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Follow Up on Maine Republican Caucuses: Results on February 11

2012-01-27T16:00:00.000-05:00

In response to an email inquiry from FHQ, Maine Republican Party Executive Director Mike Quatrano indicated that while the Maine caucuses will begin this weekend and not end until March 3, the results will still be released as planned on February 11. The three caucus sites that have opted to hold later caucuses -- Rome on February 16, Aurora/Amherst, Eastbrook, Franklin, Mariaville and Osborn collectively on February 18, and Castine on March 3 -- have thus opted not to take part in the official straw poll to be taken and reported on February 11. The presidential preference results released that day -- two weeks from Saturday -- will only include the presidential preference votes from the municipal caucuses held on or before February 11.

NOTE: This walks back and clarifies at least one comment FHQ made in our initial post about the Maine Republican caucuses starting this weekend. [Mainly, that the results will not be held until those final three caucus meetings can take place as originally speculated.]

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Possible Repeal Would Place Ohio Presidential Primary Back in March for Future Cycles

2012-01-27T11:30:00.000-05:00

Before FHQ gets into this, let me state that none of the following would in any way affect the date of the 2012 Ohio presidential primary. Ohio will hold its presidential primary on March 6, 2012.

Last year the Ohio legislature passed a controversial elections bill that would have impacted absentee voting and restricted early voting. The bill also shifted the presidential primary in the Buckeye state from the first Tuesday in March to the first Tuesday in May. It was the other provisions that led to a petition drive to place the new election law on the November 2012 ballot. That has implications for when future presidential primaries will be held in Ohio. The primary issue came back up in the discussions around the redrawing of the congressional district lines in the state and was placed back on the original early March date in a round of late-December 2011 legislation, but only for the 2012 cycle.

That would put the scheduling of future presidential primaries in Ohio in limbo until at least November when voters will either confirm or reject the new law. The former would move the primary to May while the latter would keep the primary in March.

However, an alternative option has been raised by Ohio Secretary of State John Husted. Secretary Husted has brought up with members of the Ohio legislature the idea of repealing HB 194 before it appears on the ballot. Such a move, if proposed, passed and signed into law, would make March the regular date for the presidential primary in Ohio in 2016 and beyond. And barring further action by the legislature on the full host of issues contained in the new law, that would be where the primary would stay. Now, given Secretary Husted's comments today, it is not a foregone conclusion that the legislature would not address some of the early and absentee voting provisions in the law, but it would seem unlikely that legislators would address the primary date again. The catalyst for the primary date change was the looming possible fight over new congressional districts. Secretary Husted in January 2011 cautioned that a primary date change may be necessary for local and state elections officials to get prepared for the 2012 primaries -- particularly the new districts. [Yes, the fight went into December and the primary remained on March 6.]

But long story short, a repeal of the legislation would take the future primary date issue out of limbo, but of course, leave open the option for the legislature to revisit the matter prior to 2016, if they so chose. But with no further redistricting on the horizon between now and, say, 2015, there is and would be no impetus for a change.

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Pair of Introduced Bills Would Eliminate Idaho Presidential Primary

2012-01-26T16:00:00.000-05:00

Last week the Idaho House State Affairs Committee introduced two pieces of legislation that would eliminate the Gem state presidential primary. Idaho Democrats for years have used a caucus as a means of allocating delegates to the national convention and Republicans in the state opted to follow suit for 2012, abandoning the mid-May primary. That cleared the way for the presidential primary line to be removed from the May ballot on which are choices for state and local office nominations as well.

The first bill, H 391, would simply strike the references to the presidential primary from the existing elections code while the second, H 392, would strike those references but also move the primaries for state and local office from the third Tuesday in May to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in August in even years.

This will have no bearing on the 2012 presidential primary calendar as both Idaho political parties have already decided to hold caucuses, but the change -- if passed -- would remove the presidential primary line from the primary ballot whether that election takes place in May or August. That distinction will become clearer when and if one of these two bills passes the legislature and is signed into law.

Thanks to Richard Winger of Ballot Access News for passing along the news of these bills.

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Maine Democrats to Caucus on February 26, but...

2012-01-26T15:15:00.000-05:00

...those municipal caucuses will not serve as the first determining step in the Maine Democratic delegate selection process.

FHQ just spoke with Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Mary Erin Casale about the apparent date change and the motivation behind the move. The Maine Democratic Party Executive Committee made the decision to shift to the earlier date and that move was finalized at the State Committee meeting on January 22. [It should be noted that the call to the Maine Democratic Convention posted on or before January 9 mentioned the February caucus date.] The primary motivating factor behind moving the Democratic municipal caucuses from March 11 to February 26 was that the earlier caucuses would help down-ballot candidates for state House and Senate collect the required signatures ahead of a March 15 deadline. The earlier organizing effort would mean that there is more time in which to complete the collection.

Whether for the presidential delegate selection process or those down-ballot races, the move to February 26 raises another set of questions. Namely, either A) does the move to a date before March 6 require a waiver from the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (Was it granted?) or B) in what other way does the move comply with the Democratic National Committee's rules on delegate selection? According to Ms. Casale the first determining step -- the one the Democratic Party eyes in these matters of compliance -- will not occur at the February 26 uniform municipal caucuses. There is no required presidential preference vote at those meetings, but caucusgoers and potential delegates to the next step in the process are free to make their preference known. This is all made easier by the fact that President Obama is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination. The official first step will occur during county meetings to occur throughout March but after March 6; the earliest date on which non-exempt states can hold a primary or caucus according to the DNC rules. That keeps the state party in compliance with the national party rules. Delegates to the state convention will be chosen at the county meetings.

Since the Maine Democratic caucuses on February 26 will produce no presidential nomination results, FHQ will keep Maine as a March state on our calendar and maps. Maine differs from Minnesota in that the latter will actually have a presidential preference vote at the state-funded caucuses on February 7, but the results will not be affirmed until March 6.

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Race to 1144: South Carolina Primary

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Race to 1144: South Carolina Primary

2012-01-26T12:00:00.000-05:00

A few thoughts on the South Carolina results:

[For a view of the state of the overall race for the Republican nomination after the South Carolina Republican primary, see our earlier post.]

1. The streak is over. [See link above for why.] South Carolina Republican primary voters have enjoyed a three decades long streak of picking the ultimate nominee. [NOTE: That streak is only five cycles long: 1980, 1988, 1996, 2000 and 2008.] With an anti-establishment winner, South Carolina voters shed the formerly pragmatic streak they once collectively held. Of course, John McCain cut it quite close four years ago in South Carolina; winning by only an approximately three percentage point margin. Of course, Mitt Romney outperformed his 2008 total in the Palmetto state, but underperformed McCain's (establishment) total as well.

Looking at South Carolina long term in the presidential primary process, I don't know that this result is enough of an indictment on the state than, say, what happened in the Iowa Republican caucuses. Neither is going anywhere. However, as I heard on the radio and TV reports surrounding the primary in a state just thirty miles away, this is it for South Carolina. The general election will not bring the presidential candidates back to the state. And that is what separates the Palmetto state from the other three "carve out" states. Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada can claim to be or have recently and fairly consistently been competitive general election states. That is a good argument to take to the national parties: organizing for the primary/caucus equals early organizing for the general election. South Carolina cannot make that argument, but on the flip side of the coin, it has been able to make the argument of being the conservative firewall that typically sends the frontrunner -- and presumptive nominee -- off to other states heading in the right direction. The state also, given its first in the South moniker, also gives voice to southern voters, a valuable constituency within the party. Finally, while the presidential nominees won't return to South Carolina in the fall, the early organizing -- it could be argued -- would help in down ballot races there. ...it could be argued.

2. Romney effect. FHQ has not seen this theory postulated anywhere else -- forgive me if it has been written or said elsewhere -- but I'm wondering if it is possible that something akin to the Bradley effect is going on with Mitt Romney. Before I explain let me say that what we saw last Saturday in South Carolina could have been nothing more or less than undecideds breaking for Newt Gingrich on election day. After all, Romney's support in the state didn't shrink so much as flatline as the election grew near. That said, Public Policy Polling consistently found in South Carolina that while there was some discomfort with the idea of a Mormon president, there was a three-fifths to two-thirds majority of respondents who were not bothered by that notion in the least. But in a race in which "anti-religious bigotry" has made an appearance in the rhetoric, I'm curious if there may have been at least some social desirability bias involved here; that respondents who might otherwise answer in the negative to that question might feel pressured, in the interest of not seeming intolerant, to say the Mormon issue is not bothersome. [Yes, PPP utilizes telephone robocalls to administer their surveys, so that removes that particular layer from this equation.]

