The Great Primary Calendar re-shuffle Megathread

[Mr. Morden]

God help me, but I'm going to try to track all of the various state legislative and state party efforts to move primary dates, and the general evolution of the 2012 primary calendar.  I might give this up if it becomes too cumbersome.  There's going to be a lot of activity in state legislatures in the early months of 2011 on this.

Maybe we can keep all discussion of 2012 primary calendar changes in this thread?  There doesn't really need to be separate threads for "California moves its primary", "Georgia moves its primary", etc.  If so, mods, feel free to eventually sticky this thread if you like.  Not sure if it's necessary yet, as there isn't going to be much activity on this front until January.

To start with, I'll try to post what I understand the "current" calendar to be in the near future.  I'll get to that soon, and edit this post appropriately.  In the meantime, here are two versions of it:

http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2010/06/2012-presidential-primary-calendar.html
(that is a very useful blog on this topic btw)

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P12/events.phtml?s=c

I'll edit this post later with more detail.

OK, here's where things currently stand as I see it.  blue = primary, red = caucus, green = something that isn't really a primary or a caucus.

2012 GOP Presidential Primary Calendar (tentative)
March 2 UPDATE

Tue, Jan. 3: IA
Tue, Jan. 10: NH
Sat, Jan. 21: SC
Tue, Jan. 31: FL

Sat, Feb. 4: NV
Sat, Feb. 4 - Sat, Feb. 11: ME
Tue, Feb. 7: MO*, CO, MN
Tue, Feb. 28: AZ, MI

Sat, Mar. 3: WA
Tue, Mar. 6: GA, MA, OH, OK, TN, VT, VA, ID, ND, AK district conventions
Tue, Mar. 6 - Sat. Mar. 10: WY county conventions
Sat, Mar. 10: KS, Virgin Islands, Guam convention, Northern Marianas convention
Tue, Mar. 13: AL, MS, HI, American Samoa
Sat, Mar. 17: MO
Sun, Mar. 18: Puerto Rico
Tue, Mar. 20: IL
Sat, Mar. 24: LA

Tue, Apr. 3: DC, MD, WI
Tue, Apr. 24: CT, DE, NY, PA, RI

Tue, May 8: IN, NC, WV
Tue, May 15: NE, OR
Tue, May 22: AR, KY
Tue, May 29: TX

Tue, June 5: CA, MT, NJ, NM, SD
Tue, June 26: UT

* The Feb. 7 primary in Missouri awards no delegates on the Republican side.  The delegate allocation is based on the March 17 caucuses.

NOTES:

- These are only the dates for the GOP.  The Dem. calendar will be slightly different.  But I'm not going to bother tracking that, until such a time as Obama gets a serious primary challenger.

- I haven't bothered to add the dates for US territories yet.  Just the 50 states + DC.

[Mr. Morden]

Here is a thread discussing the new national party rules on primaries:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=116781.0

My summary of the revised RNC rules:

-If Iowa, NH, NV, or SC hold primaries/caucuses before Feb. 1, they lose half their delegates.
-If any other state holds primaries/caucuses before the first Tuesday of March, they lose half their delegates.
-Any state that holds primaries/caucuses before April 1 has to award their delegates on a proportional basis, not WTA statewide or WTA by district.  (Feb. 28 UPDATE: Actually, the proportionality rule allows states to use a hybrid of statewide PR and WTA by CD.  See here: http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2011/02/update-on-2012-republican-delegate.html  and here: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=128721.msg2829427#msg2829427   )
-The RNC chairman will be able to grant waivers to states, to allow them to avoid the 50% delegate penalty if he wishes.  It looks like he'd be free to decide on the basis of any criteria he likes.

My summary of the revised DNC rules:

IA caucuses are to be held no earlier than Feb. 6th
NH primary to be held no earlier than Feb. 14th
NV caucuses to be held no earlier than Feb. 18th
SC primary to be held no earlier than Feb. 28th
Other primaries to be held no earlier than March 6th

States will be given bonus delegates for holding primaries in April or later.  They also get bonus delegates for "regional clustering" (holding primaries on the same dates as nearby states).  Bonuses can mean up to 35% increase in the number of delegates for the state.

