron Paul campaign's continued efforts to amass delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa. As opposed to answering them one by one, I figured that I would take a step back and provide an overview of where the so-called delegate strategy is and what if anything it is likely to yield Paul and/or his supporters before, during or after the August convention.

First of all, as far back as January 4 -- the day after the Iowa caucuses -- FHQ was expounding upon the the Paul strategy and how it compared to/differed from the approach the campaign had in 2008. Periodically, I have also revisited the strategy in the Race to 1144 posts and when necessary on Twitter. Still, the matter really has not received the attention it probably deserves. [Yeah, on that point I respectfully disagree with Dave Weigel. Yes, there are realities/constraints to media coverage, but for selfish reasons, I sincerely wish this story had been followed more closely.] The point then, as now, was to point out that the Paul campaign and its supporters were, have been and are organized. They have thus far been more successful in winning delegate slots to the national convention than they were four years ago.

Paul, for instance, looks very well positioned to control not just the bare minimum delegation pluralities in states unbound caucus states like Colorado, Iowa and Minnesota, but majorities of those delegations at the Tampa convention. That is on top of the news from over this past weekend from Massachusetts, that despite being bound to Mitt Romney on the first ballot at the convention there are at least 16 Paul supporters elected to the Bay state Republican delegation (of 41 total delegates).

But the question remains, so what? What does any of this mean (...especially if it is highly unlikely to derail a Romney nomination in Tampa)?

Well, as FHQ pointed out in January, if there was or is an over/under on the number of delegates Ron Paul's campaign is likely to get to the national convention, take the over. The Paul coalition has and will continue to see varied success across the remaining states to select delegates. There are, after all, two parallel tracks in a Republican presidential nomination race: 1) the contests that we have all followed the results of on nearly every Tuesday (and sometimes Saturdays) for much of the year and 2) the actual delegate selection. The former in most cases only binds delegates to particular candidates, but that leaves the later selection of delegates. That process does not necessarily entail selecting folks who are supportive of the candidate to whom they are bound.¹ In fact, the Paul campaign and/or its supporters on the state level are turning that logic on its head.

Again, what does any of this gain for Ron Paul and/or his supporters? I fundamentally disagree with Dave Weigel that these delegate victories are an attempt by the RNC or state parties to give the Paul coalition some "wins". That "own goal" mentality is misguided because those wins are not likely to abate any time soon. There is no giving. The Paul folks are using superior organization -- in some states -- to take Romney-bound delegate slots (or delegate slots bound to or prematurely allocated by the AP and other outlets to other candidates).

Is Paul after the nomination? I don't know. But his supporters sure are.

And procedurally, they have a legitimate albeit longshot strategy to get there. That strategy first involves the continued accrual delegates; delegates bound to Paul through the remaining May and June primaries and delegates bound to any other candidate but carrying a Paul preference in the congressional district caucuses and state conventions yet to be held. Of course, having a fair number of Paul supporters as delegates does not keep Mitt Romney under the 1144 delegates necessary to clinch the nomination at the convention when they are Paul supporters bound to vote for Romney on the first ballot.

That triggers the second part of the strategy: Paul-supportive but Romney-bound delegates abstaining on the first vote. This is a tricky maneuver, but not one that is prohibited by the Republican Party delegate selection rules. It does, however, run up against state-level delegate rules that in some cases legally bind delegates to a particular candidate through one or more ballots at the national convention. But that is uncharted waters in this process. How does one take such a challenge of the rules to court in a way that resolves the issue expeditiously within the window of time in which the party is meeting in Tampa? It doesn't. The result is probably a huge embarrassment for Mitt Romney and the Republican Party; not something it wants when attempting to successfully challenge a vulnerable incumbent president.²

The question that emerges from that is the same as the questions that faced all of the other non-Romney candidates throughout primary season: Can Romney be kept under 1144 (but at the convention)? To do that Paul and his supporters would indeed face an uphill climb. That doesn't mean that they would have to amass 1144 delegates on their own. It would mean a combination of Paul-bound delegates, Paul-supportive but other candidate-bound delegates and those delegates won by candidates who have since suspended their campaigns. The Paul-bound delegates are easy enough, but those other two groups of delegates are shrouded in questions marks. Concerning the delegates bound to other candidates, the state of those campaigns are important. Well, it is not the state of the campaigns so much as the distinction they bear at that point in the race. A suspended campaign at that point is still a campaign that is active; active in terms of not having released its delegates. None of the candidates that have withdrawn from contention and have been allocated delegates (or bound delegates) has formally withdrawn from the race. Huntsman and Santorum have both suspended their campaigns which protects their delegates (...in most cases, but with exception). Gingrich appears to be doing the same.

There is the potential for a great deal of overlap between the delegates bound to other candidates and those that are Paul-supportive but bound to another candidate. But they are distinct enough from each other if only because in the event that they are ever released by the candidates to whom they have been bound they are free to unite behind Romney or join an effort to oppose the nomination. The district and state conventions in the coming weeks will likely settle that matter. As selected delegates are going to come from either the Paul or Romney camps -- more bound to the former than the latter.

It is that process -- the selection of delegates -- that so significantly clouds the outlook on this though. There is no one good independent source tracking the preferences of delegates actually selected to attend the national convention. As such that is the great unknown not so much of the Paul strategy but of the prospects for this materializing in any overt way that causes headaches for the Romney campaign and/or the Republican Party; both of which are merging their efforts with November in mind.

To some extent, then, the question of how much leverage Paul or Paul's supporters have is unanswerable. Are there enough of those "secret" Paul delegates to prevent Romney from getting to 1144 on the first ballot at the convention if they abstain? We don't and probably won't know with any level of certainty until sometime in June or even later. That is a while for Romney -- the presumptive Republican nominee -- to live with some level of even under the radar uncertainty. But that also presents them with a decision: Make some form of concession to Paul now(-ish) or wait and see Paul's cards later and make concessions then. Waiting is a gamble. Paul could show his cards close to the convention and really present some problems for Romney; forcing a larger concession (VP slot, cabinet position, convention speaking spot, etc.). The best indication of the level of threat the Romney team perceives in Ron Paul will be the efforts it makes in the remaining district and state conventions. If they counter the Paul organization it is a pretty clear signal that there is an issue. If not, it indicates either they are blind to this issue -- particularly if Paul continues to win delegates bound to other candidates (Romney) -- or don't view it as a problem at all (or both). Obviously, the level of threat the Romney team perceives affects the extent of any concessions it feels are necessary to satisfy Paul and/or his supporters.

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Now, procedurally, none of this is likely to matter. There are seemingly enough failsafes in the RNC rules to prevent an outcome that does not have Romney as the nominee. But that doesn't mean that Ron Paul or those delegates aligned with him have to make it easy for Romney. The rules regarding the abstention strategy are not unlike the rules of keeping Romney under 1144 generally. For the sake of the exercise, let's assume that Romney has at least 1144 bound delegates in Tampa, but that enough of those Romney-bound delegates are Paul supporters to keep the former Massachusetts governor under that number on the first ballot through abstentions. Given the unknowns above, that is a fairly sizable assumption.

But let's look at the structure of this anyway.

Many want to focus on RNC Rule 40 that requires a candidate to have plurality control of at least five state delegations to be nominated. As stated above, Paul is in good shape to do that. But that isn't really the concern here. The roadblock to this being a more significant threat to Romney is Rule 37 regarding the procedure for roll call voting. Rule 37 gives a certain amount of power to the individual state delegation chairs. If the state delegation chairs see abstentions or the potential for abstentions, they are very likely to pass on their vote with the roll call progressing to the next state alphabetically. This is why the election of state delegation chairpeople is so important and why the reports that a Paul-aligned candidate in Colorado defeated Colorado Republican Party chair, Ryan Call, for the distinction are consequential. Passes are less likely to come from Paul-aligned delegation chairs than Romney or establishment-aligned chairs.

What is not clear in the RNC is rules on the roll call procedure is whether states can pass more than once if bound delegates do not vote in accordance with their "commitment". The rules indicate that no state can change votes until each state has had a second (post-pass) opportunity to vote. What is less clear is whether that constitutes a second ballot. FHQ's reading is that it would not. That is a secondary concern to the multiple pass question though. If the chairs from "problem state" delegations -- those with Paul-aligned but Romney-bound delegates threatening abstentions -- can pass more than once, then the roll call can quickly devolve into a feedback loop where the convention gets stuck. Again, that is embarrassing for the party and Romney. It is not a desired outcome.