It is too true that this -- the Mormon comfort question -- is a step removed from the response on the candidate choice question, but still, the thought has crossed my mind. A couple of other points on this issue: A) This is harder to examine in a multi-candidate primary setting than it would if we had just two candidates left. B) This potentially dovetails nicely with FHQ's "southern question" as this phenomenon, I would suspect, would be more pronounced in the South than elsewhere in the country. [I'm open to counterpoints on that hypothesis, though. Thought exercise.]

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Hover over the columns for delegate (and delegate type) totals.

Source:
Contest Delegates (via contest results)
Automatic Delegates (Democratic Convention Watch)

[NOTE: There is still no allocation of delegates in Iowa. FHQ is looking at you, uh, most major news outlets. Iowa's delegates will be allocated in June at the state convention and will go to Tampa unbound.]

The race for delegates has also tightened up post-South Carolina.

Gingrich and Romney both added one automatic delegate each in the lead up to or immediate aftermath of the South Carolina primary.
The primary netted Gingrich 23 delegates -- by virtue of having won the statewide vote and the congressional district vote in six of South Carolina's seven districts. Mitt Romney seemingly won the first district and its two delegates.
NOTE: Please note that there is nothing official being reported by the South Carolina State Elections Commission in terms of the congressional district by congressional district vote. In large part that is due to the fact that the current (newly redrawn) districts are being challenged in court and may [MAY] change. Depending on the outcome of that case and any subsequent redrawing of the lines, the allocation may also change. [The new lines were precleared by the Obama administration's Department of Justice.] As of now, FHQ will treat the allocation as if the new boundaries will hold. We shall see.

See previous results here:
New Hampshire
Iowa (certified)

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Maine GOP Begins Caucusing Saturday

Musings on the Republican Nomination Race, Post-South Carolina

Race to 1144: Iowa Caucuses Redux

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Maine GOP Begins Caucusing Saturday

2012-01-25T10:45:00.000-05:00

In the midst of some research on the filing deadlines -- grand manifesto in filing to come later -- FHQ happened upon the state party site devoted to the Maine Republican caucuses (information on locations, dates, times, etc.). What I found was fairly interesting and obviously isn't being talked about probably outside of the Pine Tree state. As it turns out, Maine Republicans in a few towns will caucus this Saturday (January 28). The original plan I spoke with the Maine Republican Party about back in September revolved around the idea of holding caucuses within a window from February 4 and February 11 with a big reveal on that final date. That is still mostly true as most of the caucus venues will hold party meetings within that window. However, there are a few caucuses that branch out quite far from those two bookend dates. The collective caucus Lincoln, Lowell, Burlington, Chester, Enfield, Winn and Howland will take place the Saturday and the precinct caucus process will not officially wind down until the caucuses in Castine take place on March 3.

Now, this is not all that unusual. Well, it is unique, but it isn't unprecedented. Caucus states will often not have a uniform date for caucuses at the precinct or county level. That said, that phenomenon is typically limited to caucus states of the in-party (in the White House); especially in those cycles where there is no competition for the in-party nomination. Those state parties have little incentive to force precinct caucuses onto one date or a small window of time because the results are not all that consequential outside of choosing delegates. The news is not needed, in other words, to update a ongoing delegate count.

But the Maine Republican Party will begin caucusing this weekend and not be able to report final official results until the weekend immediately prior to Super Tuesday (March 6). That is not to suggest that results won't trickle out over the course of that month long period, but they will not be complete results until March.

[The three "overflow" caucuses will not take part in the official straw poll. Those results will still be released on February 11.]

Now, which candidate will make a last minute trip up to Penobscot County before Saturday?

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Musings on the Republican Nomination Race, Post-South Carolina

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Of Course Rick Santorum Won Iowa...

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Musings on the Republican Nomination Race, Post-South Carolina

2012-01-23T10:30:00.000-05:00

Where do we go from here?

Following the Gingrich victory in South Carolina, the race for the Republican presidential nomination has taken yet another turn. And this time, for the first time since probably early December, the contest is lodged in the gray area between being a momentum contest¹ and a delegate counting contest.² Truth be told, the line is often blurred between those two distinctions. Most nominations in the post-reform era have tended to be momentum contests with a frontrunner -- having been established in the invisible primary -- winning early and often and using those early wins as springboard into a Super Tuesday series of contests to build a seemingly insurmountable lead (both in momentum and in delegates).

Due to the way the primary calendar is set up in 2012 and the current fits and starts nature of the dynamic in the race, however, this cycle is shaping up differently. The notion of Mitt Romney sweeping or nearly sweeping the January contests and putting the nomination race to rest are gone -- even with a Florida win. But the idea of a momentum contest -- one that will typically develop behind the frontrunner, no matter how nominal -- is not completely dead. Romney remains the frontrunner. The former Massachusetts governor is viewed as the establishment choice and is the only candidate to this point to have placed in the top two in each of the first three contests. He is still the favorite to build a consensus around his candidacy -- just not as much as he was in the five days or so after the New Hampshire primary.

But the question remains just how will Romney, or any other candidate for that matter, build a consensus and win the nomination. There are two main avenues from FHQ's perspective; one narrow and one fairly broad. The narrow path to the nomination is that Mitt Romney bounces back from the South Carolina primary, wins Florida, uses his organizational advantage over Gingrich and Santorum in the February caucus states, and then wins in Arizona and Michigan. The broader path is one that devolves into a contest-by-contest struggle; a battle for delegates the end game of which is the point where one candidate has a wide enough delegate margin that cannot be overcome given the number of delegates to be allocated remaining. [See Norrander, 2000]

FHQ is conservative in how we approach these things. Our basic rules of thumb are: 1) No option is off the table until it is off the table. 2) Past precedent tells us that the frontrunner usually ends up the nominee. [See, Mayer 2003] Now, past is not necessarily prologue, especially when the dynamics, calendars and rules differ across such a comparatively small number of observations in the post-reform era. But in this case, FHQ sees the narrow path described above as the likely outcome; more likely than the delegate counting route.

The hold that has on our thinking, though, is very tenuous indeed. It is not far-fetched to see Romney rebounding from South Carolina to win in Florida on January 31. It is not far-fetched to foresee the former governor parlay that win into wins in the remaining February contests -- though that mid-February gap in the calendar is a great unknown in terms of these calculations. Previously, FHQ has argued that that February period with no contests would put significant strain on candidates financially. That view was predicated on a Romney (near-)sweep in January forcing amped up pressure on the remaining candidates to drop out. Gingrich's South Carolina win alleviates some of that potential pressure. A win allows a non-frontrunner candidate in these early stages to get his or her foot in the door for arguing viability. Romney, then, would have a more difficult time shutting the door on Gingrich and to some extent Santorum (if he can survive that long). [Ron Paul is in it for the long haul. That is why this discussion is light on the Texas congressman.]

But even a February sweep -- if we are constraining our view to the narrow path to the nomination -- is likely not enough to close this out for Romney or more to the point, to force the others from the race. There is one lingering question coming out of South Carolina that cannot be answered until Super Tuesday/March 6 at the earliest. Even if Romney wins all of the February contests he is still vulnerable to the charge that he has not won in the South; a core constituency within the Republican Party.³ Now, that is not to suggest that Romney as the Republican nominee would struggle in the South in the general election. Yet, not winning in the reddest region of the country in the primary phase does signal that the part of the core of the party is not on board with the former Massachusetts governor's nomination. That may or may not be enough to "veto" a Romney nomination, but it does provide his opponents with a solid argument for staying in -- particularly if it is the same candidate (presumably Gingrich) winning there.

The other layer to this -- the one about which FHQ has received the most inquiries since Saturday -- how the rules for delegate allocation begin to affect all of this. To reiterate an earlier point, the rules are the exact same as they were in 2008 in each of the states with contests prior to March. To the extent we witness differences, it will be due to the dynamics of the race and not the delegate allocation rules. The changes brought about because of the new "proportionality" requirement on the Republican side begin to kick in once the calendar flips to March. Now, it is still too early to tell what impact those rules will have. Mainly, that is due to the fact that we just don't know which candidates -- or how many candidates, really -- will still be alive at that point. The modal response from the states to the RNC proportionality rule was to make the allocation of delegates conditional on a certain threshold of the vote. If a candidate receives at least 50% of the vote, then the allocation is winner-take-all (or the at-large delegate allocation is winner-take-all). But if no candidate crosses that bar, the allocation is proportional (overall or for just the at-large delegates). The more candidates that survive, in other words, the more likely it is that the allocation is proportional. It would be more difficult for one candidate to receive 50% of the vote. The double-edged sword of proportional allocation is that while it may make it harder -- take longer -- for the leading candidate to reach 1144 delegates (if triggered), it also makes it more difficult for those attempting to catch the leader as well. The margin (of delegates) for the winners is often not that large.