If a state votes earlier than it's allowed, then it loses half its delegates, *and* any candidate who campaigns in that state before the primary is ineligible to get any delegates from the state.  However, if Democratic leaders in a state make a good faith effort to change the primary law so that the state is in compliance with the rules, and they fail, they can get the sanctions waived by the DNC.  e.g., if Dems in the Florida state legislature propose a bill that would move the primary back to March, but it's voted down by the GOP controlled legislature, then the DNC will give them a waiver.  Most of the states that currently have February primaries have either a GOP governor or legislature, so a lot of states could get waivers.

[Mr. Morden]

As noted above, states with primaries in February or earlier are going to be hit with new penalties this year.  So presumably, many of those states are going to move their primaries later, in order to comply with the new rules.  States with both a Democratic governor and Democratic legislature are probably the most likely to move their primaries later, as they have little to gain from going early and taking the penalty.  The only reason to go early is to try to have influence before the nomination is clinched.  If there's no contest on the Democratic side, then this is a non-issue.

So in this post, I'm going to list all of the January / February primary states, and list the party control of the governorship and the state legislature, as of 2011.

Dec. 11, 2010 UPDATE: In most of the primary states (NH and SC are two exceptions I know of), the state government sets the date of the primary.  Which means that for all of those February primaries (plus Florida), if you want to change the primary date, you need the state legislature to pass a change, and have the governor sign it.  As of 2011, I think the party control of state government in the Jan/Feb primary states is as follows:

Dem-controlled:
CA, CT, DE, MD, WA

GOP-controlled:
FL, AL, GA, OK, TN, UT, WI, AZ, MI

Divided government:
MO, NJ, NY, LA, VA

[Mr. Morden]

OK, there are a few stories on this already.  First, a bill's going to be introduced in the Texas legislature to move the primary from the first week of March to the first week of February:

http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2010/11/bill-introduced-in-texas-house-to-move.html

Don't know that it's necessarily going to go anywhere though, as the same state rep tried the same thing in 2007, and it went nowhere.

Bigger news is that Florida may actually move its early primary later, but also go back to having an even earlier straw poll:

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/dec/01/gop-likely-to-abandon-early-primary-may-revive-str/news-breaking/

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The article says that the RNC has tighter rules against early primaries than in 2008.  But they're not really *that* much tighter, and I actually think Florida Republicans would be nuts to move their primary later unless all of the February primaries are moving later too, but I guess we'll see....

[Bull Moose Base]

Catch this from the Florida article?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

and then at the very end...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I assume Team Romney crapped themselves somewhat when the new calendar rules passed.  The penalties are less problematic for Florida as a state than they are for Romney as a candidate, since they stand to give him much weaker leverage out of his regional strength.  I think a plausible theory is that his allies are trying to kill the cow who starts the stampede, or simply protect Florida as a big, fat jackpot for Romney.  And consider it in context with the general- hey, am I coining this?- Palinophobia from the Bushes.

Found the article's framing interesting:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

but

You must be logged in to read this quote.

...the "effort" doesn't need to be abandoned.  It already succeeded. They changed the law.  Florida goes early as of 2008.  The effort would now actually be to move Florida back, which is a little stickier to sell.  Maybe the reporter was fed and swallowed spin from the Romney allies?

[Yelnoc]

Great Thread.  Frontloadinghq and the Green Papers contradict themselves on some dates though.  Which one do you prefer?

[Mr. Morden]

Great Thread.  Frontloadinghq and the Green Papers contradict themselves on some dates though.  Which one do you prefer?

I'll have to take a closer look at it in the near future, to figure out who's "right" on some of these.  FHQ was definitely keeping up better at one point, but the guy who runs that blog has significantly scaled back his posting rate, so he may have fallen behind.

Any dates for IA, NH, NV, and SC are completely speculative at this point, as all four states are likely to wait until the rest of the calendar has settled before making any binding decisions.  All we can say is that IA and NH are determined to go before everyone else, SC is determined to go before any other Southern state, and NV will try to be one of the first states again as well.