Of course, if it gets to that point, that will be the true surprise. If Paul-aligned delegates are a threat, the RNC and the Romney campaign will undoubtedly have done some sort of informal delegate whip count ahead of time and have other failsafes set up in the credentialing process or something else to prevent convention floor chaos.

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Look, I don't want to make too much of this. As I said, it is a legitimate strategy, but it is a longshot to work in terms of preventing a Romney nomination much less creating a Paul nomination. However, it is a unique strategy worth exploring. The main thing moving forward will be to watch how the Romney campaign operates in the upcoming state conventions and district caucuses/conventions where delegate selection is on the agenda. If the Paul folks continue to nab delegate slots -- bound to Paul or not -- it could prove to be a headache at some point over the summer for Romney. But we won't know how much leverage Ron Paul and his supporters may have until we have a firmer handle on just how many bound delegates the Texas congressman has and more importantly how many "stealth" delegates he has.

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¹ It should be noted that this is mainly how it has worked in the past. People who are elected delegates are either supporters of the candidate to whom they are bound or are folks just happy to be selected as delegates and thus willing to go along with the party's choice of nominees.

² Of course, if that happened, it might very well overshadow the Democratic convention in Charlotte the following week. [Silver lining?]

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Question Time: What Happens to Santorum's Delegates?

2012-04-30T16:00:00.001-04:00

Via the comments:

Will you start classifying Santorum's delegates as uncommitted?

The classification of Santorum's delegates in FHQ's Race to 1144 posts is a bit of a tricky issue. The easiest answer is to say that we will do exactly what we did with the Huntsman delegates in New Hampshire. First of all, know that the decision on the Huntsman delegates was, well, ad hoc. Though the process had yet to play out on the state level, the RNC almost immediately shifted those delegates to the "uncommitted" column in its delegate count. I suspect if the RNC had not already shifted to general election mode and was still regularly updating its in-house delegate count, the Communications folks there would similarly shift some or all of the Santorum delegates into the "uncommitted" category as well.

Yet there is a difference between a candidate with two delegates and another with more than 200 delegates. FHQ is much more inclined -- perhaps, contradictorily so -- to take the slow approach with the Santorum delegates as opposed to the Huntsman delegates. Think of primary season as a spool of thread. It is much easier to wrap an unraveled inch of thread back around the spool in an orderly way than it is to attempt re-spin 20% of the total thread unraveled to this point.

One other issue worth raising is that one of those two New Hampshire delegates for Huntsman later came out in support of Mitt Romney.¹ None of Santorum's delegates have yet to do anything like this.

Moving forward, then, the most appropriate way to deal with this issue to pull those delegates back from Santorum's total when and if state party rules or state law forces a change in their categorization. For instance, Michigan state law, not state party rules as has been reported, releases a candidate's delegates upon

...the withdrawal of that presidential candidate from contention for that party's nomination or by written release of that presidential candidate to the chairperson of the national convention, whichever is earliest. -- Act 116-1954-XXV, Section 168.619

But if you look closely at that AP account of Santorum's Michigan delegates, you will note that the actual delegates have not been selected yet. The Santorum campaign withdrew a challenge in order to safeguard the proportional selection of Santorum supporters to delegate slots by the party. [Paul campaign supporters may have something to say about that at upcoming county conventions, congressional district caucuses and the state convention.] But it doesn't really work that way. There are no safeguards.

What that means, though, is that the Santorum campaign has or hopes he has 14 theoretical delegates "bound" to him in Michigan. Once those delegates are selected, however, they will not be bound to him and chances are good that the chosen delegates will not necessarily prefer him as a candidate; opting instead for Romney or Paul.

Of course, this is just one state. The rules regarding the commitments/binding of delegates differs from state to state and the changes in the delegate count need to reflect that reality. In most instances, delegates have not been selected, but rather slots set aside for one candidate or another (via rules- or law-based binding mechanisms), and in most cases, those commitments are in place until the candidate releases them.² Those delegates will remain in Santorum's column until he releases those delegates or the actual delegates chosen come forward with publicly stated preferences indicating support for another candidate. That is similar to the treatment of the Huntsman delegates.

NOTE: The case is fairly solid in terms of moving the 14 Santorum delegates in Michigan to uncommitted in the FHQ count. That change will be made in the next update after the Indiana, North Carolina and West Virginia primaries on May 8.

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¹ Truth be told, one of those two New Hampshire delegates is still a Huntsman delegate. It just did not make sense, however, to continue setting aside a column in the spreadsheet or bar in the bar chart for just two delegates. That one contest delegate in the unbound/unpledged section is still a Huntsman delegate. [Note to self: Add a footnote to that effect in the next update.]

² The withdrawal from contention clause in the Michigan law is a necessary but not sufficient condition in most other states. It is not either/or in other words. Rather, a withdrawal and release is necessary to unbind delegates.

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Massachusetts Republican Caucuses: Sigh and Questions that Need to Be Asked/Answered

2012-04-30T12:15:00.000-04:00

This is one of those things where if folks -- and by folks I mean the press -- had been following along with both the Paul campaign/the efforts of Paul's supporters and the rules of the game in states across the county, the situation in Massachusetts this weekend likely would not have come across as that much of a shock.

The reality is that the Paul supporters, as they are doing throughout the country, are striving to elect as many Paul-aligned delegates to the national convention in Tampa as possible -- bound to Paul or whomever (more on this later in a separate post). Such was the case in caucuses across the Bay state on Saturday. Outside of the surprise/symbolism of the Romney slate not emerging victorious in the former governor's home state, there really is little else to the story. The 38 at-large and congressional district delegates are still bound to the winner of the March 6 Massachusetts primary through the first ballot at the national convention. And that is that.

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The other interesting aspect of this is that the reporting thus far is emphasizing the fact that former Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey (R) lost in her race to become a delegate. This is strange because Healey is already a delegate having been selected by the Massachusetts Republican State Committee as the Republican National Committeewoman from the state earlier this month. In that role, Healey is already an automatic delegate to the convention. Viewed from that perspective, it is odd that Healey was even running. The position of national committeewoman is one voted on, according to Massachusetts Republican Party bylaws, by the State Committee. The State Committee members were elected through the primary on March 6 -- not in the caucuses over the weekend. That eliminates the possibility of State Committee members being elected and then turning around and selecting national committeepeople or state party chairs. The elections of those officials are outlined in Article III, Section 2 of the state party bylaws. If anyone can get through to the Romney campaign, it may perhaps be worth asking why Healey was running for a position (delegate) she could not occupy.

...since she is already a delegate.

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Question Time: Big [Early] States & Future Primary Calendars

2012-04-30T08:30:00.000-04:00

Via the comments:

Is there a movement afoot in either party to move one of the big swing states (OH PN, ect.[sic]) either to inside the "carve out" category or close to it? If not (as I suspect) why do you think that is? I mean there would be a lot of benefits to the party not just for the nomination but also the general election.

The simplest answer is "I don't know."

However, that is mainly because I'm iffy about the word "movement". Is there any movement? No, but there are factions/people within the decision-making bodies in both the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee that have voiced or seemed supportive of such ideas (albeit more for selfish, state-specific reasons rather than for reasons of general election electoral benefits). Beyond that, though, I don't know. But I do have a few educated/informed impressions.

The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee mostly punted -- and rightly so with an incumbent seeking re-election¹ -- on rules changes in 2010. The overwhelming sentiment that prevailed in the Washington meeting that FHQ attended was that no one on the committee wanted to rock the boat. There was, as I'm sure there inevitably is at these things, some brief discussion of the early states: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. I say that there are inevitably discussions along these lines, but I left with the feeling that this was among the least contentious, shallowest dives into the question of early states in quite a while. Some members harped on the idea of reshuffling the deck at the front of the calendar, but that went nowhere. What did move the needle ever so slightly among the group or at least enough among them was a process similar to what guided the commission that tweaked the Democratic delegate selection rules prior to 2008. This was the group that essentially held auditions for states that wanted to move into the, what the Democrats call, pre-window period. This was the point at which Nevada and South Carolina were added to the mix. The Rules and Bylaws Committee left it at that in 2010; open the early calendar up to a couple of additional states from among a group that applies.

