roundup of big state primary calendar news

[Sam Spade]

Only the DNC/Howard Dean has created (IMHO stupid) rules barring a few states from holding primaries before February 5.

What's stupid about those rules? Do you really want primary creep to cause primaries in November?

Of course not.  But there's no logical reason why Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina must receive "preferred" status if other states want to hold primaries at the same date as those states (other than maybe tradition, which I don't find valid).  Generically holding primaries in 2008 and not 2007 should be the cutoff line (though I think all primaries should be held later).

Furthermore, it leads to the inevitable conclusion that some states controlled so heavily by Republicans will move their primaries up before the deadlines to screw the other parties - precisely what happened here.  If the RNC had made the same move, ultra-controlled Democratic states would have no doubt done the same thing.  That's the primary reason why Dean's dictate was stupid.

[Mr. Morden]

Only the DNC/Howard Dean has created (IMHO stupid) rules barring a few states from holding primaries before February 5.

The RNC has done no such thing.  Winning the Florida primary awards the full number of delegates.

That's not exactly true.  The RNC does penalize pre-Feb. 5th states by awarding those states fewer delegates than they would get if they voted on Feb. 5th or later.  I don't remember the exact number, but I think pre-Feb. 5th states might be sacrificing up to 50% of their delegates.  (The RNC also has no exceptions for IA or NH, so those states are giving up much of their delegation as well.)

However, even with that penalty, FL still has a lot of delegates to offer, so it's sure to get a lot of attention from the GOP candidates.  Whereas, on the Dem. side, even if all the candidates campaign there, I can't see them going all out for what will essentially be a beauty contest, that has no binding result.  Not with half the country voting a week later, in elections that *will* result in the awarding of delegates, which count towards determining the nomination.

[Mr. Morden]

Updates from both Florida and Michigan.

First, Florida:

It looks like the cutoff date for campaigning in Florida will be August 25th.  Unless Florida moves its primary to some other date in the interim, every Democratic candidate who campaigns in Florida after Aug. 25th will be ineligible to win any of the state's delegates:

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/06/13/State/Florida_primary_will_.shtml

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Meanwhile, in Michigan, Democrats are pushing to move up their primary to Jan. 29th as well, if not earlier, and there's a good chance the state GOP will join them:

link

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[Mr. Morden]

An update on the effort to move up the Pennsylvania primary, which doesn't sound too optimistic about the chances of it moving up from its current spot in April:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07166/794357-103.stm

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Also, here's an updated map of the state-by-state primary dates just published in the Wall Street Journal:



It appears to include states like CT and IL as being on Feb. 5th, though I think in those cases, the bill to move the primary up to Feb. 5th has been passed by the legislature but not yet signed by the governor.  However, it's probably going to happen in those states, so they might as well be included.

I still don't understand why so many news sources are suggesting that NC will vote on Feb. 5th.  AFAIK, a bill was introduced to move up NC's primary to Feb. 5th, but it went nowhere.

[muon2]

IL has an official Feb 5 date as of yesterday when the governor signed the bill.  Petitions for the primary will begin to circulate in early Aug, and must be filed at the end of Oct (more than a year before the election!). Early voting for the IL primary will begin Jan 14.

[Mr. Morden]

The primary calendar seems to be largely set at this point, at least among the largest states.  Here's the situation in the 11 largest states:

Jan. 29 FL (though the Democratic vote probably won't count)
Feb. 5 CA, GA, IL, NJ, NY
March or later NC, OH, PA, TX
MI

Michigan is the wildcard now.  And things may not be settled there for some time, as the two parties currently can set their primary dates on their own, and may move up in response to whatever NH does (and NH may not decide for some time).  However, the two parties' ability to hold separate primaries in MI may be eliminated if either of these bills pass the MI legislature:

http://www.ballot-access.org/2007/06/27/michigan-bill-for-january-presidential-primary/

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[Tender Branson]

First, Florida:

It looks like the cutoff date for campaigning in Florida will be August 25th.  Unless Florida moves its primary to some other date in the interim, every Democratic candidate who campaigns in Florida after Aug. 25th will be ineligible to win any of the state's delegates:

Hmm. That´s really a problem. Isn´t there a deadline sometimes in September or October when every state has to have it´s primary/caucus date fixed ? What if this is the case lets say in early September that every state has signed their respective date into law and lets say 2 days before the deadline the DNC approves a softening of their rules, so that the votes finally count in the Jan. 29 primary ? No state would have enough time to pass an earlier date before the deadline. Florida has it´s "legitimate rule-softened-primary" and negative publicity about voter disenfranchisement is avoided. Probably this won´t happen though.