[Mr. Morden]

I assume Team Romney crapped themselves somewhat when the new calendar rules passed.  The penalties are less problematic for Florida as a state than they are for Romney as a candidate, since they stand to give him much weaker leverage out of his regional strength.  I think a plausible theory is that his allies are trying to kill the cow who starts the stampede, or simply protect Florida as a big, fat jackpot for Romney.  And consider it in context with the general- hey, am I coining this?- Palinophobia from the Bushes.

I assume that Romney would love to see Florida hold a prominent straw poll shortly before the Iowa caucuses, and steal some of Iowa's "first in the nation" thunder.  He'd have a better chance at winning the FL straw poll than the Iowa caucuses, because the former would rely more on money and organization.  Of course, a straw poll wouldn't actually allocate any delegates, so there's every chance that other candidates skip it, and the media doesn't give it much coverage, which means that it wouldn't matter.  It only works if more than one candidate wants to contest it.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

but

You must be logged in to read this quote.

...the "effort" doesn't need to be abandoned.  It already succeeded. They changed the law.  Florida goes early as of 2008.  The effort would now actually be to move Florida back, which is a little stickier to sell.  Maybe the reporter was fed and swallowed spin from the Romney allies?
[/quote]

I don't know if it's actually spin, or just ignorance.  You'd be surprised by how many state legislators and state party leaders don't really seem to understand how the primary calendar works, even though they're the ones who are creating it.  It's quite possible that numerous Florida state legislators don't actually realize that they already have an early presidential primary, and all they have to do to keep it is do nothing.  It's just not something that that's necessarily on their issues radar, and most of them probably haven't given it much if any thought.

It's also likely that they haven't actually studied the new RNC rules.  They may simply be buying the media spin (which was generated by the national parties themselves) that the new penalties are tougher than they were in 2008.  Not so much on the GOP side of the aisle.  A January primary would mean that Florida would lose half its delegates.  But that penalty already applied in 2008, so that's no biggie.  The only new penalty is that they have to allocate their delegates proportionally, but there are like 30 other states that are in the same boat, so I don't see that as being a big deal.

At some point before legislation is actually drawn up on moving the primary, FL state legislators may simply realize that the penalties aren't much different from 2008, and they might as well keep the primary where it is.

[Bull Moose Base]

I assume Team Romney crapped themselves somewhat when the new calendar rules passed.  The penalties are less problematic for Florida as a state than they are for Romney as a candidate, since they stand to give him much weaker leverage out of his regional strength.  I think a plausible theory is that his allies are trying to kill the cow who starts the stampede, or simply protect Florida as a big, fat jackpot for Romney.  And consider it in context with the general- hey, am I coining this?- Palinophobia from the Bushes.

I assume that Romney would love to see Florida hold a prominent straw poll shortly before the Iowa caucuses, and steal some of Iowa's "first in the nation" thunder.  He'd have a better chance at winning the FL straw poll than the Iowa caucuses, because the former would rely more on money and organization.  Of course, a straw poll wouldn't actually allocate any delegates, so there's every chance that other candidates skip it, and the media doesn't give it much coverage, which means that it wouldn't matter.  It only works if more than one candidate wants to contest it.

I agree Romney would love a Florida straw poll but that's not mutually exclusive with a January primary though this Thrasher fellow is linking them.  This is about Romney wanting to move Florida later.  The momentum he would generate by winning Florida in late January would be easily offset by the damage the penalties his good states will pay if nothing changes, hence my verb-object choice "crapped themselves".  I think he is furiously lobbying to move states later.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

but

You must be logged in to read this quote.

...the "effort" doesn't need to be abandoned.  It already succeeded. They changed the law.  Florida goes early as of 2008.  The effort would now actually be to move Florida back, which is a little stickier to sell.  Maybe the reporter was fed and swallowed spin from the Romney allies?

I don't know if it's actually spin, or just ignorance.  You'd be surprised by how many state legislators and state party leaders don't really seem to understand how the primary calendar works, even though they're the ones who are creating it.  It's quite possible that numerous Florida state legislators don't actually realize that they already have an early presidential primary, and all they have to do to keep it is do nothing.  It's just not something that that's necessarily on their issues radar, and most of them probably haven't given it much if any thought.