If I had to guess now, I would say that Florida and Michigan have a leg up on the competition. Now, that's counterintuitive, right? It was after all four short years ago that Florida and Michigan threatened to rip the Democratic Party apart over how both states' delegates would be counted. But the simple truth of the matter is that both are already there. That is almost more important than the "Hey, those two states could be swing states in the general election" argument. This is a big deal: being able to move the primary or caucus. Florida will likely be there regardless. It does not seem likely that the Florida legislature will change hands -- moving from Republican control to Democratic -- any time within the 2012-15 window which means that about two-thirds of the date-setting process will rest with the Republicans.² Unless the RNC comes up with a penalty that actually deters rogue states from scheduling primaries out of compliance with the national party delegate selection rules, Florida is very likely to go early again. Republican actors in the state are very serious -- it seems -- to make Florida the fifth contest at the latest on the calendar. Is there any sense in potentially re-fighting 2008/Florida again? I wouldn't think so. The Michigan primary is already scheduled, according to state law, for the fourth Tuesday in February. Again, why fight it?

The one wildcard to keep an eye on Arizona. The Arizona primary is already scheduled for the same date as the Michigan primary and the law there adds the flexibility for the governor to shift the date up to an earlier date. That is a problem for the, in this case, Democrats (...but the Republicans too). There will have to be some new sanctions in place to dissuade Arizona from additional moves.³ What works against Arizona is that "the West" is already represented by Nevada. Florida fills the "big state" role. Michigan is the "blue collar" or "labor" or "midwestern" state. Arizona has no such similar role. But it can argue that it might be electorally important to the party in the general election in the future.

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On the Republican side, there was little discussion of overturning the early calendar apple cart in the Scottsdale RNC meeting recently. Additionally, there was no talk -- at least that I heard -- of putting together a commission to re-examine the RNC delegate selection rules outside of the convention as was the case with the Temporary Delegate Selection Committee (2009-10). This was the first, and perhaps only, foray the party has or will make into the midstream delegate rules changing arena in the post-reform era.

But the RNC is faced with a similar quandary to what the Democrats will encounter: How to keep states in line, or more to the point from breaking in line? That is the key question for both parties. The RNC, I think, realizes that the same three states -- Arizona, Florida and Michigan -- present it with a certain immovable object problem; one that cannot be remedied without some form of actual deterrent.⁴ What that penalty is, though, is unknown as of now, but I'm sure will be discussed in the months leading up to the Tampa convention.

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Will there be additions to the carve out states in 2016? I think that is a safe bet at this time? Will those additions make sense in terms of why they were added? Sure. States will be added mostly because the alternative of not adding them is counterproductive to the parties. Are the states best positioned to take advantage of those new carve out spots potentially important in a general election for both parties? Coincidentally enough, yes, but only coincidentally enough. If the parties wanted to actually confront such a coordination problem (putting together with states and state parties a primary calendar that paid electoral dividends in November) on their own, they would be hard-pressed to muster the willingness much less the ability to actually pull that off.

Uphill sledding...

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I should take a moment to mention that I will be taking part in a workshop at the Harvard Institute of Politics in May that will bring together folks from the Rules Committees in both major parties in addition to folks from the National Association of Secretaries of State and National Conference of State Legislatures. Selfishly, I hope to get a better picture on what is happening in both parties concerning the rules for 2016, but I also hope a productive dialog is started/continued on the nomination process and the limit to which it can in reality be reformed given all the competing interests.

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¹ Folks have been persuasive in arguing that if a party is going to make changes, the best time -- or the time with the least number of potential conflicts within a party -- is when the stakes are low. You know, when a reasonably popular incumbent is seeking re-election; an incumbent who has a party rallying behind him like Obama had in 2010 and has now.

² State law now gives the speaker of the Florida House, the president of the Florida Senate and the governor three selections each to the committee that sets the date. If Governor Scott is not re-elected in 2014, Democrats will be able to muster four selections to the committee. No one member-naming authority can name more than two members of his or her own party to the committee. The speaker and the president would have to name two Democrats and the presumed Democratic governor would name two additional Democrats. But that is just four out of nine slots; not enough for Democrats to gain control of the process.

³ Of course, it should be noted that the Democratic Party has for the last two cycles now had a sanction on the books that penalizes not only the states for going to early, but any candidates who campaign in violating states as well. States move up for attention and if that attention is affected by candidates/media not showing up, then there is little utility in moving forward. ...or at least that will be the test in 2016 should the Democrats stand pat with their current penalties regime.

⁴ The same is true of some of these non-binding caucus states that have been able to skirt Republican rules most noticeably in 2012 (...but the issue was around in 2008 too). That is a different story or one for a different time anyway.

Recent Posts:
Question Time

Iowa GOP considers new rule for close caucuses

Pair of Missouri Bills Would Shift Future Presidential Primaries Back to April

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Question Time

2012-04-27T13:30:00.000-04:00

For some time I have admired -- and totally wanted to rip off -- the Question Day posts that Bernstein does on occasion. To this point, I had neither the time or inclination to do so. But the combination of the desire to try out the format and the influx of good questions via comments or email this week, I think, has pushed me over the edge.

In a nod to Question Time in the British House of Commons (and to acknowledge the fact that today is looking crazy time-wise), I'm going to field (good, quality¹) questions and spread the answers out over more than just today. I've already got three really good questions with which I definitely want to deal,² but if you have any others questions feel free to drop in in the comments section below or via Twitter under the hashtag, #fhqquestiontime.

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¹ Seriously, keep it substantive, folks.

² To avoid overlap, I already have and plan to answer questions concerning:

Ron Paul's delegate strategy (and the convention)
Turnout in upcoming primaries
The status of Rick Santorum's delegates (post-suspension)

Recent Posts:
Iowa GOP considers new rule for close caucuses

Pair of Missouri Bills Would Shift Future Presidential Primaries Back to April

House-Passed Bill in Virginia to Consolidate Primaries in Presidential Election Years to Be Considered in 2013 in State Senate

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Iowa GOP considers new rule for close caucuses

2012-04-26T14:45:00.000-04:00

Jennifer Jacobs of the Des Moines Register has the story.

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A couple of tidbits from the piece:

"To prevent future criticism of the Iowa caucuses, state Republican party officials will consider this rule: If there’s a difference of 1 percent or less between the top two vote-getters, they will declare the race too close to call that night.

"That would then trigger a 72-hour deadline for the certification process, the party’s system of double-checking the vote totals. Currently, the party gives itself about two weeks to wrap up certification."

...and...

"[Iowa] Republicans are worried that the RNC will strip Iowa of its first-in-the nation voting status if the caucus system here suffers too many black eyes."

I get this latter sentiment, but I don't. On the one hand, both parties in Iowa should probably always be on guard; especially after the snafu this past January. That said, there was absolutely no indication -- not in a formal "introducing an amendment/resolution" sort of way (certainly nothing that was adopted) -- that stripping Iowa (or New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina) of its position at the RNC meeting in Scottsdale last week was anywhere close to a consensus position among the RNC members.¹

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¹ As Zeke Miller of Buzz Feed tweeted from Scottsdale:

"Almost no interest at all in changing the "carve-out" that allows IA/NH/SC/NV to go first at the RNC Rules Committee meeting"

Recent Posts:
Pair of Missouri Bills Would Shift Future Presidential Primaries Back to April

House-Passed Bill in Virginia to Consolidate Primaries in Presidential Election Years to Be Considered in 2013 in State Senate

Race to 1144: Mid-Atlantic/Northeast Primary

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Pair of Missouri Bills Would Shift Future Presidential Primaries Back to April

2012-04-26T14:15:00.000-04:00

If you followed the saga that was the Missouri state government effort to move the Show Me state presidential primary into compliance with national party delegate selection rules last year, you are probably already more than ready to dismiss this and move.¹ [FHQ doesn't know that it blames you.] Yet, here the legislature is again -- one year later -- examining a couple of bills that would consolidate the February presidential primary with the April general municipal primaries, moving the former back to coincide with the latter.

Now, the general assembly faced a similar situation during 2011. A bill to consolidate the presidential primary with the congressional primaries in June -- moving the former from February and the latter from August -- was introduced and referred to committee but died there as other bills focused on moving the presidential primary to March took precedence. Again, as was the case with the 2012 bill in Virginia, the prime motivating factor in introducing these bills -- HB 1962, HB 1981 -- is budgetary (...though sadly there is no information on the fiscal impact for either).²

Of course, no Missouri post would be complete without some sort of legislative roadblock. Even if legislators were/are eager to pass this legislation, they are running out of time in the second of a two session term. The General Assembly is set to adjourn in May and the deadline for bills to have emerged from committee in the chamber opposite the one where it was introduced was April 12 -- the same date that both of these bills were referred to committee. [Granted, this is an appropriations bill of sorts since it deals with a matter that would seemingly reduce the costs of elections. The deadline for those bills to have passed -- as in the next stop is the governor's desk -- is May 11.] The fact that this is the second of two legislative session is important because the bills will not be able to carry over to the next session (not that they can be in Missouri anyway).

