GOP announces 12 debates

[Mr. Morden]

I thought they wanted less debates (not that I'm complaining)?

This is fewer than last time.  In the 2012 cycle, there were over 20 debates.

Also, the scheduling of the IA/NH/SC debates is going to get messy, since I don't believe those states are going to vote when the RNC would like them to.  Good chance that Iowa and New Hampshire will be voting in January, which means that the New Hampshire debate at least will have to be moved earlier.

[Mr. Morden]

It's also unclear that any of those last three debates will actually happen.  Last time, there were no debates after Super Tuesday.  By Super Tuesday, usually one candidate has enough of a delegate lead that he no longer wants to mess around debating the challengers who are way behind him.

[Mr. Morden]

When did the debates start in 2011?

Here's the list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_debates,_2012

The first one was in May, but only five candidates participated, and the frontrunner (Romney) didn't show up.  The first debate to include Romney and some of the others in the field was on June 13.

[Mr. Morden]

I thought they wanted less debates (not that I'm complaining)?

This is fewer than last time.  In the 2012 cycle, there were over 20 debates.

Also, the scheduling of the IA/NH/SC debates is going to get messy, since I don't believe those states are going to vote when the RNC would like them to.  Good chance that Iowa and New Hampshire will be voting in January, which means that the New Hampshire debate at least will have to be moved earlier.

The RNC has ensured a february start to the season. It says in their new rules that any january-voting state will have no more than 9 delegates at the convention. 2012 had January contests because FL forced it - but in 2012, FL delegates were only cut in half from 100 to 50, this time it would be from 100 to 9. FL isn't going to repeat it's leapfrogging attempt of 2012. Granted, Iowa could vote in January without penalty because it's a caucus and doesn't actually elect national delegates on caucus night. But without FL trying to leapfrog, iowa has no reason to vote in january.

You're partially right and partially wrong.  And I'm going to go all CARLHAYDEN in this post and number my quibbles with what you wrote "first", "second", "third". 

First, the RNC has in fact changed the caucus rules so that there will be no more nonbinding caucuses.  The Iowa caucuses will actually have a binding impact on delegate allocation this time.

Second, you're right that they've now instituted the "super penalty", knocking down non-compliant states to 9 delegates.  That means that there *probably* won't be interlopers in February, but you never know.  It certainly won't be Florida this time, but some smaller state might take the plunge and go in February, accepting the penalty that takes them to 9 delegates.  Not all state legislators nor state party officials necessarily care about delegates.  So yeah, unlikely but not impossible that some state other than IA/NH/NV/SC votes before March 1.

Third, even if the other 46 states all vote on March 1 or later, what are IA, NH, NV, and SC going to do?  South Carolina has historically not only insisted on being "first in the South", but has opted to create at least a one week buffer between it and the next Southern state(s) to vote.  2016's Super Tuesday is shaping up to be very Southern-heavy, with the two biggest delegate prizes of the day being Texas and Florida.  South Carolina is most likely not going to be happy voting on Feb. 27.  I see them scheduling their primary for Saturday, Feb. 20th.  The Nevada GOP is also not happy about how they were squeezed in 2012, and is looking to go one week earlier than SC this time, just as they originally intended to in 2012.  So that puts Nevada on Feb. 13th.  NH's primary law means that their latest date would be Tuesday, Feb. 2nd, since they need a Tuesday at least one week before the next contest, and that puts the likely date for Iowa at Monday, Jan. 25th.

So even if the other 46 states play nice, I don't see Iowa voting in February as all that likely.

And fourth, I don't think the RNC is going to be too bothered by that.  They'll be happy enough with a Jan. 25th start date, considering how badly the calendar was bungled in 2012.  Jan. 25th is good enough.

So, to conclude, no, I don't agree that "the RNC has ensured a February start to the season". 

[Mr. Morden]

Have they released the criteria to be included in the debates?  There are going to be a lot of candidates.  In 2012 11 ran and at least Buddy Roemer, Thad McCotter and I believe Gary Johnson were excluded from all of the debates.

Johnson was actually invited to (and participated in) two of the debates.  The 2008 cycle was another weird one, as I think Alan Keyes was invited to just one debate.

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I highly doubt it'll be 25, but 15 is possible.  Though don't be surprised if several people who we currently think are near-locks to run end up not running, or else drop out very quickly.  In the 2000 race, Kasich dropped out in the summer of 1999, and then several more did shortly after the Iowa straw poll.  Several candidates could drop out after the straw poll this time as well, even with no Bush 2000-esque frontrunner.  There just isn't enough media oxygen for all these candidates, and so there has to be some winnowing, one way or another.

[Mr. Morden]

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/229971-priebus-gop-candidates-will-have-to-hit-thresholds-to

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OK, we've seen this before.  Polling thresholds for inclusion in the debates.  But are they actually going to commission polls that include all the candidate's names?  With a field of ~15 candidates, are there going to polls that include everyone's names, or will they continue to leave off folks like Fiorina?

Last time, Buddy Roemer, Thad McCotter, etc. were never included in the polls, and so couldn't reach 1% because their name wasn't mentioned.  Maybe they wouldn't have reached 1% anyway, but we'll never know.