It's also likely that they haven't actually studied the new RNC rules.  They may simply be buying the media spin (which was generated by the national parties themselves) that the new penalties are tougher than they were in 2008.  Not so much on the GOP side of the aisle.  A January primary would mean that Florida would lose half its delegates.  But that penalty already applied in 2008, so that's no biggie.  The only new penalty is that they have to allocate their delegates proportionally, but there are like 30 other states that are in the same boat, so I don't see that as being a big deal.

At some point before legislation is actually drawn up on moving the primary, FL state legislators may simply realize that the penalties aren't much different from 2008, and they might as well keep the primary where it is.
[/quote]

But the effort to abandon the effort to do nothing is being led by Thrasher, the GOP FL chairman, who is definitely aware of the specific penalties and their role in the big picture or is taking orders from someone who is.  Romney and his inner circle are definitely aware of it and have definitely been gaming out the race.  They're probably even checking in with blogs like frontloading to keep tabs on developments.  Who knows?  Maybe someone even stumbled on and keep up with this board and absorbed our previous analysis of how bad the new rules would be for Romney if they didn't jump on it.  If you're reading this Mr. Romney, I'm speculating you or an anonymous numbskull with your blessing called in a favor from Thrasher.  (I don't really think he reads this though.)  (PS Dog goes on the inside of the car.)

Romney's been palling around with Thrashers.

http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/403455/david-hunt/2010-06-15/romney-thrasher-wearing-bullseye

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Italics are Romney's quote.  It's pretty safe to say Thrasher (how can he not be a bit of an a**hole with that name btw?) would never be advocate this move-disguised-as-not-a-move if Romney was against it.

As for Florida being just one of 50 states, it's one of the biggest and the most Romney-friendly.  And beyond that, its behavior has in recent history affected other states.  In 2008, Florida and Michigan forced Iowa and friends into January creating the vacuum that sucked every other state up.  They were the first two to jump offsides I believe.  Here's my awesome theory: Romney wants Florida, the leader of the bloody insurrection against the party's oppressive calendar of 2008 (if you consider only getting half a delegate slate bloodshed) to turn peacemaker/pacemaker/Thrasher, and feign ignorance while leading the states back to the better-for-Mitt-Romney-2012 way it was before.  He wants Florida to remain a big, juicy, uncut delegate prize, and also help reverse the tide so California and New York do too.  Anyway, I assume he has chits to cash in with Thrashers in those state legislatures too.  Romney's is a campaign that has already telegraphed his intention to ignore evangelicals, i.e. yield a lot of states he has no shot in.  He has surely noticed the recent ppp polls showing how relatively weak he is in many regions. 

This little Florida story is imo way bigger than it looks.  The headline should be "Romney Proposes Bill in Florida Legislature that He Be the 2012 Nominee"  If the Florida legislature succeeds its in effort to abandon the effort to not do anything, and that calms the herd and the calendar slides later, Romney becomes way tougher to beat and the risk of a boring primary goes, unfortunately for us, way up.

[Mr. Morden]

Speaking of straw polls, Terry Branstad wants all the 2012ers to know that they had better participate in the August straw poll:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/45805.html

Also, I've added a bunch of new info to the early posts of this thread.  If you see any mistakes, let me know.  Also, I could really use some help in getting a list of which parties will control which state legislatures in 2011.

[Poundingtherock]

Joe,

What you wrote makes no sense.  So Romney wants a state that you believe is strong for him (that may not in fact be true anymore given what the evidence that he is collapsing) to come later in the process by a couple of months.

The problem with this argument is that he won't be able to sustain loss after loss and stay in.  he'll be forced  out of the race if he's not winning primaries.  If Florida is going to get pushed back to April, there's no way he'll be able to hang around until his "favorable" states if he's putting up terrible numbers February-March.

[Progressive]

Why so late?

[© tweed]

may God help and bless you

[TomC]

I see what Joe means and in many races, I'd disagree. You want a lot of wins early on and knock your opponent out. Most years that's what happens. But remember how Clinton ws going to have the whole thing wrapped up after California and ST? The only thing that kept her in for so long is that she had Penn and Ohio and a few other states that were pretty strong for her. Now, she lost, but she certainly did better in her primary than Romney did in his. And I seriously don't see Romney walking away with this, especially if he alienates evangelicals. Tea Partiers and Palinites are NOT going to quietly endorse him if he wins a lot of states early on. If he does, someone will keep challenging him until the end. If Clinton didn't have Penn, Ky, and Indiana in those later primaries, she would have had to drop out well before she did.