In other words, don't expect the Missouri primary to be moved in 2012 with 2016 in mind. It will be 2015 before any of this is likely relevant again. But flag this post and refer back to it when we get there. It may serve as the nexus of another strange journey through the Missouri General Assembly.

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¹ For more click on the Missouri label and scroll (and scroll) through the backlog of Missouri posts from 2011. It's a long and winding road.

² Both bills were introduced by Republicans in the Republican-controlled Missouri House. That matters in the future depending on who wins the general election in the fall. If Obama wins reelection, then both parties will have active nomination races in 2016 and Republicans (and Democrats) in the legislature may be motivated to do something about the scheduling of the presidential primary (depending on the rules and penalties from the national parties). However, if Romney wins in November and the Missouri legislature remains in Republican control, then nothing may happen with the primary. Republicans won't necessarily be motivated to tinker with the date of the presidential primary if they don't have a dog in the fight.

Recent Posts:
House-Passed Bill in Virginia to Consolidate Primaries in Presidential Election Years to Be Considered in 2013 in State Senate

Race to 1144: Mid-Atlantic/Northeast Primary

A Few Notes on the RNC Meeting and the 2016 Rules

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House-Passed Bill in Virginia to Consolidate Primaries in Presidential Election Years to Be Considered in 2013 in State Senate

2012-04-26T13:15:00.000-04:00

File this one under "bills that were active in 2012 and may eventually have an impact on 2016". [Were being the operative word.]

The Virginia General Assembly considered during its 2012 legislative session -- back in January and February -- a bill to consolidate its presidential primary and the primaries for state and local offices. The legislation -- HB 55 -- would, for the time being, keep the presidential primary on the first Tuesday in March and primaries for state and local offices in midterm years on the second Tuesday in June. However, the bill would move the presidential year primaries for state and local offices to coincide with the presidential primary.¹ The impact statement indicates that the measure would not save the state any substantial amount from a budgetary perspective but would have the "potential" to aid local governments in their efforts in conducting the elections.

HB 55 passed the state House by a nearly 3:1 margin in January and was then referred to the state Senate. While the 2012 session adjourned, the bill will be carried over to the 2013 session where it will then be considered by the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections.

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The true impact of this is negligible in terms of the presidential primary and Virginia's place on the 2016 presidential primary calendar, but it should be noted that this does potentially alter -- assuming the HB 55 passes and is signed into law in 2013 -- the calculus for those candidates seeking nomination to either chamber of Congress or local offices. What I mean by that is that with the move to hold those primaries concurrently with the presidential primary comes a relative increase in the level of turnout for the primaries for offices other than president. Those candidates who traditionally thrive in low turnout environments will have to adjust to a higher turnout setting. This is more of an issue for those down-ballot races that will also have to deal with ballot roll off anyway.

File this one away though. It is more important in that it fits with another emerging characteristic of primary movement in the 2012 cycle: budgetary constraints of conducting elections. This fits in nicely with other states that consolidated primaries for 2012: Alabama, Arkansas, California, New Jersey and Utah (Republicans).

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¹ Virginia election law refers to these primaries as the "primaries for the nomination of candidates for offices to be voted on at the general election date in November". These are primaries more for local offices than state offices. Most of the latter are voted on and nominated in odd year elections. However, the list of offices that would have their primaries shifted up to and earlier date does include members of the Virginia congressional delegation -- both US House and Senate.

Recent Posts:
Race to 1144: Mid-Atlantic/Northeast Primary

A Few Notes on the RNC Meeting and the 2016 Rules

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Pennsylvania

Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.

Race to 1144: Mid-Atlantic/Northeast Primary

2012-04-26T08:30:00.000-04:00

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

Delegate breakdown (post-CT, DE, NY, PA & RI primaries):

Changes since Minnesota and Missouri district conventions (4/21/12):

Romney: +150 delegates (New York: +92, Connecticut: +25, Delaware: +17, Rhode Island: +12, Pennsylvania: +3, Virgin Islands: +1)
Santorum: +/- 0 delegates
Paul: +4 delegates (Rhode Island: +4)
Gingrich: +/- 0 delegates

Notes:
1) It should be noted that the delegates are difficult to classify in both Nevada and Vermont as both sets of automatic delegates are bound and proportionally allocated with either all of the delegates (Nevada) or with the at-large delegates (Vermont). Those six delegates are in the bound/pledged category in the spreadsheet above but are considered "contest delegates" in the bar chart at the top. It would not be surprising to see those six delegates among those who signed pledges to Romney at the RNC meeting in Scottsdale this past week when and if that list is made public.

2) Mitt Romney swept the delegates in New York (statewide and across all 29 congressional districts), Connecticut (statewide and across all 5 congressional districts) and Delaware.

3) In Rhode Island, Mitt Romney won 63% of the vote and 75% of the total, non-automatic delegates at stake. Ron Paul won 24% of the vote and qualified for delegates by surpassing the 15% threshold for receiving delegates. That netted the Texas congressman 4 delegates; 25% of the total, non-automatic delegates.

4) Pennsylvania is a bit tricky. Though delegates are unbound, some have expressed a presidential preference. The Romney site points to previous endorsements from three delegates directly elected in the primary on Tuesday (see Gerlach, Shuster and English). Additionally, the Ron Paul site has an official list of Pennsylvania delegates that identifies five of the 59 delegates elected on Tuesday are aligned with Paul. The Newt Gingrich site has no such endorsements. However, Gingrich-related sites do have lists of delegates aligned with those candidates. There is also another fabulous thread on another conservative site that breaks this down in even greater detail. The numbers there do jibe well with the Romney, Paul and Gingrich site endorsements. That count -- which FHQ will wait until it is independently verified -- would yield Romney 26 delegates (which counts the four in the spread sheet above), Paul 5, Gingrich 3 and Santorum 2 (or 3). Another 12 or 13 delegates are uncommitted while 10 more are county party-endorsed candidates, former national delegates or alternates or elected officials. That latter group is obviously made up of more establishment/elite figures within the Pennsylvania Republican Party.

5) Mitt Romney has also picked up the lone remaining uncommitted delegate (of two originally) in the Virgin Islands, giving the former Massachusetts governor 8 total delegates in the territory. Thanks to Matthew Wilder Tanner for the link.

6) Two of the unpledged delegates coming out of the Colorado conventions a week ago are Ron Paul supporters. Don't be surprised when and if more of the other 12 unpledged Colorado delegates reveal themselves to be aligned with Paul. If anyone has links to any of these delegates revealing their preferences, please feel free to forward them to me in the comments section.

7) The allocation of the delegates in Georgia is based on the most recent vote returns published online by the office of the Georgia Secretary of State. The allocation here differs from the RNC allocation in Georgia. The above grants Gingrich one additional delegate (which has been taken from Romney's total). Due to the way the Georgia Republican Party rounds fractional delegates, the FHQ count was off by one delegate (+Romney/-Gingrich). The congressional district count is unaffected (Gingrich 31, Romney, 8 and Santorum 3), but the way the at-large delegates are allocated to Gingrich and Romney -- the only candidates over 20% statewide -- is a bit quirky. Gingrich's portion of the vote would have entitled him to 14.6 delegates and Romney's 8.0. Under Georgia Republican rules, Gingrich is given 14 delegates and Romney 8. That leaves nine delegates unclaimed because the remaining candidates did not clear the 20% threshold. The candidate with the highest "remainder" is awarded the first delegate and the candidates over 20% trade turns until all of those delegates are allocated. Remember, Gingrich did not round up to 15 delegates (14.6), but that 0.6 gives him a larger "remainder" than Romney. The former speaker, then, is allocated the first of nine delegates. With an odd number of delegates leftover, Gingrich would have a fifth turn after Romney's fourth and that would end the allocation of those "extra" delegates. Gingrich would claim five to Romney's four. Of the 31 at-large delegates, Gingrich is allocated 19 and Romney 12. Please note that for winning the statewide vote, Gingrich is allocated the three automatic delegates. That makes the final allocation Gingrich 53, Romney 20 and Santorum 3. The RNC, though, has a different interpretation.

Recent Posts:
A Few Notes on the RNC Meeting and the 2016 Rules

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Pennsylvania

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Delaware

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A Few Notes on the RNC Meeting and the 2016 Rules

2012-04-24T17:00:00.000-04:00

FHQ feels somewhat compelled to weigh in -- belatedly -- on the RNC meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona last week. This is especially true in view of the fact that the members present continued the consideration of the party's 2016 delegate selection rules. Look, both Zeke Miller and James Hohmann more than adequately covered the bases on what transpired/what was on the table at the meeting, so I'll take a step back and attempt to put all of this in context.