[Mr. Morden]

Jindal blasts the RNC's decision to take control of the debate process, and says he won't necessarily abide by the rules and limit his participation to "sanctioned" debates:

http://news.yahoo.com/bobby-jindal-won-t-abide-by-rnc-debate-limit-161930798.html

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[Mr. Morden]

The September debate will be held on Sept. 16 at the Reagan Library in California, broadcast by CNN:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/02/hugh-hewitt-to-moderate-gop-debate-203019.html

As previously detailed, at least some of the questioners in these debates will be conservative media personalities, and it looks like one such questioner for that September debate will be Hugh Hewitt.

[Mr. Morden]

*bump*

I guess I missed this news at the time, but apparently it was announced last month that the first debate will be Saturday, Aug. 15th in Cleveland (same city that the convention will be held in next year):

http://www.uspresidentialelectionnews.com/2016-debate-schedule/2016-republican-primary-debate-schedule/

That's exactly one week after the Iowa Straw Poll.  So no debates before the Iowa Straw Poll this time.

[Mr. Morden]

Because Florida moved its primary date later, the big pre-Super Tuesday debate is now going to be held in Houston, TX:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/gops-super-tuesday-debate-moves-to-texas-206842.html?hp=l3_4

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[Mr. Morden]

First debate: Aug. 6 in Cleveland. Location: Q.

Weird.  They previously announced that it would be August 15th.  I guess they want to have one debate before the Iowa Straw Poll (which is scheduled for August 8th).

Since this'll happen before the straw poll, that also means that, potentially, no one will have dropped out of the race yet.  So yes, we'll most likely have 15+ candidates clamoring to get into the debate.  How many will the RNC actually allow to participate?

[Mr. Morden]

Six before Iowa and six after? That's way too many for the post-Iowa side. 8-4 would make more sense.

After Iowa, you've got one in the week before NH, one in the week before SC, and one in the week before Super Tuesday.

There's a good chance the three post-Super Tuesday debates won't happen, as the race is often decided by then.  Or it's not yet decided, but one candidate is far enough ahead that he refuses to do any more debates, because what does he have to gain from doing more?  Romney stopped doing debates after Super Tuesday in 2012, even though he hadn't yet clinched the nomination.  And so the debates stopped, because you're not going to bother with a debate at that stage if you don't have the frontrunner.

So I don't think those last three debates will happen, but it makes sense for the RNC to put them on the schedule now, just in case.

[Mr. Morden]

More details on the first two debates:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/us-election-2016-facebook-fox-news-partner-first-republican-primary-debate-1502272

Debate 1: Aug. 6th in Cleveland, broadcast on Fox News Channel, moderators to include Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace.  Facebook will be partnering with Fox to provide "data on top issues to be debated on by candidates".

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Debate 2: Sept. 16th at the Reagan Library in California, broadcast on CNN:

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Split it into two?  How will that work?  Use the more restrictive criteria for the first hour, and then invite more candidates to the stage for the second hour?

[Mr. Morden]

Based on the last paragraph of this story:

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/fox-new-gop-debate-candidates-118152.html?hp=c1_3

it sounds like it's possible that Fox will discount internet polls and/or robo-dial polls.  Which means both YouGov and PPP might be out.  So we'd be left with Fox, CNN, NBC/WSJ, Quinnipiac, etc.

[Mr. Morden]

Damn, only 5 debates in 2015? Well, it's gonna be essential viewing, that's for sure. Here's hoping that Trump, Cruz, Perry and Carson will make the cut. Although it's gonna be hard to compete with Cain, Bachmann, Perry, Gingrich, Ron Paul, etc. for pure entertainment value.

Carson and Cruz at least should qualify, barring some kind of campaign collapse.  I don't know how they're going to deal with Trump.  Few of the pollsters include him.  But when they do include him, he polls at ~5% or so, which should be enough to qualify.

[Mr. Morden]

Just thought of something on this: If Fox, like CNN, decides to only include national polls taken via telephone with live interviewers, then that might speed up the announcement schedules of a few of the candidates.

I'm thinking in particular of Kasich.  So far, he hasn't really shown much urgency towards making a decision.  We don't know when/if he's going to announce.  But now, he kind of needs to announce no later than about the first week of July.  That's because non-robo-polls only happen so often.  We get about one a week or so.  So if the debate's on Aug. 6th, then polls that count towards determining the participants will begin as early as the first week of July.  While undeclared candidates can be included in those polls, the announcement itself could produce at least a small bounce, as we've seen with some (but not all) of the candidates so far.

Kasich isn't in the top 10 in the polls as of yet, but he seems like someone who has the potential to get a bump above the 2% level to at least the 3 or 4% level (which is enough to be in the top 10 in the polls, at this point) if he actually runs.  He has enough of a niche as the "electable one" if people keep losing faith in Bush and the others.  At least some party elites will rally to his side, and he'll get at least some media attention for occupying that niche.  Not necessarily a lot, but enough to reach 4%?  Sure.  And that's enough to get in the debates.

I don't think, say, Perry or Santorum will necessarily get any bounce out of their announcements, because they don't stand out enough.  But Kasich might.  However, he needs to actually launch his candidacy by the first week of July, or it might be too late.