What if status quo prevails and every Democrat who campaigns in FL after August 26 is scrapped of its delegates ?

Do you think that Obama would get above 15% if he doesn´t campaign in the state for the last 5 months ? Would it be better for him to poker and at least hope to get above 15% to get any delegates, while Hillary will campaign there under every circumstance and get NO delegates whatsoever ?

[Reaganfan]

FEB 5TH could be really good for Rudy Giuliani...if things stay as they are now. He could take NJ, NY, CA and more.

[Mr. Morden]

Hmm. That´s really a problem. Isn´t there a deadline sometimes in September or October when every state has to have it´s primary/caucus date fixed ? What if this is the case lets say in early September that every state has signed their respective date into law and lets say 2 days before the deadline the DNC approves a softening of their rules, so that the votes finally count in the Jan. 29 primary ? No state would have enough time to pass an earlier date before the deadline. Florida has it´s "legitimate rule-softened-primary" and negative publicity about voter disenfranchisement is avoided. Probably this won´t happen though.

Well, they're meeting on Aug. 25th to decide this very issue of whether FL's move should be allowed.  Why would they rule that it shouldn't be allowed, and then just a few days later reverse themselves?  Anyway, the DNC has pretty much committed itself, and I can't see them backing down now.  Why would any state follow their rules in the future if they back down now?

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If Clinton and Obama are the main two contenders on Jan. 29th, then I think he would have a pretty good chance of getting 15% even without campaigning there.  FL is so big, I don't know if anyone other than Clinton and Obama would have the $ to go all out there, and even Clinton campaigns there, would she bother with anything more than a token effort designed to avoid alienating Floridians for the GE?  What's the point of campaigning hard if all the delegates could end up going to Obama anyway?  The "win" probably wouldn't provide much momentum anyway if her principal rival isn't competing there, just as Bush didn't really get any boost against McCain when he won Iowa in 2000 (which McCain skipped).

[Mr. Morden]

Update from Pennsylvania:

As mentioned in another thread, the state House passed a bill that would move the state's primary to Feb. 12th, however it appears the state Senate is unlikely to act on it:

http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1184118915107150.xml&coll=1

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As mentioned way upthread, it's the GOP legislators in PA that have seemed more skeptical of an early primary from the begining.  To quote from an article I posted a bit upthread:

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[Keystone Phil]

Update from Pennsylvania:

As mentioned in another thread, the state House passed a bill that would move the state's primary to Feb. 12th, however it appears the state Senate is unlikely to act on it:

http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1184118915107150.xml&coll=1

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As mentioned way upthread, it's the GOP legislators in PA that have seemed more skeptical of an early primary from the begining.  To quote from an article I posted a bit upthread:

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They are mainly worried about the cost of moving up the primary though I really think that would be cancelled out by the amount of revenue we'd receive from people coming to PA to cover the primary.

Another concern is weather which I don't take all that seriously. NY and NH both have early primaries and their weather is worse than our weather. They seem worried about seniors not being able to vote but I think that concern is overblown.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Phil, by February 12 the nomination races are likely to be already largely settled.  At best a Feb. 12 primary will get sloppy seconds of coverage along with Virginia and Tennessee by both the campaigns and the media after Mega Tuesday the week before, even if it isn't decided by then.  On the other hand if it should turn out to be a brokered convention for either party as a result of Mega Tuesday, then keeping the Apr. 22 date ensures at least three weeks of undivided attention (more than three weeks if Kansas moves up its April Fools Primary).

[Mr. Morden]

Ohio becomes the last of the big states to at least consider an early primary.....in this case, Jan. 29:

http://www.whiotv.com/news/13679915/detail.html

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[Mr. Morden]

Also note this story on the matter:

http://www.ballot-access.org/2007/07/14/ohio-bill-for-january-presidential-primary/

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[Mr. Morden]

I had previously mentioned that there were two nearly identical bills that had been proposed in the MI Senate....one would set the primary for both parties at Jan. 29th, the other Feb. 5th (but also giving both parties the option of moving to a different date if they both agree).  It appears that *both* bills have passed the relevant committee, and I'm assuming that they'll now move to the full Senate:

http://www.ballot-access.org/2007/07/18/michigan-presidential-primary-bill-advances/