The news out of Scottsdale was more about what didn't change than it was about what might. There were amendments raised that would have recommended essentially reverting the overarching delegate rules structure to what it was in 2008 and before:

At a meeting here of the R.N.C.’s rules committee, members debated whether to abandon the proportional voting that gave Mitt Romney’s rivals the ability to try and accumulate delegates even as they failed to win the nominating contests.

Sue Everhart, a committee member from Georgia, proposed the change, citing concerns about the length of the competition. She suggested changes that would have allowed states to hold winner-take-all contests in 2016, potentially bringing the contest to a close more quickly.

But several members spoke in opposition to her proposal, saying the current process gives more voters an opportunity to participate in the nomination by creating a lengthier process.

...or that would have constrained the pool of candidates for RNC chair to just RNC members:

Indiana Republican Committeeman Jim Bopp introduced an amendment, nicknamed the Steele rule by at least one member of the committee, to require future chair people to be current members of the party’s governing body — a move opposed by many loyalists of Mitt Romney, who argued it would limit a president’s flexibility in appointing a political head of the party.

...

The vote amendment was too close to call in a voice vote, and was rejected narrowly as members made their choices known by standing.

The take home from all of this is that nothing really changed. Of course, nothing binding was going to come out of Scottsdale anyway -- No, not even that Romney pledge list. -- because all of this amendment proposing and voting was in the interest of formulating recommendations to be voted on by the entire convention in Tampa in August. After all it was four years ago that a similar meeting produced a recommendation for a rather sweeping revision to the Republican presidential nomination process: the Ohio Plan. That obviously did not pass muster at the St. Paul convention in 2008 and is a nice coda to what happened last week in Arizona. What happens in April doesn't always translate into fundamental change in August or September. However, big proposed changes in April can be thrown by the wayside while movement in the opposite direction -- no big changes from the RNC to a convention-led effort to change the process -- are much less likely. Presumptive nominees and the party typically sweep those sorts of things under the rug in an effort at party unity during the convention (see McCain/Ohio Plan in 2008 and Bush/Delaware Plan in 2000.).

There is a long way to go on the formation of the 2016 delegate selection rules. The RNC sent some signals last week, but that really is the extent of what Scottsdale meant. Change is unlikely unless it originates at these types of meetings, but it does not mean that it cannot or will not happen at the convention.

Recent Posts:
2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Pennsylvania

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Delaware

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Rhode Island

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2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Pennsylvania

2012-04-24T13:00:00.000-04:00

This is the thirty-third in a multipart series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation by state.¹ The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2012 -- especially relative to 2008 -- in order to gauge the impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. As FHQ has argued in the past, this has often been cast as a black and white change. That the RNC has winner-take-all rules and the Democrats have proportional rules. Beyond that, the changes have been wrongly interpreted in a great many cases as having made a 180º change from straight winner-take-all to straight proportional rules in all pre-April 1 primary and caucus states. That is not the case.

The new requirement has been adopted in a number of different ways across the states. Some have moved to a conditional system where winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon one candidate receiving 50% or more of the vote and others have responded by making just the usually small sliver of a state's delegate apportionment from the national party -- at-large delegates -- proportional as mandated by the party. Those are just two examples. There are other variations in between that also allow state parties to comply with the rules. FHQ has long argued that the effect of this change would be to lengthen the process. However, the extent of the changes from four years ago is not as great as has been interpreted and points to the spacing of the 2012 primary calendar -- and how that interacts with the ongoing campaign -- being a much larger factor in the accumulation of delegates (Again, especially relative to the 2008 calendar).

For links to the other states' plans see the Republican Delegate Selection Plans by State section in the left sidebar under the calendar.

PENNSYLVANIA

Pennsylvania is by far the most -- sorry New York -- interesting state of all the April 24 primary states. That was true a few weeks ago because Pennsylvania was viewed as the most competitive of the five states with primaries today. However, with homestate former senator, Rick Santorum, out of the running, some of the air was let out of the balloon in the Keystone state. The competitiveness is gone which leaves us with delegate allocation. And even though it might be close on the surface, the intricacies of the Pennsylvania method of delegate allocation (plus the dynamics of the race) make matters in the Commonwealth more noteworthy than the delegate rigamarole in neighboring New York.

FHQ should probably start by stating that the primary and delegate allocation in Pennsylvania are not meaningless. Now, that said, the results we will all be hearing about this evening will be meaningless, but the contest itself is not. What we'll all hear tonight will be who won the primary, but who won is slightly more complicated than the topline "who got the most votes" result. That outcome is not completely inconsequential, but is not that far off from that all the same.

Why?

The answer lies in the fact that a vote for Romney or Gingrich or Paul (or Santorum or Roemer, for that matter) has absolutely no bearing on how the Pennsylvania Republican Party allocates its delegates. Like Illinois, Pennsylvania is a loophole primary: Voters will cast a ballot for a presidential candidate of their choice, but the vote of consequence is the direct vote(s) for delegates. Unlike Illinois, the candidates to which the delegate candidates are aligned are not listed alongside those delegate candidates on the ballot.² The result is that Pennsylvania Republican primary voters are essentially casting a blind vote. Now, what typically happens in these loophole primaries -- whether in Pennsylvania or Illinois -- is that the establishment candidate is able to garner the most support of known political quantities either statewide or within a district. Voters tend to gravitate toward those folks: someone they know in a political capacity versus someone they don't know.

But in Pennsylvania in 2012 the apple cart has to some extent been overturned. [Fine. Jostled, perhaps?] No, Rick Santorum did not corner the market in his home state. It was far from locked down. What that leaves us with is a presumptive nominee who was organizing Pennsylvania delegates in 2011 versus an organized, albeit agenda-seeking candidate and Newt Gingrich. Now, FHQ would immediately discount Gingrich's chances, but in a low turnout environment with a presumptive nominee some within the Republican Party are lukewarm toward (and that is still being generous), all bets are not necessarily off.

Is FHQ saying that you should expect a Ron Paul upset this evening in Pennsylvania? No, I'm not. First of all, it will probably take a bit of time for the dust to settle (...and for some to realize that the primary "winner" is maybe not the delegate winner). But I will urge you to do a couple of test Google searches. Ah heck, I'll do them for you:

If you were a casual voter who wanted to figure out who the delegates were for each of the candidates -- and perhaps that is a stretch (Who are those voters?) -- you would have a much easier time coming up with the Ron Paul list of delegates than the Mitt Romney list of delegates. That yields a competition that pits name recognition (Romney) against organization (Paul). Typically -- historically -- the two would overlap or the latter would be unnecessary in a late and less-than-competitive primary where a presumptive nominee has been identified and all or most other candidates have dropped out of the race. In this instance, though, with turnout looking light at best, we may have a fairly decent test case of name recognition against organization.³

You may see folks late to the Pennsylvania coverage talking about how the Pennsylvania Republican delegates are unbound/uncommitted or, gulp, unpledged⁴ -- and they are -- but that glosses over the fact that while the linkage between candidates and delegates are unknown or less well known on the ballot, the delegates are more often than not aligned with one candidate or another and are likely to stick with their chosen candidate if elected. But as is the case with any unbound delegate, they are free to change their mind or switch allegiances at any time.

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Pennsylvania delegate breakdown:

72 total delegates
15 at-large delegates
54 congressional district delegates
3 automatic delegates

At-large allocation: The fifteen at-large delegates are elected at the June 23 state committee meeting. The primary has no bearing on how these delegates are allocated.

Congressional district allocation: The allocation described above refers to the direct election/allocation of the 54 congressional district delegates (three or four delegates in each of Pennsylvania's 18 congressional districts). UPDATE (4/24/12, 3:30p): As a point of clarification (as prompted by Joe Lenski), it should be noted that there are five congressional districts electing four delegates and 13 districts electing three delegates. Unlike Illinois, there was/has been no attempt made at squaring the overall in-state total of congressional district delegates to the number of delegates apportioned to the state by the RNC (based on the three delegates per district formula) in Pennsylvania. So whereas the Illinois Republican Party had a two delegate district for every four delegate district, there is no such balance -- averaging to three delegates per district -- in Pennsylvania. What that means is that there are five extra congressional district delegates beyond the RNC apportionment. That does not mean that Pennsylvania has 77 instead of 72 total delegates. It means, presumably, that Pennsylvania has 10 instead of 15 at-large delegates who will be selected at the June state committee meeting. The bottom line here is that there is a distinction to be made in Pennsylvania between the classification of the RNC-apportioned delegates and how the Pennsylvania Republican Party decides to both classify and allocate them (see Wyoming for another example of this).