Unless he crashes and burns before the primaries start, Romney is likely to lose Ia and SC and win Nev and NH. Given that, with NY, Ca, and NJ pretty early on, Romney has some big states he's likely to win- if polling stays somewhat in the vicinity it is now and no moderate suddenly starts doing well.

Plus, if the calendar is pretty similar to 2008, Romney didn't compete in the later states thus has a lot fewer folks who voted for him last time around. He took second in Florida and a pretty close second at that, so he has something to work with.

[© tweed]

I see what Joe means and in many races, I'd disagree. You want a lot of wins early on and knock your opponent out. Most years that's what happens. But remember how Clinton ws going to have the whole thing wrapped up after California and ST? The only thing that kept her in for so long is that she had Penn and Ohio and a few other states that were pretty strong for her. Now, she lost, but she certainly did better in her primary than Romney did in his. And I seriously don't see Romney walking away with this, especially if he alienates evangelicals. Tea Partiers and Palinites are NOT going to quietly endorse him if he wins a lot of states early on. If he does, someone will keep challenging him until the end. If Clinton didn't have Penn, Ky, and Indiana in those later primaries, she would have had to drop out well before she did.

Unless he crashes and burns before the primaries start, Romney is likely to lose Ia and SC and win Nev and NH. Given that, with NY, Ca, and NJ pretty early on, Romney has some big states he's likely to win- if polling stays somewhat in the vicinity it is now and no moderate suddenly starts doing well.

Plus, if the calendar is pretty similar to 2008, Romney didn't compete in the later states thus has a lot fewer folks who voted for him last time around. He took second in Florida and a pretty close second at that, so he has something to work with.

ah, you're back? bringing the total of active or semi-active old forum veterans to at least five. still smoking a pack of Reds a day? personally I've almost quit: 48 hours since last cigarette, a total of about 7 since November 22nd.

[Bull Moose Base]

Unless he crashes and burns before the primaries start, Romney is likely to lose Ia and SC and win Nev and NH. Given that, with NY, Ca, and NJ pretty early on, Romney has some big states he's likely to win- if polling stays somewhat in the vicinity it is now and no moderate suddenly starts doing well.

Plus, if the calendar is pretty similar to 2008, Romney didn't compete in the later states thus has a lot fewer folks who voted for him last time around. He took second in Florida and a pretty close second at that, so he has something to work with.

My own take is that early mo is less important for Romney than for everyone else.  Or at least that he's confident of enough momentum from winning NH and NV to prefer Florida avoid the penalty.  The attempt to move in Florida, being orchestrated by a steering committee chair from Romney's 2008 campaign and a guy he raised serious money for in a close race, is, I'd say, fairly strong evidence of Romney's strategy.  The guy even cites the party penalties in his explanation.

I agree with Morden's assessment that, from the point of view of the state's self-interest, why should Florida care about the penalties?  It played a much more pivotal role in the GOP 2008 contest penalties notwithstanding.  It was where McCain forced Giuliani out and headed off Romney from turning the race on its head.  In fact, because, from the state's point of view, the penalties would so plainly be outweighed by the status of being in the club with Iowa, New Hampshire etc, it seems even more transparent to me that the Florida bill is meant as a favor to Romney.  Actually, imo, the conflict between what is good for Florida and what is good for Romney explains why the state senator and likely player on Romney's 2012 campaign who is leading the effort to move Florida back would want to spin it as just leaving it the way it is.

[TomC]

I see what Joe means and in many races, I'd disagree. You want a lot of wins early on and knock your opponent out. Most years that's what happens. But remember how Clinton ws going to have the whole thing wrapped up after California and ST? The only thing that kept her in for so long is that she had Penn and Ohio and a few other states that were pretty strong for her. Now, she lost, but she certainly did better in her primary than Romney did in his. And I seriously don't see Romney walking away with this, especially if he alienates evangelicals. Tea Partiers and Palinites are NOT going to quietly endorse him if he wins a lot of states early on. If he does, someone will keep challenging him until the end. If Clinton didn't have Penn, Ky, and Indiana in those later primaries, she would have had to drop out well before she did.