Taken together, the South questions and the proportionality requirement jumble the outlook for this race. Romney may or may not be required to win in the South to win the nomination. But winning there would go a long way toward forcing other candidates from the race and preventing the nomination from falling into a delegate count. The problem is that those two things -- the race turning South again and the potential proportionality kicking in -- hit at the same point. And that leaves us with any number of permutations for directions in which the race could go, whether taking the narrow path or broad path.

Will the rules matter? They always do, but they will really matter when and if Romney is unable to rebound and run off a series of February wins. That is what we should be looking at now.

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¹ Defined by a candidate sweeping or nearly sweeping the early contests to overwhelm his or her opponents.

² Defined by a candidate at some point beyond the first handful of contests either crosses the 50% plus one delegate threshold or develops a big enough lead to force his or her opponents from the race at some point outside of the first handful of contests.

³ There are no southern primaries or caucuses after South Carolina until a series of contests on March 6.

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Race to 1144: Iowa Caucuses Redux

2012-01-20T12:15:00.000-05:00

[An earlier version of the above total showed Mitt Romney with 29,305 votes instead of 29,805 votes.]

Though the newly certified results from the Republican Party of Iowa in no way affect the delegate total from the Hawkeye state, FHQ would like to take the opportunity -- pre-South Carolina primary -- to update both the vote totals from the Iowa caucuses and the delegate totals as they have shifted due to the developments this week.

John Huntsman has not issued any public release of his two New Hampshire delegates and as such, those two delegates remain in his column. Again, this [the release] is based on New Hampshire state law.
Rick Perry also had delegates, but since they were automatic delegates there was no binding mechanism behind their support. [That is true of most automatic delegates.] Unbound as they are, those three delegates are now free agents following Perry's withdrawal from the race; free to choose whomever they please. One, Henry Barbour, has already opted to side with Mitt Romney.
Newt Gingrich has also picked up an automatic delegate.

Source:
Contest Delegates (via contest results)
Automatic Delegates (Democratic Convention Watch)
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See also: New Hampshire results

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Of Course Rick Santorum Won Iowa...

About Those Two Huntsman Delegates

Louisiana Republican Caucuses Slated for April 28

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Of Course Rick Santorum Won Iowa...

2012-01-18T12:00:00.000-05:00

...but Mitt Romney did, too.

Both were able to beat the medium term expectations that had developed around their campaigns relative to the Iowa caucuses.¹ Part of the story coming out of the Hawkeye state was the closeness of the top two, and while that is a fun footnote -- or will be in the history books -- to the caucuses, the main stories from FHQ's perspective were that Santorum was able to become the top not-Romney in the state and that Romney, despite the underlying demographics of caucusgoers, was able to finish in the top tier. Santorum exceeded expectations and Romney -- even in the worst case scenario -- either met, by being in the top tier, or exceeded expectations.

Whether the two flip flop their positions in the Iowa GOP-certified results this week will do little to change the dynamic that has developed in this race: Romney is the frontrunner and Santorum's name is on more lips and in more minds post-Iowa than they would have been if he had finished behind Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry on the night of January 3. Going back and trying to rewrite the story based on the shifting of less than 100 votes or so in the margin will have very little effect on what's going on now. Rick Santorum would still face the same sort of questions Mike Huckabee faced four years ago (Specifically, can insta-organization compete with the well-oiled machine of a well-financed frontrunner?), and Mitt Romney would still have -- at the very worst -- met expectations in the first two states while his rivals, with the exceptions of Paul in both Iowa and New Hampshire and Santorum in Iowa, underperformed.

This would have been a fun question -- the type Public Policy Polling likes to throw into their surveys from time to time -- to include in a South Carolina or Florida poll. My strong hunch is that it would make very little difference in vote choice in either the Palmetto or Sunshine state.² The only time that this might have mattered was in the early morning hours of January 4. Good luck constructing that counterfactual. If anyone is able to, please let me know. I want to check out your time machine.

"Stop the inevitability narrative in its tracks"? Eh, probably not. It may be a speed bump, but more like one of those varmints Mitt Romney once hunted than an elk or moose in the headlights.

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¹ By medium term I mean something akin to a rolling average of expectations over time; something that is not susceptible to an outlier survey's snapshot of the race.

² Granted, I think it would be difficult to determine whether that was actually part of a voter's decision-making calculus anyway. ...but that's a whole different can of worms from the political science/public opinion literature.

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About Those Two Huntsman Delegates

Louisiana Republican Caucuses Slated for April 28

A Follow Up on South Carolina Republican Delegate Allocation

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About Those Two Huntsman Delegates

2012-01-17T15:15:00.000-05:00

FHQ does not want to press upon our readers the delegate math -- especially when it may [MAY] not prove all that consequential in ultimately determining the Republican presidential nominee -- but to the extent that examples arise that further our knowledge of the process, we will take the time to attempt to explain what's going on. Case in point: Remember those two delegates John Huntsman won in New Hampshire last week? What now becomes of them?

The answer lies in the very same statute -- referenced in the New Hampshire delegate allocation primer from December -- that determines the proportional allocation of delegates in the Granite state, Chapter 659, section 93 of Title LXIII (Elections). Part VI of that code establishes the following:

If a presidential candidate has received a share of the delegates as a result of the presidential primary but withdraws as a presidential candidate at any time prior to the convention, his pledged delegates shall be released by the candidate and each delegate is free to support any candidate of his political party who may be his choice as a candidate for president.

Now, John Huntsman ~~withdrew from the race~~ suspended his campaign on Monday (January 16) and immediately endorsed Mitt Romney. However, that endorsement does not automatically shift the two delegates Huntsman won to Romney. Free of the bond of the candidate to whom they were pledged, those two delegates are free to support any candidate they choose -- independent of each other -- in between now and the convention in Tampa. In other words, the delegate pledge is not transferable when and if a withdrawing candidate endorses a still-competing candidate. The reality is that those delegates are very likely to be Romney supporters in the end. But there is no formal route for that endgame. Those two delegates may remain unpledged heading into the convention and support the presumptive nominee there, or they could stick with Huntsman or move now to any other candidate and hold that preference up to and through the roll call vote at the convention. The former is most likely, but a move to Romney -- in the interest of unity -- now would not be at all surprising either.

NOTE: For now those two delegates will remain in Huntsman's column until the point at which there are reports that those delegates have pledged to support another candidate.

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A Follow Up on South Carolina Republican Delegate Allocation

Race to 1144: New Hampshire Primary

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Louisiana Republican Caucuses Slated for April 28

2012-01-16T18:00:00.000-05:00

In a press release today, the Louisiana Republican Party indicated that it would hold April 28 congressional district caucuses to begin the process of allocating its 18 congressional district delegates.¹ [The 25 at-large delegates are allocated and bound according to the whether a candidate or candidates break a 25% threshold in the March 24 presidential primary.] Four years ago the district caucuses preceded the presidential primary by a couple of weeks, occurring on January 22 in between the South Carolina Republican primary and Florida primary. The 2008 Louisiana primary did not occur until the Saturday after Super Tuesday.

There has been some on again/off again chatter that the Louisiana Republican Party would reprise that January contest in 2012, but a conflict over the number of state delegates Louisiana was apportioned by the Republican National Committee kept the scheduling of the caucuses in limbo until last week.² It was at that time that the RNC -- during the winter meeting in New Orleans last week -- halted the state party plan to hold caucuses in the seven congressional districts in existence prior to the 2010 census instead of the six in place post-census. In terms of the delegate total, Louisiana would have netted an additional three delegates, but again the RNC shot that down.

The Louisiana GOP, then, will hold a March 24 primary for the purpose of allocating at-large delegates and then a month later, hold district caucuses in the six congressional districts on April 28. The actual delegates will be selected at the June state convention, but only the at-large delegates will be bound based on the results of the March primary.

Thanks to Kevin Yeaux for passing this news along.