Automatic delegate allocation: The three automatic delegates are free to endorse/pledge themselves to any candidate of their choosing. Pennsylvania Republican National Committeeman Rober Asher has already endorsed Mitt Romney.

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¹ FHQ would say 50 part, but that doesn't count the territories and Washington, DC.

² See one such sample ballot from Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Those two sections of the ballot -- presidential nomination candidate and delegate/alternate delegate are not even together. That is true in other counties as well.

³ It should be noted that getting the support of well-known folks as delegates is an act of organization, but in the case above organization refers to turning people out to cast well-informed (read: know who the delegates are for their candidate) to vote.

⁴ On the whole most of these delegates on the Pennsylvania primary ballot are pledged to a particular candidate. There may be some who are unpledged, but the best descriptor for Pennsylvania delegates is uncommitted. They are running uncommitted as they are not directly identified as aligned with any candidate or campaign.

Recent Posts:
2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Delaware

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Rhode Island

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Connecticut

Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Delaware

2012-04-24T10:30:00.000-04:00

This is the thirty-second in a multipart series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation by state.¹ The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2012 -- especially relative to 2008 -- in order to gauge the impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. As FHQ has argued in the past, this has often been cast as a black and white change. That the RNC has winner-take-all rules and the Democrats have proportional rules. Beyond that, the changes have been wrongly interpreted in a great many cases as having made a 180º change from straight winner-take-all to straight proportional rules in all pre-April 1 primary and caucus states. That is not the case.

The new requirement has been adopted in a number of different ways across the states. Some have moved to a conditional system where winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon one candidate receiving 50% or more of the vote and others have responded by making just the usually small sliver of a state's delegate apportionment from the national party -- at-large delegates -- proportional as mandated by the party. Those are just two examples. There are other variations in between that also allow state parties to comply with the rules. FHQ has long argued that the effect of this change would be to lengthen the process. However, the extent of the changes from four years ago is not as great as has been interpreted and points to the spacing of the 2012 primary calendar -- and how that interacts with the ongoing campaign -- being a much larger factor in the accumulation of delegates (Again, especially relative to the 2008 calendar).

For links to the other states' plans see the Republican Delegate Selection Plans by State section in the left sidebar under the calendar.

DELAWARE

Here we are staring an April 24 series of primaries in the face and the 2012 presidential primary calendar has its first real, honest-to-gosh, winner-take-all primary. Well, the First state will be the first Republican contest to allocate/bind all of its delegates to the winner of its presidential preference primary without some sort of caveat. In Florida and Arizona, all of the delegates were allocated to Mitt Romney, but both states were penalized. Both not only lost half of their delegates but their automatic delegates lost their convention voting privileges. Maryland allocated all of its delegates to Romney as well, but the former Massachusetts governor had to win each of the Old Line state's congressional districts to do so. In Washington, DC, Romney also won all of the delegates. Well, all of the non-automatic delegates from the District were bound to him while the automatic delegates remained unbound free agents. The situation was similar in Puerto Rico with the exception that the allocation was conditionally winner-take-all/proportional.²

But Delaware is the first state to allocate and bind all 17 of its delegates -- including automatic delegates -- to the winner of today's closed primary.

Delaware delegate breakdown:

17 total delegates
11 at-large delegates
3 congressional district delegates
3 automatic delegates

At-large/congressional district/automatic allocation: The winner of the primary -- whether by plurality or majority -- wins all 17 delegates from the state of Delaware.

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It should be noted that Newt Gingrich picked up the endorsement of Delaware Republican National Committeewoman Priscilla Rakestraw. However, should someone other than Gingrich win the Delaware primary, Ms. Rakestraw will be bound to the winner through the first ballot at the Tampa convention regardless of her preference.

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¹ FHQ would say 50 part, but that doesn't count the territories and Washington, DC.

² If you read that paragraph closely, note that Romney has done quite well in states that have allocated their delegates on a winner-take-all basis. In those states where conditionality rules have been triggered, Romney has been the beneficiary.

Recent Posts:
2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Rhode Island

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Connecticut

Race to 1144: MN, MO & WY Conventions

Are you following FHQ on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook? Click on the links to join in.

2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Rhode Island

2012-04-24T09:30:00.000-04:00

This is the thirty-first in a multipart series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation by state.¹ The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2012 -- especially relative to 2008 -- in order to gauge the impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. As FHQ has argued in the past, this has often been cast as a black and white change. That the RNC has winner-take-all rules and the Democrats have proportional rules. Beyond that, the changes have been wrongly interpreted in a great many cases as having made a 180º change from straight winner-take-all to straight proportional rules in all pre-April 1 primary and caucus states. That is not the case.

The new requirement has been adopted in a number of different ways across the states. Some have moved to a conditional system where winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon one candidate receiving 50% or more of the vote and others have responded by making just the usually small sliver of a state's delegate apportionment from the national party -- at-large delegates -- proportional as mandated by the party. Those are just two examples. There are other variations in between that also allow state parties to comply with the rules. FHQ has long argued that the effect of this change would be to lengthen the process. However, the extent of the changes from four years ago is not as great as has been interpreted and points to the spacing of the 2012 primary calendar -- and how that interacts with the ongoing campaign -- being a much larger factor in the accumulation of delegates (Again, especially relative to the 2008 calendar).

For links to the other states' plans see the Republican Delegate Selection Plans by State section in the left sidebar under the calendar.

RHODE ISLAND

For a state that is strictly proportional in terms of its delegate allocation, Rhode Island has some interesting contours. Sure, it is true that FHQ has said that about a great many "proportional" states, but the elections statutes in the Ocean state are clear in laying out the parameters of the presidential primary process and any resultant delegate allocation. In that way, Rhode Island is like neighboring Massachusetts or nearby New Hampshire. But instead of a 10% threshold for receiving delegates in New Hampshire, the threshold, as in Massachusetts, is set at 15% (see Rule 3.02).² ³

Rhode Island delegate breakdown:

19 total delegates
10 at-large delegates
6 congressional district delegates
3 automatic delegates

At-large and congressional district delegates: Mathematically, it will work out that a candidate who receives 40% of the vote will receive approximately 40% of the delegates from Rhode Island. Getting to that point, though, is not as easy. Another of the contours of the Rhode Island Republican delegate allocation is that instead of treating the total 16 delegates as a pool of delegates, they are divided across the two congressional districts. Each congressional district is allotted eight delegates which are then allocated to candidates based on their statewide share of the presidential preference primary vote. [This was different four years ago when there was an odd number of total at-large/congressional district delegates that had to be unevenly apportioned across districts.] If Romney, for instance, receives 40% of the vote, he will receive three delegates from each of Rhode Island's two congressional districts (about 40% of the delegates). Of the delegates filed by the Romney campaign in Rhode Island, the top three will be taken from each district's list.

Automatic delegates: All three automatic delegates are free to select a presidential candidate of their preference, and all three automatic delegates have endorsed Mitt Romney.

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¹ FHQ would say 50 part, but that doesn't count the territories and Washington, DC.

² Rhode Island Republican Party delegate selection rules:
2012 RIGOP Delegate Selection Process

³ Of course, if one looks at either Title 17.12 or Title 17-12.1 of the Rhode Island General Laws, there is no mention -- anymore (???) -- of "proportional" or "15%". [If you see any mention of either in the statutes, drop me a line. I've looked through them a few times now and have been unsuccessful.] Regardless, those are the rules the Rhode Island Republican Party is utilizing for its 2012 delegate allocation.

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2012 Republican Delegate Allocation: Connecticut

2012-04-24T08:30:00.000-04:00

This is the thirtieth in a multipart series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation by state.¹ The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2012 -- especially relative to 2008 -- in order to gauge the impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. As FHQ has argued in the past, this has often been cast as a black and white change. That the RNC has winner-take-all rules and the Democrats have proportional rules. Beyond that, the changes have been wrongly interpreted in a great many cases as having made a 180º change from straight winner-take-all to straight proportional rules in all pre-April 1 primary and caucus states. That is not the case.

The new requirement has been adopted in a number of different ways across the states. Some have moved to a conditional system where winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon one candidate receiving 50% or more of the vote and others have responded by making just the usually small sliver of a state's delegate apportionment from the national party -- at-large delegates -- proportional as mandated by the party. Those are just two examples. There are other variations in between that also allow state parties to comply with the rules. FHQ has long argued that the effect of this change would be to lengthen the process. However, the extent of the changes from four years ago is not as great as has been interpreted and points to the spacing of the 2012 primary calendar -- and how that interacts with the ongoing campaign -- being a much larger factor in the accumulation of delegates (Again, especially relative to the 2008 calendar).