Unless he crashes and burns before the primaries start, Romney is likely to lose Ia and SC and win Nev and NH. Given that, with NY, Ca, and NJ pretty early on, Romney has some big states he's likely to win- if polling stays somewhat in the vicinity it is now and no moderate suddenly starts doing well.

Plus, if the calendar is pretty similar to 2008, Romney didn't compete in the later states thus has a lot fewer folks who voted for him last time around. He took second in Florida and a pretty close second at that, so he has something to work with.

ah, you're back? bringing the total of active or semi-active old forum veterans to at least five. still smoking a pack of Reds a day? personally I've almost quit: 48 hours since last cigarette, a total of about 7 since November 22nd.

Good for you.! I'm still at a pack of camels and a gallon of coffee a day and check in here every now and again.

[Mr. Morden]

I've updated the third post of the thread with a list of party control of the state legislatures for the Jan/Feb. primary states.  Please let me know if you find any mistakes.

Like I said, I expect that Dem-controlled state governments are the most likely to move their primaries later (so yeah, my guess is that California will move back to a later primary).  But party control isn't necessarily determinative.  You could have some Dem-controlled states staying put and GOP-controlled or divided government states moving.  Too early to tell which states will move.

Another scheduling note that I'll mention is that the Iowa caucus has traditionally been held on a Monday (a tradition which was broken in 2008, when they went to a Thursday).

If Iowa is forced to go in one of the first two weeks of January this time around, they will probably *not* vote on a Monday, and instead go on a different day of the week, like in 2008.  That's because there will be major college football bowl games on both Mon, Jan. 2 and Mon, Jan. 9:

http://www.benchwarmersports.com/football-packages

[bgwah]

http://blogs.sos.wa.gov/FromOurCorner/index.php/2010/12/reed-proposes-suspending-2012-presidential-primary/

The Democrats already base all of their delegates off the caucus (not that it would probably matter in 2012 anyway), but the Republicans usually base 1/2 off the caucus and 1/2 of the primary.

Right-wingers do fantastically in our caucuses, so I think this is worth nothing. This greatly increases the likelihood that someone like Palin or Huckabee will win Washington in the 2012 Republican primary. Robertson won the 1988 caucus, after all.

[Mr. Morden]

Courtesy of bgwah's thread, I see that Washington may end up scrapping its primary, and going 100% caucus:

http://blogs.sos.wa.gov/FromOurCorner/index.php/2010/12/reed-proposes-suspending-2012-presidential-primary/

The GOP (and Dem.) caucus last time was on the second Saturday of February.  If the primary is scuttled, and the GOP is left with just the caucus, then the Washington State GOP can avoid all delegate penalties if they wish by moving the caucus to March or later.  Or they can stick with an early caucus and take the penalties.

[Poundingtherock]

Palin was already going to win Washington state whether it was a primary or caucus.  The Northwest Republican electorate is a good fit for her.

[feeblepizza]

Huckabee and Palin aren't fanatical weirdos like Pat Robertson. And neither of them are going to run, anyway, so it's a moot point. I would expect Gingrich (another normal, presentable person) to win in Washington State.

[CultureKing]

I wouldn't be surprised if someone like Paul won in the 2012 GOP caucus, he nearly won in 2008 (or did he actually win? I still am not clear about what happened with the bizarre GOP counting in 2008).

[#CriminalizeSobriety]

I wouldn't be surprised if someone like Paul won in the 2012 GOP caucus, he nearly won in 2008 (or did he actually win? I still am not clear about what happened with the bizarre GOP counting in 2008).

I think he came in third.

[bgwah]

I wouldn't be surprised if someone like Paul won in the 2012 GOP caucus, he nearly won in 2008 (or did he actually win? I still am not clear about what happened with the bizarre GOP counting in 2008).

McCain won with something like 25% of the vote... But the Republican Party acted very suspiciously during the whole ordeal. Some people were speculating it was rigged to stop Paul.

It certainly at least makes someone like Romney winning less likely, IMO.