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¹ Below is the "Louisiana Caucus Date" press release from LAGOP:

Dear Louisiana Republicans:

The Republican National Committee met in New Orleans on Friday and cleared the way for states like Louisiana to bind delegates to presidential candidates according to the results of presidential primaries. This ruling confirmed our ability to move forward under our current rules.

The RNC has also ruled that Louisiana must conduct delegate elections in its six new congressional districts instead of the seven current districts. This action deprived our state of three additional delegates that we feel we are entitled to. We were disappointed by this decision.

Regardless, it is now time to move forward with our delegate selection process.

The Republican Party of Louisiana will conduct congressional district caucuses on Saturday, April 28, 2012 for the purpose of electing delegates to the Louisiana Republican State Convention. Delegates to the Republican National Convention will be elected by the State Convention on June 2nd in Shreveport.

Louisiana voters affiliated with the Republican Party on or before December 15, 2011 are eligible to participate in the caucuses.

Caucus voting will be conducted between 8:30 a.m. and 12:00 noon. Any qualified voter who is in line at noon will be allowed to vote. Voters are not required to stay for a meeting in order to vote. Voters will elect 25 delegates and 12 alternates from their new congressional districts. Each person may cast votes for up to 25 candidates for delegate and up to 12 candidates for alternate.

In order to run for state convention delegate or alternate, candidates must qualify with the Republican Party of Louisiana. There will be two methods of qualifying. Those who desire to qualify online may do so on April 10-12, 2012. Online qualifying will end at 5:00 p.m. on April 12th. Names of candidates who qualify online will be listed online so that they may verify that their registrations have been received. Those who do not want to register online and those wishing to pay for one or more candidates by check may deliver registration forms and checks in person on Tuesday, April 10, 2012, between 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. at Republican Party of Louisiana Headquarters, 530 Lakeland Drive, Suite 215, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The registration fee for a candidate for state convention delegate is $200. The fee to run for alternate is $75. Qualifying forms and caucus locations will be published in the weeks ahead.

Voters will be assigned to one of approximately 30 voting sites across Louisiana. In most cases, entire parishes will be assigned to one site. At some sites, voters from more than one congressional district will vote. When voters sign in, they will be provided the appropriate ballot for their congressional district. Voters are required to provide a photo ID in order to obtain a ballot. Voter registration cards are not required for check in, but we encourage voters to bring one in case there is any question about their eligibility to participate.

Delegates and alternates to the Republican National Convention will be selected on June 2, 2012 at the Louisiana Republican State Convention in Shreveport by state convention delegates. It is not necessary to be a state convention delegate in order to be elected as a national convention delegate. Qualifying procedures for national delegate and alternate will be announced at a later date.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,
Roger F. Villere, Jr.
Chairman

² In fact, it was during Ron Paul's post-Iowa introduction by his son -- one that mentioned moving on to a group of early state contests that included Louisiana -- that made FHQ wonder if Louisiana Republicans were once again preparing for January caucuses.

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A Follow Up on South Carolina Republican Delegate Allocation

Race to 1144: New Hampshire Primary

#spsa2012

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A Follow Up on South Carolina Republican Delegate Allocation

2012-01-13T12:30:00.000-05:00

Iowa...New Hampshire...on to South Carolina.

FHQ has fielded several questions over the last several days on how exactly the South Carolina Republican Party will allocate its apportioned delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa following the sanctions that cut the Palmetto state delegation in half. We have already covered what the South Carolina Republican Party rules have to say on the matter -- exempt from the new proportionality requirement and winner-take-all statewide and by congressional district -- but that does not give us any clear indication of how the process would work once the penalty has been levied against the state delegation.

FHQ exchanged emails with South Carolina Republican Party Executive Director Matt Moore earlier this week, and he confirmed that the party would use the same rules it used in 2008 under similar circumstances. Instead of having 50 total delegates with 26 at-large delegates allocated winner-take-all based on the statewide vote and an additional 21 delegates (3 delegates per each congressional district) allocated winner-take-all according to the vote on the congressional district level, the formula will reduce by nearly half the those totals while remaining winner-take-all.

Here's how it works:

The three national delegates -- to which the SCGOP rules do not refer -- are eliminated in any state violating the RNC rules on presidential primary timing. The SCGOP chair and both the Republican National committeeman and committeewoman will still go to the convention but will not have voting powers on the floor.
Instead of apportioning 3 delegates per congressional district, under the penalties, the South Carolina Republican Party will allot each district two delegates. That reduces the number of congressional district delegates from 21 to 14 -- a reduction of only one-third.
The statewide at-large delegate total will bear the brunt of the penalty; decreasing from 26 delegates to just 11. That is a penalty of more than half of the original total of at-large delegates. The winner of the statewide vote -- whether by plurality or majority -- will be allocated all 11 delegates.

Again, this was the same method of delegate allocation that the SCGOP used following the penalties imposed when the state party moved the Palmetto state presidential primary into January in 2008. The result was that John McCain won 18 of the available 24 delegates -- 12 for the statewide win while splitting evenly the six congressional district votes with Mike Huckabee for the remaining 6 delegates. A narrow win (~4%) in 2008 netted McCain a 3:1 advantage in the delegate count coming out of the state. The statewide at-large delegates make the difference.

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Race to 1144: New Hampshire Primary

#spsa2012

Do the Republicans Have a New Hampshire Problem?

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Race to 1144: New Hampshire Primary

2012-01-12T09:00:00.000-05:00

#spsa2012

2012-01-10T15:15:00.000-05:00

Let's take a break from New Hampshire for a moment to talk about the Southern Political Science Association meeting in New Orleans starting on Thursday. I'll be heading down to participate in a roundtable discussion -- No, I'm not actually presenting. -- called The Role of the States in the 2012 Presidential Primaries and General Election Campaigns on Thursday afternoon. [I have no idea what I'll talk about, but a discussion that includes Paul Gurian, John Aldrich, Jim Campbell and Tom Holbrook -- not to mention that FHQ guy -- can't be all that bad.]

But I'll be roaming the halls of the Hotel Intercontinental taking in the most recent in (primarily) campaigns and elections research and hopefully -- time permitting -- blogging some about it as well. With that in mind, I have a request. For all you political science types and other gluttons for punishment are there any other panels about which you would like to hear more? Here's the preliminary program. Have a glance around and let me know if anything piques your interest. I'll try and fit in what I can.

Also, I have already had one request to record the aforementioned discussion. If that happens, I'll post that here.

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Do the Republicans Have a New Hampshire Problem?

Past Performance in Presidential Primaries as a Benchmark in Future Contests

The Psychology of the 2012 Republican Nomination Coverage

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Do the Republicans Have a New Hampshire Problem?

2012-01-10T14:00:00.000-05:00

I love, love, love this question from Jonathan Bernstein.

I mean, after all, if we are all going to be subjected to incessant questions about the rightward skew Iowa was supposed to have on the 2012 Republican nomination race, is it not also fair to inquire about the moderating influence New Hampshire -- with all its independents voting in the only-game-in-town Republican primary -- on the race as well? There are at least a few -- and that's probably understating it -- folks within the Republican Party and the Republican primary electorate that would and do have an interest in the process producing the most conservative nominee (or a nominee more conservative than Mitt Romney).

Now, Jon goes on to rhetorically ask about the possibility of Republicans reforming the system to that end: punishing New Hampshire for having an open contest. A few things:

1. Broadly, FHQ feels the same about New Hampshire's position on the calendar as I do about Iowa's. Neither is going anywhere. But I don't know that this was Jon's intent in posing this particular question, but I thought I'd throw it out there. ...just because.

2. Now, on this point of punishing, things get tricky. The main question is how? How would conservatives attempt to punish New Hampshire or other similarly open states toward the beginning of the primary calendar -- where it matters most? Let me answer that but then take a step back and answer a few broader but related questions. On the how, I don't think we have to look much further than the new "proportionality" requirements handed down by the RNC for the 2012 cycle. The intent there was to marginally slow the process down, engender some competition and build from that grassroots enthusiasm a core of support for the general election campaign (see Democrats, 2008). Theoretically, then, there could be a similar rule that only allows "closed" states to occupy the spots at the front of the calendar.