For links to the other states' plans see the Republican Delegate Selection Plans by State section in the left sidebar under the calendar.

CONNECTICUT

FHQ took its stab at the Connecticut Republican Party delegate selection rules for the 2012 cycle back in October 2011 when the State Central Committee voted to change the rules.² That said, it is worth glancing at the changes one more time before the primary is all said and done. For the record, the Connecticut Republican Party has shifted from a plan similar to Maryland and Wisconsin to one that fairly closely resembles the plan in New York. In other words, instead of being winner-take-all both statewide and by congressional district, Connecticut is conditionally winner-take-all/proportional at the state level while remaining winner-take-all at the congressional district level. [Let's just shunt to the side the quirk in New York that has the Republican Party there apportioning two instead of three delegates to the old (pre-census) 29 districts instead of the new (post-census) 27 districts.]

The bottom line is that both Connecticut and New York are marginally more "proportional" than either was in 2008. Plus those sorts of changes have not had all that great of an impact yet and that is even more true in a scenario where Romney has all but been dubbed the presumptive nominee by the RNC.

Connecticut delegate breakdown:

28 total delegates
10 at-large delegates
15 congressional district delegates

At-large allocation: The ten at-large delegates are allocated winner-take-all if one candidate claims more than 50% of the vote, otherwise the delegates are allocated to the candidates clearing the 20% threshold in the statewide presidential primary vote. Even though Rick Santorum did not perform all that well in the other contests in the northeast, with him out of the race, the expectation is that the vote will begin to consolidate behind Mitt Romney. Is that enough to push the former Massachusetts governor over the 50% mark? Prior to the three April 3 primaries and before Santorum's exit, FHQ projected Romney to hit a 49% vote share in Connecticut.³ He doesn't have that much farther to go. Should Romney not make it, Ron Paul would be pretty close to the 20% threshold and claiming a proportional share of the delegates. The reality is that with Santorum out, both are likely to occur: Romney over 50% and Paul over 20%.

Congressional district allocation: This is pretty cut and dry: win the district -- by majority or plurality -- win its three delegates.

Automatic delegate allocation: The automatic delegates in Connecticut are unbound and free to choose any candidate they prefer. Connecticut Republican Party chair, Jerry Labriola, has already endorsed Romney. The two national committee members have yet to weigh in.

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¹ FHQ would say 50 part, but that doesn't count the territories and Washington, DC.

² Connecticut Republican Party Rules and Bylaws (see Article I, Section 17):2012 CTGOP Delegate Selection Rules

³ Ron Paul was projected at 16.6% and Newt Gingich at 9.2%.

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2012-04-23T08:30:00.000-04:00

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

Delegate breakdown (post-MN, MO & WY conventions):
Changes since Colorado, Minnesota and North Dakota state/district conventions (4/17/12):

Romney: +31 delegates (Wyoming: +14, Missouri: +12, Tennessee: +2, Arkansas: +1, Illinois: +1, Oregon: +1, Alabama: +1)
Santorum: +7 delegates (Missouri: +7)
Paul: +16 delegates (Minnesota: +10, Missouri: +4, Colorado: +2)
Gingrich: +/- 0 delegates (Missouri: +1, Alabama: -1)

"The Wyoming Republican Party chose 14 delegates Saturday to this summer's Republican National Convention and all of them are committed to support Romney. The state will send a total of 29 delegates to the RNC."

4) Two of the unpledged delegates coming out of the Colorado conventions a week ago are Ron Paul supporters.

"Todd King of Lewis and Luke Kirk of Bayfield, both supporters of Texas congressman Ron Paul, were elected delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., in August. They edged out the official slate of Romney delegates at Friday evening’s convention of 3rd Congressional District Republicans."

Don't be surprised when and if more of the other 12 unpledged Colorado delegates reveal themselves to be aligned with Paul.

5) The four congressional district conventions that have been held in Minnesota have favored Texas congressman, Ron Paul, thus far. Ten of his supporters won slots in the four conventions held over the weekend, bringing Paul's total delegates won in the North Star state to 20 -- half the total Minnesota delegation. The affiliation of the weekend's remaining two delegates are unknown.

6) In the eight Missouri congressional district conventions over the weekend, Mitt Romney won half of the 24 total delegates at stake. The other twelve delegates were divided among Santorum (7 delegates), Paul (4 delegates) and Gingrich (1 delegate). Romney swept all of the delegates in the 4th and 8th districts. Ron Paul did the same in the 5th district. Three candidates took delegates in each of the 1st and 6th districts while the final three districts elected Romney-Santorum slates.

7) The allocation of the delegates in Georgia is based on the most recent vote returns published online by the office of the Georgia Secretary of State. The allocation here differs from the RNC allocation in Georgia. The above grants Gingrich one additional delegate (which has been taken from Romney's total). Due to the way the Georgia Republican Party rounds fractional delegates, the FHQ count was off by one delegate (+Romney/-Gingrich). The congressional district count is unaffected (Gingrich 31, Romney, 8 and Santorum 3), but the way the at-large delegates are allocated to Gingrich and Romney -- the only candidates over 20% statewide -- is a bit quirky. Gingrich's portion of the vote would have entitled him to 14.6 delegates and Romney's 8.0. Under Georgia Republican rules, Gingrich is given 14 delegates and Romney 8. That leaves nine delegates unclaimed because the remaining candidates did not clear the 20% threshold. The candidate with the highest "remainder" is awarded the first delegate and the candidates over 20% trade turns until all of those delegates are allocated. Remember, Gingrich did not round up to 15 delegates (14.6), but that 0.6 gives him a larger "remainder" than Romney. The former speaker, then, is allocated the first of nine delegates. With an odd number of delegates leftover, Gingrich would have a fifth turn after Romney's fourth and that would end the allocation of those "extra" delegates. Gingrich would claim five to Romney's four. Of the 31 at-large delegates, Gingrich is allocated 19 and Romney 12. Please note that for winning the statewide vote, Gingrich is allocated the three automatic delegates. That makes the final allocation Gingrich 53, Romney 20 and Santorum 3. The RNC, though, has a different interpretation.

8) The Alabama primary results by congressional district have not been released by the Alabama Republican Party. UPDATE (4/23/12, 1pm): Admittedly, FHQ had not checked on the Alabama delegate situation in a while [BOO! -- But thanks to Matt for prompting me to check in the comments below.]. In the meantime, the Alabama Republican Party revamped their website and now glosses over the delegate allocation. The press releases section now skips from April to February in the inverted chronology with nothing from March. I was still unable to track down the certified results by congressional district, but there is a certified delegate allocation from the Alabama Republican Party floating around out there:
Alabama Republican Presidential Primary Certified Results

What was "preliminary" about the delegate list in the memo on March 23 was "confirmed" by the Alabama Republican Party on or around April 6.

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Another Weekend, Another Mixed Bag for Romney in Caucus State Delegate Allocation

2012-04-22T15:15:00.000-04:00

Not to completely beat this into the ground, but FHQ has attempted since Iowa on January 3 to point out that there are likely to be differences -- some significant, some small -- between non-binding precinct caucus results and the ultimate allocation of delegates across the handful of states with these caucus/conventions systems. With Rick Santorum having suspended his campaign, the balance will tip toward more significant differences rather than smaller ones (ie: Romney, as presumptive nominee, overperforming his straw poll showings at the precinct level), but with some variation. Hypothetically speaking, then, the baseline expectation is that the worse Romney did in the initial straw poll, the greater the turnaround will be for him when the delegates are actually allocated.

Now, FHQ is not going to formally test this -- not yet anyway -- but in eyeballing it, there is some evidence of this in the small group of caucus states to have finalized or partially finalized their delegate allocation.¹ In North Dakota, for instance, Romney turned a third place finish in the March 6 straw poll into an overall victory as measured in national convention delegates coming out of the state convention in the Peace Garden state. Stated differently, Romney received just a shade under 24% of the vote in the North Dakota straw poll, but won over 43% of the delegates at the state convention.