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[Mr. Morden]

More on Michigan: The move to hold a joint primary for the two parties has stalled, and one option being floated for the GOP's backup plan is to select the delegates at a nominating convention to be held Jan. 25-26.  The Giuliani people do not like the idea of MI (where Romney has more organizational strength) voting before Feb. 5th, and they're also not keen on a nominating convention, which would likely be dominated by conservative activists who would be less likely to vote for Giuliani than an average GOP primary voter.  From last week:

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/rep_candace_miller_a_supporter.php

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And an update:

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/updating_the_michigan_primary.php

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[Mr. Morden]

Following the news about IA, NH, and SC possibly all moving up their contests, the MI Dems have reiterated their desire to match the primary date of any state that violates the DNC rules:

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070809/POLITICS01/708090325/1022/POLITICS

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In other news, the Florida GOP is joining the Dems in fighting national party rules that punish them for holding an early primary, and the Florida Dems are floating a compromise idea:

http://www.tbo.com/news/politics/MGBAR0W335F.html

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[Mr. Morden]

Looks like Michigan may now be holding a primary for both primaries on January 15th:

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/08/17/321548.aspx

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My guess as to what happens next, assuming MI goes through with this: NH will move to Jan. 8th, and IA will move to Saturday, Jan. 5th, just to avoid voting in December.  I don't know if this will make much difference on the Dem. side, since MI's primary won't count towards awarding delegates if it's outside the DNC window, so I'm not sure if the candidates will bother pouring too many resources into such a big state if they don't get any delegates out of it.

But on the GOP side, this will probably lessen the importance of SC, as you'd now have Iowa-New Hampshire-Michigan being the first three contests, followed by SC & NV on the same day.  Romney would probably benefit the most, as he's struggled in SC, and he's ahead of all the candidates in terms of organizing in MI.  In fact, there've been rumors for over a year now that Romney's people in MI were trying to push for an early primary there, because they thought it would help him.

[Tender Branson]

I think this makes Mitt Romney the frontrunner now. He could win in IA and NH, gain ground in the coming months in MI and take it on Jan. 15. Later on he could win NV, where he´s currently leading and which would also make up for a "bad" showing in SC.

If there´s a snowball effect for Romney, he´ll enter Supertuesday as the favorite and Rudy Giuliani will be chewing his fingernails ...

[Mr. Morden]

The MI state Senate has now voted to move the state's primary to Jan. 15th:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6959588.stm

Now it just has to pass the House and get signed by the governor.

[Verily]

I think this makes Mitt Romney the frontrunner now. He could win in IA and NH, gain ground in the coming months in MI and take it on Jan. 15. Later on he could win NV, where he´s currently leading and which would also make up for a "bad" showing in SC.

If there´s a snowball effect for Romney, he´ll enter Supertuesday as the favorite and Rudy Giuliani will be chewing his fingernails ...

Wyoming is also early (for Republicans only); no polls yet, but Romney has a solid Mormon base (11%, which means about 20% of the GOP primary electorate) to work with there, too.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Any chance a state that's holding a general election this November might attach a non-binding preference to the ballot?

[Mr. Morden]

After looking into this some more, it appears that this is not such a sure thing to pass the MI House, as there's quite a bit of opposition to it among Democratic legislators.  Most of the Democrats voted against it in the Senate.  So it's unclear whether it'll pass the House when it comes up for a vote next week.  But GOP legislators are solidly behind the Jan. 15th primary, as is Granholm.

One thing that might influence those Dem. legislators is what the DNC decides to do about Florida's primary.  The DNC will be meeting tomorrow to discuss sanctions against states that violate their rules for holding primaries early....and it's getting ugly:

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/08/a_fullscale_war_has_erupted.php

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[Mr. Morden]

The DNC has stripped FL of all of its delegates, because its Jan. 29th falls outside the DNC-sanctioned window for primaries:

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20070825/D8R868K00.html

This makes it less likely that the MI legislature will go ahead with moving up their primary to Jan. 15th, but I guess we'll see how that plays out.

[Mr. Morden]

The Michigan state House has passed the bill that moves the primary to Jan. 15th:

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/08/jan_15_primary_passes_michigan.php

Looks like there'll still have to be a House-Senate conference bill passed, but it now looks like a lock for passage, and Granholm has promised to sign the bill.