The only problem -- well, problems really -- is that that represents opening a Pandora's box of hurt that the RNC would never want to open. The simple truth of the matter is that the RNC -- or the DNC for that matter -- could turn the screws on the state parties and get them to comply with such a rule. But there would have to be a consensus within the national party that that was the right course of action; that potentially taking on state parties or state governments in court was/is wise. There is no such consensus. In fact, during the meetings of the Republican Temporary Delegate Selection Committee during 2009 and 2010, Saul Anuzis, former chair of the Michigan Republican Party and current national committeeman from the Wolverine state, was asked via Twitter if closing the primaries was on the committee's agenda. The answer?

"no...that is up to the states."

Short, sweet and to the point. There is no desire among the group of people within the RNC charged with the task of examining these rules to close off primaries. And I dare say, by extension, there is no desire to punish states that are not completely closed off to only partisans registered to the Republican Party. If there is any desire, it is not present in enough of the decision-making body to push the change through.

Now, where we could see some change potentially is from within the New Hampshire Republican Party. The rules that make the primary in the Granite state both proportional and semi-open are based on state laws -- not state party rules. That arrangement is in good stead so long as both parties -- the state and the state party in this case -- are amenable to its provisions. Traditionally, everything has been kosher. But there is nothing to stop the Granite state Republican Party from challenging that. Time and again, based on a party's first amendment right to the freedom of association, the courts have sided with the parties on the questions of rules regarding nominations (see Tashjian). As long as the underlying rule is not discriminatory, it typically passes muster with the courts under the rationale that the parties should be allowed to craft the rules that determine who represents the party in a general election.

On that point, though, in New Hampshire, FHQ is not aware of any problem within the Republican Party there with business as usual in regard to the presidential primary. If it ain't broke -- and the primary is still first -- don't fix it.

So, do Republicans have a New Hampshire problem? Perhaps, depending upon whom you ask. [It is a great question.] But if they do, there is really no recourse that doesn't involve a lot of pain getting there. And in a game -- nominating presidential candidates -- where consensus and consensus building is the objective, the last thing a party wants to do is negatively affect the unity of voters behind the nominee or that state parties have behind the party.

Recent Posts:

Past Performance in Presidential Primaries as a Benchmark in Future Contests

The Psychology of the 2012 Republican Nomination Coverage

Housekeeping: Flip Flop

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Past Performance in Presidential Primaries as a Benchmark in Future Contests

2012-01-09T18:00:00.000-05:00

Fair or not (and FHQ leans to the latter), Mitt Romney's vote total/percentage last week in Iowa being so close to the former Massachusetts governor's total/percentage from the caucuses in 2008 has set off at least some expectations-setting chatter about the now-versus-then in other states. FHQ has followed the presidential primary process for a long time and I don't know that I have ever seen this particular metric pop up in the past. The reality is that we just simply don't have that many viable but ultimately failing candidates from one cycle coming back to be viable candidates in the immediately subsequent cycle (emphasis on viable and immediately).

The best corollaries we have in the post-reform era on the Republican side are Ronald Reagan (1976 and 1980), George H. W. Bush (1980 and 1988), Bob Dole (1988 and 1996) and John McCain (2000 and 2008).¹ And right off the bat, one gets into all the "yeah, buts". In Reagan's case, the race was a two person battle between the would-be 40th president and the sitting, but unelected president, Gerald Ford. That two person contest is tough to equate with the multi-candidate race in 1980. For the remaining examples, there is a lag that encompasses three total presidential election cycles instead of two back-to-back. In other words, the comparisons are being made with eight years, not four, in between the two points of observation.

To FHQ, these sorts of benchmarks are very tricky because of how many caveats can be involved. Are they more trouble than they are worth? Let's have a look at the early states with similar positions on the calendar from one comparison point to another for Republican candidates, 1976-2012:

Candidate/ Year/ State	% of vote (point #1)	% of vote (point #2)	Won State (point #1)	Won State (point #2)	Mulit-candidate? (point #1)	Mulit-candidate? (point #2)	Dem. Race? (point #1)	Dem. Race? (point #2)	Open Primary?
Past Primary Performance by State (Early) in Republican Races (1976-2012)
Reagan (1976/1980)
Iowa	43	30	--	--	--	√	√	√	√
New Hampshire	48	50	--	√	--	√	√	√	√
Massachusetts	34	29	--	--	--	√	√	√	√
Florida	47	56	--	√	--	√	√	√	--
Bush (1980/1988)
Iowa	32	19	√	--	√	√	√	√	√
New Hampshire	23	38	--	√	√	√	√	√	√
South Carolina	15	49	--	√	√	√	√	√	√
Dole (1988/1996)
Iowa	37	26	√	√	√	√	√	--	√
New Hampshire	29	26	--	--	√	√	√	--	√
South Dakota	55	45	√	√	√	√	√	--	--
South Carolina	21	45	--	√	√	√	√	--	√
McCain (2000/2008)
Iowa	5	13	--	--	√	√	√	√	√
New Hampshire	48	37	√	√	√	√	√	√	√
South Carolina	42	33	--	√	√	√	√	√	√
Romney (2008/2012)
Iowa	25	25	--	√	√	√	√	--	√
New Hampshire	32	??			√	√	√	--	√
South Carolina	15	??			√	√	√	--	√
Florida	31	??			√	√	√	--	--

Now, everyone will probably get the most out of the first few columns with the vote percentages and win rates. But I'm hard-pressed not to include other relevant considerations here like whether or not the race was a multi-candidate race, which party had nomination races and whether or not the state had an open/semi-open/semi-closed primary allowing particularly independents to vote. Again, if there are multiple candidates, then there are more candidates vying for a piece of the pie. The result is typically, but not always, a smaller share of the vote for the winner (and other participants). That Reagan's percentage of the vote in New Hampshire went up between 1976 and 1980 despite the race having gone from two candidates in the former to multiple candidates in the latter is noteworthy, for example. That the former president went down in Iowa under similar circumstances is more understandable.

Additionally, the combination of if the Democratic Party simultaneously held a contested nomination race and if any given state allowed independents to vote in the primary matters. If, in one cycle Democrats were involved and peeled votes away from the Republican contest in an open state, but were not in the next contest of comparison, it could have an impact across races/cycles. There are not all that many examples of this occurring as the Democratic Party has had so many contested nomination races in an otherwise Republican era of presidencies. 1996 offers our best hope, and Dole's numbers went up in South Carolina from a Democratic-contested year like 1988 to one where the Republicans were the only game in town in 1996. FHQ is skeptical just how much of an impact the presence of Democrats in 1988 and their absence in 1996 had on that. [Overall, this is a factor that is likely to play a larger role -- hypothetically -- in New Hampshire if it was to play a role at all. There's no evidence of that above.]

As for whether a candidate improved or declined from cycle to the next in the early states, it is a coin flip in the 14 state cases above. In seven cases, the candidate improved and in the remaining seven cases the candidate lost ground from one cycle to the next. And not even a tiebreaker works if one wants to throw Romney's Iowa performances into the mix. Romney essentially tied his vote percentage from 2008 last week in Iowa. Five of the cases saw an improvement from one cycle to the next lead to a victory for a candidate. But in four other cases, candidates lost ground and either won or still won across the sequential comparison points.

But the question remains: Is this a good metric for setting expectations much less examining performance for a repeat candidate across cycles? The record is mixed, but if ever there was a candidate/cycle combination where it would work, it would be Romney in 2012. But FHQ just isn't sold on whether even that would be effective. So, while we will hear at least some discussion about Mitt Romney's share of the vote -- particularly in New Hampshire tomorrow -- in 2008 (32%) as a means of setting the expectations for the former Massachusetts governor in 2012, it may be flawed simply because independents will flock to the Republican contest while the Democratic primary remains idle.

Fair or not, when you are the frontrunner and basically playing a home game all comparison points will be examined.

...and FHQ is fine with that so long as caveats are added.

--
¹ Incidentally, along with Romney (2008 and 2012) that is all of the competitive Republican nomination races in the time since the McGovern-Fraser reforms.

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The Psychology of the 2012 Republican Nomination Coverage

2012-01-09T13:00:00.000-05:00

Last night Nate Silver tweeted:

Starting to think that "25% is a ceiling for Romney" is the most overrated/incorrect meme of the cycle.

To which FHQ responded:

The 25% ceiling combined with the "proportional" rules changes has built a powerful myth in this race.

I'm sure that the 140 characters or less captured my thoughts parsimoniously enough, but let FHQ expand upon that statement because it has an overarching bearing on the psychology of the coverage of this race. Look, FHQ has railed against the myth of Republican proportionality since February of last year. That many have ignored the rules changes and more importantly their potential impact relative to the rules in past cycles has propped up this illusion that the Republican presidential nomination process just has to extend longer than in the past. It might but that notion is no more inevitable than a Mitt Romney nomination at this point. Well, in actuality, it is less likely as the two are mutually exclusive.