This is a small group of states, though, and there is evidence that the opposite has occurred as well: Romney not improving on an earlier (weak) performance. In a similar circumstance to North Dakota, Minnesota also saw Romney finish third in the February 7 straw poll vote. Unlike North Dakota, however, the congressional district delegate allocation has continued to go (overwhelmingly) against Romney. Instead of consolidating behind the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, nearly 85% of the delegates have gone to Texas congressman Ron Paul. That is a more than tripling of the level of support Paul garnered in the precinct caucuses.²

As compared to that baseline expectation above, we get less a picture of some sort of systematic, generalizable pattern and more of a sense that much of this variation -- the movement to and from candidates from the initial step of the process to the delegate allocation step -- is based on state-level quirks. And I don't know that that is all that unexpected. It speaks to the decentralized nature of the Republican nomination process, and by extension the differences across states in allocating delegates. That is why we have instances where Romney placed third in straw polls with under a quarter of the vote but ended up with 0% of the delegates in Minnesota and 43% in North Dakota.³

If those are the two extremes in the precinct caucus performance to convention allocation range, then there are a couple of states that fit somewhere in between; states where Romney crested above the 25% mark in the straw poll, but where the former Massachusetts governor has improved upon that in the allocation of delegates. Despite some mixed results in Colorado a week ago, Romney was still able to increase his 35% share of the straw poll vote to a nearly 45% share of the delegates allocated. In Missouri, Romney's doubled his 25% showing in the February 7 non-binding primary in the congressional district convention delegate allocation.⁴ Of the 24 delegates on the line across the Show Me state in eight congressional district conventions on Saturday, Romney supporters filled twelve slots.

Again, much of the variation is attributable to state-level factors. These are factors like the North Dakota Republican Party putting forth a delegate slate at their state convention that was heavily weighted toward Romney. Moving in the opposite direction, the fact that Paul-Santorum unity slates won 16 out of 21 congressional district delegate positions and 20 of the 33 total spots represents evidence of a lack of consolidation behind Romney in some of these states. And heading into the rest of the contests, what should we expect?

Continued variation.

Will state parties attempt to ram through Romney-centric slates as in North Dakota?
Will they have to or will there be any discernible consolidation behind Romney with or without such efforts?
Will Paul slates of delegates continue to work with Santorum leftovers like in Colorado?
Will those Santorum remainders take the seemingly pragmatic route and work with Romney unity slates as in several Missouri congressional district conventions?

There are still state conventions to be held in Minnesota and Missouri and state/district conventions to be held in Iowa, Maine and Washington (and Louisiana). With the exception of Missouri (see footnote #4), Ron Paul received anywhere from 21% of the vote at the precinct level (Iowa) to 34% (Maine). In tandem with the Santorum share of the vote, that creates a Paul-Santorum range of 46% (Iowa) collectively to 72% (Minnesota) where those Santorum folks are fairly consequential in determining the ultimate allocation. Siding with Romney is a vote for consolidation and party unity whereas a vote for Paul is a vote against Romney.

...just like what the Romney folks did to John McCain in siding with Paul delegates in Nevada in 2008.

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¹ At this point, that list includes Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota and Wyoming. Iowa, Maine and Washington have yet to reach either the state or district convention stages of their processes. The district conventions are held in conjunction with the state conventions in either May or June in each of those three states.

² Paul's delegate haul in the four congressional district conventions in Minnesota on Saturday (April 21) mirrored his performance in the four prior district conventions: ten Paul delegates, two non-Paul delegates. The Minnesota count as of now stands at Paul: 20, Santorum: 2, Gingrich: 1 and Unknown: 2 with 13 delegates to be selected at the state convention and two automatic delegates.

³ The process is complete in North Dakota, but the Minnesota process has just gotten through the district convention allocation stage. In other words, the process is not complete there. The 0% number should also bear some caveats. Two of the remaining four delegates that have been allocated in Minnesota are Santorum delegates allocated prior to this weekend. The final two are unknown in terms of their affiliation. They could be Romney supporters, but could be unaligned or aligned with another candidate. That 0% is based on what we know now: Romney has no clear delegates from Minnesota.

⁴ Missouri is slightly different from the other states in that the non-binding primary held there was not held in conjunction with the selection of delegates to move on to a subsequent step in a caucus/convention process. The Missouri Republican Party did not report results from the March 17 precinct caucuses where the delegate selection process began. If anything there is less of a link between the primary results in Missouri and the delegate selection than there is in the other non-binding caucus states without a primary. But without precinct-level caucus data, the primary results in Missouri are all we have in the way of comparison in terms of where the process began there.

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In Missouri, A Bill to Bind Delegates Based on the Presidential Primary; Not the Caucus

2012-04-19T14:00:00.000-04:00

Back at the end of March, Missouri state House member, Tom Flanigan (R-127th), introduced HB 2031. The intent of the legislation is to bind the delegates to the national conventions based on the results of the state-funded presidential primary.¹ Now, as one will recall, the Missouri presidential primary was only binding on the Democratic nomination race, but not on the Republican side. Since the Republican-controlled Missouri legislature could not agree on a date to which the presidential primary should be moved, the presidential primary remained in February; a date that was non-compliant with both national parties' delegate selection rules.²

The Missouri Democratic Party petitioned the DNC for and received a waiver to proceed with the February primary.³ Republicans in the Show Me state, however, had no recourse. With no waiver process in place on the Republican side and with the decision to remain in February resting [mostly] with Republicans in the state legislature, the Missouri Republican Party had a choice to make between sticking with the non-compliant February presidential primary -- which meant losing 50% of the delegation -- or shifting the the delegate selection and allocation to a caucus/convention system. The state party chose the latter, and that has not sat well at least some Missouri Republicans ever since.

Enter HB 2031. The language is simple (sections in bold are bill-based additions to code):

115.755. 1. A statewide presidential preference primary shall be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in February of each presidential election year.

2. The results of the presidential preference primary conducted under this section shall bind each party delegate on a first vote at the national party convention, and shall take precedence over any result of any presidential preference caucus.

However, that may be all that is simple about this legislation (...and why it is probably likely not to pass). Obviously, if this legislation were to pass and be signed into law it would create a conflict between the state government and the state party over the nature of the delegate selection/allocation process. And before FHQ gets too far into this, it should be noted that there are plenty of examples of state laws that dictate the delegate selection process. Massachusetts, New Hampshire and North Carolina, for instance, not only prescribe a threshold past which candidates receive delegates but also that the overall allocation be proportional to the vote in the primary election. The Missouri legislation lacks that specificity. That is not a problem in and of itself, but it does -- to FHQ's eyes anyway -- indicate the kind of ad hoc nature of this bill.

What makes such laws workable in Massachusetts or New Hampshire or North Carolina is that the state parties are fine with the delegate selection/allocation guidelines laid forth therein. There is no conflict. But if there was, the state party could/would take the state to court. And time and time again, courts have sided with the parties (see Tashjian and/or California Democratic Party v. Jones). The nomination process, after all, is a party function and the courts have established and reasserted the precedent that gives parties first amendment rights of free association that affects not only participation but other rules of nomination as well. While the three states above, then, have no internal conflict -- between state government laws and party guidelines -- Missouri would have such a conflict in the event that this legislation became law.

The Missouri Republican Party has been pretty clear about wanting to avoid sanctions from the RNC. That was the point of the -- from their vantage point -- temporary switch to a caucus/convention system for delegate allocation in 2012. The Republican-controlled legislature, on the other hand, could not decide what to do with the primary once the original to-March bill was vetoed. Neither Republican caucus -- in the House or Senate -- could come to terms on moving the primary back, keeping it where it was or as a last resort, canceling it for 2012 altogether. And if FHQ had to bet on the outcome of this new bill to bind the delegates based on the February 7 primary, I would wager on it getting bogged down somewhere along the line in the legislature.

Time is short anyway. Missouri Republican Party district-level conventions are this weekend and the state convention is June 2. On top of that, the bill was just referred to committee on April 18 and the legislative session is due to expire on May 18.

To quote George Costanza: "Prognosis Negative."

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¹ The bill also corrects a contradiction in the election codes that refers to the presidential primary on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in March. That section was not altered in the 2002 legislation that moved the presidential primary from March to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in February for the 2004 cycle.

² The legislature did pass legislation to move the primary back to March, but that legislation was vetoed by Governor Jay Nixon (D) because it contained a provision that would have stripped the governor of some of his/her appointment power (in the event of a vacancy to statewide office).

³ The argument for the waiver was that the primary being scheduled in February was a matter that was out of the hands of Missouri Democrats -- both the party and the Democratic members of the legislature. The national party's decision was made that much easier by the fact that the Democratic nomination race was not competitive. In other words, the fallout from such a decision did not clearly benefit one candidate over another. For a situation where competition mattered in such decision-making, see the Florida example from 2008.

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