But there it is in the backs of the minds of a great many folks. That perception that the race is likely to continue -- and it stretches into the campaigns themselves. In combination with the all-too falsely concocted idea that Romney has a ceiling in this race, the proportionality/protracted campaign myth creates the perception that not only will the race go on, but that there is a significant faction of Republican primary voters opposed to Romney. Now, that perceived divisiveness on top of a lengthy nomination fight is the stuff that sells papers and magazines and gets people to click on any given link, but it doesn't really capture the true nature of the race currently. It just doesn't.

I don't know that it is the ceiling so much as the talking point surrounding the converse -- that 75% of the electorate is in opposition to Romney -- is the crux of the problem. Truth be told, up to 75% of the Republican primary may be in opposition, but the number is likely much lower. Many voters are still shopping around and as the field continues to winnow and when and if Romney continues to win contests, most are going to move over to the former Massachusetts governor. They just are. Most Republicans will line up behind the presumptive, near-inevitable, last one standing -- whatever you want to call it -- nominee.

To be sure, there are simultaneously stories out there discussing Romney's inevitability alongside those mentioning a protracted fight and that sets up the two sides of a media coverage spectrum. The needle is moving more and more toward inevitability now despite the myths that have propped up Romney's limited reach among Republicans and a rules-induced lengthy battle for the nomination.

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[2012 Presidential Primary Calendar in Review] Part 3: Where We Go From Here -- The 2016 Presidential Primary Calendar

Minnesota Democrats Set for February 7 Caucuses

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Housekeeping: Flip Flop

2012-01-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

[Fun experiment: Who thought this was going to about Mitt Romney? It isn't.]

This change was inevitable, but since primary season has kicked off and since more and more people are/have become interested in what the dates of the other primaries are, FHQ is going to switch the links to the "clean" and marked up versions of our 2012 presidential primary calendar. The rationale is that we don't want to completely overwhelm/confuse people with information when their intent is to simply find out when the Virginia primary is or when Maine Republicans will caucus.

Rest assured, a link to the marked up version will continue to be embedded in the main link into which most will enter the site.

You can find those links here:

Marked up
Clean

--
Josh

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[2012 Presidential Primary Calendar in Review] Part 3: Where We Go From Here -- The 2016 Presidential Primary Calendar

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[2012 Presidential Primary Calendar in Review] Part 3: Where We Go From Here -- The 2016 Presidential Primary Calendar

2012-01-06T13:45:00.000-05:00

This is the third part of a three part series on the development of the 2012 presidential primary calendar and its implications. Part one provided the legislation that was introduced within state legislatures during the 2011 sessions to shift the dates on which the various states hold their presidential primaries. Part two examined the motivating factors behind the movement. Part three will look forward to the next cycle.

What look back at what the presidential primary movement for 2012 hath wrought would be complete without a look at what the law changes made in 2009-11 portend for 2016? Here is what the 2016 presidential primary calendar would look like given the state of election law in the various states as of today. The links should take you to the relevant passages in each state's election law covering the primary date. [NOTE: There are a few that default to Lexis Nexis results that may or may not work for everyone. Please just let me know where that is the case and I'll provide the text in a footnote later.]

The 2016 calendar will have a permanent home here.

2016 Presidential Primary Calendar

February

Tuesday, February 2:
Colorado caucuses¹
Minnesota caucuses²
Missouri
Utah³

Tuesday, February 23:
Arizona
Michigan

March

Tuesday, March 1:
Colorado caucuses¹
Massachusetts
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Texas
Vermont
Virginia

Tuesday, March 8:
Alabama⁴
Hawaii Republican caucuses
Mississippi

Tuesday, March 15:
Illinois

Saturday, March 19:
Louisiana

April

Tuesday, April 5:
Maryland
Washington, DC
Wisconsin⁵

Tuesday, April 26:
Connecticut⁶
Delaware
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island⁷

May

Tuesday, May 3:
Indiana
North Carolina

Tuesday, May 10:
Nebraska
West Virginia

Tuesday, May 17:
Kentucky
Oregon

Tuesday, May 24:
Arkansas

June

Tuesday, June 7:
California⁸
Montana
New Jersey⁹
New Mexico
South Dakota

Primary states with no specified date:
Florida
Georgia
Kansas¹²
New Hampshire
New York
Ohio¹³
South Carolina

Without dwelling on something that is WELL before its time, FHQ should note that those February states are only problematic in 2016 if the two parties' delegates selection rules mirror the rules from the 2012 cycle. They may or may not. The real problem children, if you will, are the primary states without specified dates for 2016. As of January 2012 they are the free agents for the 2016 primary calendar and the ones that may bear the most intense watching between now and mid-2015. That said, first things first: The first step is a set of rules from the DNC and RNC. We have a ways to go before the parties settle on/finalized something on that front (2014).

--
¹ The state parties have the option of choosing either the first Tuesday in March date called for in the statute or moving up to the first Tuesday in February.
² The state parties must agree on a date on which to hold caucuses by March 1 in the year prior to a presidential election. If no agreement is reached, the caucuses are set for the first Tuesday in February.
³ The Western States Presidential Primary in Utah is scheduled for the first Tuesday in February, but the contest will only be held on that date if the state legislature decides to allocate funds for the primary.
⁴ The online version of the newly changed statute regarding the presidential primary election date in Alabama has not been updated at the time of writing. The legislation changing the primary date (HB 425) was to have taken effect upon signing according to the enrolled version of the bill.
⁵ See definition of "Spring primary" for clause dealing with the timing of the presidential primary.
⁶ The online version of the newly changed statute regarding the presidential primary election date in Connecticut has not been updated at the time of writing. The legislation changing the primary date (HB 6532) was to have taken effect as of July 1, 2011 according to the enrolled version of the bill.
⁷ The online version of the newly changed statute regarding the presidential primary election date in Rhode Island has not been updated at the time of writing. The legislation changing the primary date (H 5653, S 399) was to have taken effect upon signing according to the enrolled version of the bill.
⁸ The online version of the newly changed statute regarding the presidential primary election date in California has not been updated at the time of writing. The legislation changing the primary date (AB 80) will take effect on January 1, 2012 according to the a list of bills enacted in 2011.
⁹ Legislation passed (A 3777) during the 2011 session removed references to the separate presidential primary from the law. The primary referenced in the statute references all primaries in New Jersey.
¹² Kansas has not held a presidential primary since 1992. Funds have not been appropriated by the legislature for the primary since that time. That said, there are laws in place providing for a presidential preference primary. Assuming funding, the Kansas secretary of state has the option of choosing a date -- on or before November 1 in the year preceding the presidential election -- that either coincides with at least 5 other states' delegate selection events or is on the first Tuesday in April or before.
¹³ Depending on the outcome of the ballot initiative in November, Ohio will have either a first Tuesday after the first Monday in March or first Tuesday after the first Monday in May primary date. If the law created by HB 194 is upheld, the primary will move to May. If not, the primary law should revert to the previous March date called for. None of this precludes the Ohio legislature from revisiting all of this prior to the 2016 election.

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Minnesota Democrats Set for February 7 Caucuses

2012-01-06T12:00:00.000-05:00

The revised and presumably final delegate selection plan for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor has been posted on the party website.¹ The party will use the February 7 precinct caucuses called for by state law in the Land of 10,000 Lakes; a change from the March 6 caucus date previous plans had proposed. The presidential preference vote taken on February 7, according to the plan, will be affirmed at the Organizing Unit Conventions on March 6.

As FHQ discussed when the original Minnesota delegate selection plan was released back in the spring of 2011, this is a work-around to allow the vote to take place on the caucus date specified by law, but for the results to be revealed once the vote is affirmed/finalized on March 6.

Now, some may say that this is a potential slippery slope for the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee (for the RBC to have approved this plan). Perhaps, but FHQ is willing to wager that any state that might try this in the future -- particularly in a future competitive race where the method of allocation may matter -- is likely to be met with resistance from the RBC. First of all, the argument can be made by the committee that with Obama being the only (viable?) candidate on the ballot, that he will receive all of the votes anyway. But I doubt the RBC would have to resort to that argument anyway. FHQ doesn't have access to the waiver request submitted by the Minnesota DFL, but I suspect the argument there had little if anything to do with the competitiveness of the Democratic presidential nomination race than it dealt with the fact that a Republican-controlled legislature blocked last-minute efforts to change the provision in the presidential caucus law triggering the first Tuesday in February date. That point is key. That is the out that the DNC delegate selection rules provide: If efforts were made by Democrats in the state to schedule a compliant contest, but the decision was out of their hands, then a waiver can be granted (Rule 20.C.7).

A tip of the cap to Tony Roza over at The Green Papers for passing this news along.

--
¹ Below is the revised Minnesota DFL delegate selection plan:
2012 National Delegate Selection Plan Revised for DNC 2012-01-04

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[2012 Presidential Primary Calendar in Review] Part 2: How We Got Here -- The Motivation

2012-01-05T16:00:00.000-05:00

This is the second part of a three part series on the development of the 2012 presidential primary calendar. Part one provided the legislation that was introduced within state legislatures during the 2011 sessions to shift the dates on which the various states hold their presidential primaries.

Let's explore the factors that motivated state-level actors to change -- or want to change in some cases -- the dates of the presidential primaries and caucuses, shall we?

The rules
The single biggest factor affecting the 2012 primary calendar was the rules. As FHQ has discussed more times than I can even begin to try and link back to, the two national parties informally coordinated the basic skeleton of a calendar in the midst of shaping their respective rules governing the 2012 delegate selection process. The formula was simple: Bring the process back from the brink of seeping into the year before the presidential election by mandating a February starting point for the four so-called carve-out states -- Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina -- and setting the first Tuesday in March as the earliest point any other state could hold a delegate selection event.

As the entirety of this blog in 2011 will attest, it didn't really work out that way. Arizona, Michigan and then Florida forced Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina into January and Nevada up against the wall of compliance in early February. But to focus on that handful of states -- however consequential to the process -- is to turn a blind eye to the majority of the primary and caucus movement that took place in 2011. After Arkansas and Illinois fled February with legislation in 2009 and 2010 respectively, there were 20 states that had to either change election laws or state party bylaws in order to comply with the new guidelines on the timing of primaries and caucuses. Of those 20 states, 15 saw shifts backward as compared with the position they occupied on the 2008 primary calendar. Of the other five, Florida created a commission that placed the Sunshine state primary on the same date the old election law would have scheduled the primary, Minnesota's two major parties failed to collectively choose a date before March 1, 2011 and triggered the first Tuesday in February date, Colorado Republicans opted for the earlier of the two dates allowed for the two major parties to hold caucuses, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer flirted with a January date before settling on the default date for the presidential primary called for in state law and Michigan Republicans, citing other primaries on the same date, kept its primary on the fourth Tuesday in February date called for in state law. Every other primary state -- and one caucus state (Hawaii) with a date specified in state party bylaws -- took a step back.

[NOTE: With rare exception, this just includes primary states where the presidential primary dates is outlined in state election law. There are also a handful of caucus states where the dates are dictated by state election law or specifically spelled out in party bylaws. The above does not include caucus states where the dates may have changed 2008-to-2012, but not because of an alteration to state party bylaws. FHQ will pick up on those states below.]

Additionally, several other states that did not have to make changes to comply with the new national party rules on delegate selection opted to move back.

In most cases, the rules are a necessary and sufficient explanation for why states shifted back, but those guidelines do not completely explicate just how far each state decided to move back. For that, let's look a bit deeper at some additional factors.

Partisan concerns
FHQ has made this point before, but the distance traveled from the 2008 primary calendar to 2012 for most states can best be explained by partisan reasons. In short, Democratic-controlled states that moved, moved back further than Republican-controlled states. In some ways this is related to the rules. Democratic-controlled states (see most of the states now occupying the April space on the calendar), spurred on by the rules granting them bonus delegates for settling in on April or later dates and the fact that there is nothing on the line in the race for the Democratic nomination. As an aside, it also worth noting that there was at least one report that the DNC was urging states -- particularly northeastern, Democratic-controlled states that might otherwise be strongholds for a Romney campaign in the Republican nomination race -- to move to later dates. By extension, that would have theoretically made it more difficult (or at least take longer) for Romney to wrap up the nomination by making it more likely for a more conservative candidate (someone easier for Obama to defeat in the fall) to emerge. Looking at those April states, it is hard not at least lend some credence to that Globe story.

The flip side of this is that Republican-controlled states motivated to give Republican voters in their states a voice in the nomination were motivated by the newly altered delegate selection rules to move back but only back as far as was necessary to comply with those rules. The result is that we see mostly Republican-controlled states occupying March with mostly Democratic-controlled states in April and in some cases later.

This is easier to visualize on a map.

[NOTE: Like the presidential primary calendar map, the map above bisects states where there are different dates for the contests held by the two parties. Those states left in white are states that either did not move relative to 2008 or defied the national party rules by holding January or February contests. States shaded in red are states that moved into to March dates on the calendar (predominantly Republican-controlled states), while blue states are states that shifted to April or later dates on the calendar (mostly Democratic-controlled states or state parties in the case of caucuses).]

The economy/budgetary concerns
One other driving force in the primary movement witnessed between 2008 and 2012 was that state-level financial distress stretched to the implementation of state election law. Stated slightly differently, states, because they were attempting to stay out of the red, more readily considered consolidating the presidential primary elections with the primary election for other offices or canceling the presidential primary outright as a means of cutting spending. This is or is not a big factor depending upon how you want to view the movement. In terms of the number of states where budgetary constraints played a role, their impact was limited. Kansas and Washington cancelled their presidential primaries and Alabama, California and New Jersey consolidated their presidential primaries with those primaries for state and local offices.¹

That is not an expansive list on its face. However, the sizes of the delegations combined with the extent to which those three primary states moved back had a significant impact on the underlying delegate calculus of the Republican race. Alabama uprooted both its presidential primary (February in 2008) and primaries for state and local offices (traditionally in June) and consolidated the two elections in March. California and New Jersey, on the other hand, moved only the presidential primary; shifting them from February all the way to the end of the calendar in June. The California move alone fundamentally changes the delegate acquisition calculus. It fairly significantly shifted the point at which any one candidate can surpass the 50% plus one delegate barrier, much less the point when 50% of the delegates will have been allocated. In 2008, that latter distinction was met on Super Tuesday (February 5). The point at which 50% of the delegates -- regardless of which candidate they are bound to -- will not be hit in the Republican race until late March in the 2012 race.

Depending on how one measures impact on this front, budgetary concerns had small to medium role in the 2012 primary movement. It pales in comparison to the overarching rules or the underlying partisan motivations, yet for the first time in FHQ's memory the finances behind implementing presidential primary elections was talked about in a number of states and actually greatly factored into the calculus of a limited number of states and their decision-making calculus.

[NOTE: This is a phenomenon that is limited to primary states where state governments tasked with setting the dates could be motivated by the savings associated with combining the presidential primary with another separate primary election. Caucus states, where the decision to set the date rests with the state party, will cost the party the same amount no matter what date is chosen. There is rarely or never an option to combine it with another caucus or party function.]

Lawsuits/redistricting
The final factor to account for in the total overall primary and caucus movement on the 2012 presidential primary calendar was legal challenges to redrawn congressional district lines. Legal challenges to both a perceived vote suppression law and then the law containing new US House district boundaries -- both laws that contained provisions shifting the date of the presidential primary -- had the Ohio presidential primary all over the place for much of 2011. At various points, the presidential primary in the Buckeye state was in March, May and June before finally settling in right where the primary would have been before the effort to alter the date was begun back in the spring. Ohio, then, was a noisy non-move. Texas, though, looked to hold down the same first Tuesday in March date that it occupied and shared with Ohio in 2008. Court challenges to the Republican-drawn congressional districts forced the traditionally consolidated primary in the Lone Star state back by four weeks to the first Tuesday in April in late December 2011.

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All told, 32 states/state parties moved back their primaries and caucuses in 2012 relative to their calendar positions in 2008. And while there are exceptions (see primary states Texas and Wisconsin and caucus states like Colorado (D), Utah (D) and Maine (D)), the amount of movement appears to be driven most by intra-state partisan control while budgetary and legal issues played a secondary role in the formation of the primary calendar. Obviously the overall movement back is unusual given the frontloading trend witnessed in the post-reform era; a process that culminated with the 2008 calendar where had most of the action (number of contests) pushed into the first five weeks of the year. That is not the case in 2012. The contours of the primary calendar are much more like 1976 than they are 2008. Given a competitive race in 2012, that could create a longer period before a nominee is identified. However, as much of the post-reform era has demonstrated -- assisted by an increasingly frontloaded series of calendars -- early knockouts are still very much possible. (see Norrander 2000)

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¹ The cancelation of presidential primaries in Kansas and Washington requires a more nuanced discussion. In neither case was that decision all that consequential. In Kansas, the April primary called for in state law has not been allocated funding from the Kansas state legislature since 1992. The cancelation of the primary is a quadrennial rite going on for two decades now. The decision to cancel the primary in Washington was predicated on the past practice by both parties to either not use of barely used the presidential primary as a means of allocating delegates. Washington Democrats historically have not used the primary and in 2008 the Republican Party in Washington used both a primary and a caucus to allocate approximately 50% of their apportioned delegates. One quarter of the actual delegate allocation across both parties is not -- at least not in the eyes of Washington legislature -- a wise way to spend $10 million. Thus they scrapped the primary for 2012.

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2012 Call for the Republican National Convention

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2012 Call for the Republican National Convention

2012-01-04T22:00:00.000-05:00

Call of the 2012 Republican National Convention

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Race to 1144: Iowa Caucuses

2012-01-04T19:30:00.000-05:00

FHQ will let the graphics speak for themselves here. However, I did want to make a statement about the delegate totals below and Iowa last night. There are a few things to know about the delegate selection process the Republican Party of Iowa utilizes. First of all, there were NO delegates at stake last night. Second, the 28 delegates Iowa was apportioned by the Republican National Committee will be selected at the state convention in June. Third, every delegate selected in June will go to the Republican National Convention in Tampa unpledged. Finally and relatedly, there is no formal method -- winner-take-all or proportional -- for allocating those delegates. They will remain unbound.

All of that makes the CNN delegate total FHQ has seen cited several times today all the more frustrating to see. It is a myth rooted in fantasy. That the cable network has tentatively allocated/projected the Iowa Republican delegates proportionally is misleading and it is irresponsible. There is no mention of proportionality anywhere in the Constitution and Bylaws of the Republican Party of Iowa. Period. As such, what you see below is a delegate total that is comprised of the 15 automatic delegates who have endorsed a candidate to this point and are not bound by the results of a presidential primary or caucus.

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Source: Democratic Convention Watch

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Follow Up on March Arizona Democratic Caucuses

2012-01-04T17:00:00.000-05:00

Before the holidays, FHQ had the opportunity to speak with Arizona Democratic Party Executive Director Luis Heredia about the state party decision to abandon the February primary for late March caucuses. The motivation(s) for the move was obvious. The primary, scheduled for February 28 would have been non-compliant given the DNC rules on the timing of delegate selection events. That would have potentially cost the state half its delegation to the Democratic convention in Charlotte. But as FHQ pointed out in the earlier post on the move, since the state government is controlled by the Republican Party -- both a Republican governor and a Republican-controlled legislature -- the decision on when the primary would be held has been out of the hands of Arizona Democrats all year. That could have been grounds for the submission of a waiver similar to the ones applied for by both Missouri and Minnesota.

I was curious if a waiver had been considered. Mr. Heredia told FHQ that the idea was out there but was never really considered by ADP. Furthermore, the party had in place a plan to shift to a caucus as early as May when its draft delegate selection plan was submitted to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee. The party, however, waited on both the drawn out process of setting the date of the Arizona presidential primary and the redistricting situation to resolve itself -- considering a ballot proposition if the Republican challenge to the commission-drawn districts had been successful -- before pulling the trigger on the primary to caucus change.¹Like Democrats in Michigan, ADP also considered but ultimately did switch to a caucus and tweak Arizona Republicans over the $5 million price tag on the primary.

Regardless, the Arizona Republican Party will utilize the February 28 primary while Democrats in the state will begin the delegate selection process on March 31 in caucuses.

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¹ The Arizona Democratic Party State Committee made the decision on November 21, 2011.

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In Search of Ron Paul Delegates, 2012 Edition

2012-01-04T12:00:00.000-05:00

Look, FHQ agrees with Jon Bernstein: Ron Paul will not be the Republican presidential nominee. However, I think that he is underestimating the impact of the not-so-secret Paul delegate strategy that is being talked about in some quarters today. The only problem is that no one has any way of knowing by how much. Let me explain.

Way back in the halcyon days of 2008 when the Clinton-Obama nomination battle was all anyone was talking/writing about, FHQ got bored and briefly shifted our focus to the settled Republican race. It was on the Republican side where a steady stream of anecdotal evidence continued to come out of any number of states about how Ron Paul advocates were -- there's no way to say this without offending someone -- infiltrating the back end of the Republican nomination process. Ron Paul was after John McCain had surpassed the number of delegates necessary to become the presumptive nominee on March 4, 2008 competing not for wins and delegate pledges so much as the Texas representative and his supporters were delegates. See, there are two parallel processes that are happening in any presidential nomination race. One is the primaries and caucuses that we all love to analyze to death; the part that binds the delegates in most states. The other, however, is the process of -- from the participants' perspective -- becoming a delegate or from the party's perspective, identifying delegates.

Ron Paul hung around in 2008 losing the first process -- rarely breaking the 20-25% barrier in the votes in late primaires and caucuses -- and while he still lost the second process also, it was by a smaller margin. The most extreme example of this was when Paul and Paul delegates to the state convention in Nevada were able to parlay a very distant second place finish in the January caucus in the Silver state into a cancelation of the state convention. The process in Nevada had been derailed to such an extent that the Nevada Republican State Central Committee eventually selected the delegates to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.¹ There were similar stories of lesser chaos elsewhere.

But I don't think the Paul campaign is after that same goal this time around. Well, not that same type of chaos anyway. Two points:

First of all, the Paul folks are VERY organized. FHQ has something of an inside view of this. For months now, FHQ's 2012 presidential primary calendar has been used by at least two or three Ron Paul sites in either efforts to get the word out about when the various states are actually holding votes or in lengthy tutorials on how to become a delegate. These folks -- whether directly coordinating with the Paul campaign or not -- know the rules and are focused on what I call the back end of the process; the selection of actual delegates (not the binding of them).

Secondly, the business casual orders that came down the line within the Paul campaign to its young volunteers in Iowa hints at something bigger. The campaign, in other words, wants to appear to and actually be a part of an orderly delegate selection process, but a part that gets more Paul supporters a step further in the process in 2012 versus 2008. To the convention in Tampa.

And this gets back to Jon's point. Do a hundred or two hundred Paul delegates in Tampa disrupt the nomination of, say, Mitt Romney? No. Do they influence the platform to any great degree? Perhaps, but probably not. Yet, if I'm a betting man -- and I'm not -- I'd take the over on that estimate of Paul delegates in Tampa. The Ron Paul campaign is built to last both financially and organizationally. It won't be a conventional campaign. The field should winnow down to most likely Romney and Paul with similar dynamics to 2008 heading down the stretch of the primary calendar, but with Paul folks focused more heavily on the back end of the delegate selection process rather than the front end of winning contests.

We could conceivably, then, end up with an unknown but fairly sizable number of Paul delegates pledged to Romney or some other candidate in Tampa based on the rules in the various states. Romney in that scenario wins the nomination but the Paul folks become increasingly likely to hold some sway over some planks in the platform. [And just because, I'll add this: They may also influence the nomination rules for 2016.]

Now, none of this is happening in a vacuum. The Romney campaign and presumably the RNC if Romney becomes the presumptive nominee can organize against this. They could and can get people out to the caucuses/conventions that decide who becomes delegates just as easily as the Paul campaign if the latter shows signs of dominating or influencing the back end of the process.² This may or may not be a story in a month, but it is worth keeping an eye on.

It is an unknown just how many delegates the Paul campaign can get through to the convention in Tampa. If the over/under is 200, take the over.

...on January 4. The dynamics can and likely will change.

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¹ It should be noted that this is a completely acceptable -- sanctioned -- method of allocating/selecting delegates according to the RNC rules on delegate selection. Man, I should have brought up this midstream shift in the rules when Republicans in Texas were adamant that the RNC would not allow the state party to change the rules after the October 1 deadline to have finalized them.

² Now, lest you say to FHQ that Paul would only really have an advantage in caucus states, recall that even the primary states have parallel caucus/convention systems in place to select the actual delegates to the national convention. The primary part only binds the delegates in states that choose to bind their delegates to candidates.

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