If 2016 had the same primary schedule as 2012...? (GOP)

[Fmr. Representative Encke]

How would the 2016 GOP primary have played out if:

1. No delegate allocation rules had changed between 2012 and 2016, and thus no changes to the primary schedule had been made.
2. All events that occurred prior to Iowa in reality had occurred one month earlier in this alternate universe (to account for Iowa's caucus being held in January in 2012), such as debates, announcements of candidacy, etc.
3. All debates that occurred directly before their contests (e.g. Michigan debate before Michigan primary) occur before these contests using the 2012 schedule, regardless of date differences.

Most notably, if Florida had been an early state, would this have affected the state of the race? Would Bush have stayed in to compete in his home state, even if he were to drop out immediately afterwards? If Rubio lost the state by a similar margin to what occurred in reality, would he have likewise dropped out? Would a victory in WTA Florida (immediately following a delegate sweep in SC) have propelled Trump to victory more quickly, or would the string of Trump-unfavorable caucus states that followed (e.g. Minnesota and Colorado) have made Cruz a more obvious anti-Trump earlier in the calendar?

[moderatevoter]

How would the 2016 GOP primary have played out if:

1. No delegate allocation rules had changed between 2012 and 2016, and thus no changes to the primary schedule had been made.
2. All events that occurred prior to Iowa in reality had occurred one month earlier in this alternate universe (to account for Iowa's caucus being held in January in 2012), such as debates, announcements of candidacy, etc.
3. All debates that occurred directly before their contests (e.g. Michigan debate before Michigan primary) occur before these contests using the 2012 schedule, regardless of date differences.

Most notably, if Florida had been an early state, would this have affected the state of the race? Would Bush have stayed in to compete in his home state, even if he were to drop out immediately afterwards? If Rubio lost the state by a similar margin to what occurred in reality, would he have likewise dropped out? Would a victory in WTA Florida (immediately following a delegate sweep in SC) have propelled Trump to victory more quickly, or would the string of Trump-unfavorable caucus states that followed (e.g. Minnesota and Colorado) have made Cruz a more obvious anti-Trump earlier in the calendar?

If I recall, this is precisely why Florida was moved back. Initially, it wasn't winner-take-all, but Jeb! allies thought it'd be a slam dunk for him, so the legislature moved it back in the calendar and made it WTA. Of course, that badly backfired.

[Mr. Morden]

How would the 2016 GOP primary have played out if:

1. No delegate allocation rules had changed between 2012 and 2016, and thus no changes to the primary schedule had been made.
2. All events that occurred prior to Iowa in reality had occurred one month earlier in this alternate universe (to account for Iowa's caucus being held in January in 2012), such as debates, announcements of candidacy, etc.
3. All debates that occurred directly before their contests (e.g. Michigan debate before Michigan primary) occur before these contests using the 2012 schedule, regardless of date differences.

Most notably, if Florida had been an early state, would this have affected the state of the race? Would Bush have stayed in to compete in his home state, even if he were to drop out immediately afterwards? If Rubio lost the state by a similar margin to what occurred in reality, would he have likewise dropped out? Would a victory in WTA Florida (immediately following a delegate sweep in SC) have propelled Trump to victory more quickly, or would the string of Trump-unfavorable caucus states that followed (e.g. Minnesota and Colorado) have made Cruz a more obvious anti-Trump earlier in the calendar?

If I recall, this is precisely why Florida was moved back. Initially, it wasn't winner-take-all, but Jeb! allies thought it'd be a slam dunk for him, so the legislature moved it back in the calendar and made it WTA. Of course, that badly backfired.

That’s not quite right.

The legislature passed a law back in 2013 to move the primary to the “earliest possible date” that wouldn’t violate party rules.  They did this because the RNC came up with much tougher penalties for violating the calendar rules in 2016.  In 2012, Florida lost half its delegates for going early and being WTA.  But if it had done the same in 2016, then it would have lost all but 9 delegates.  So the Florida Republicans wanted to move later, to avoid the stiffer penalty, and they got the legislature to make the move.  Rubio supported them in doing this (he was the Floridian getting presidential buzz back in 2013, rather than Bush), but it probably would have happened without him.

The earliest possible date thing though still left some ambiguity, because that could either by March 1 or March 15, depending on whether they wanted to be WTA or not.  In May 2015, they (meaning the Florida Republican Party, not the legislature) decided on WTA, which meant that the primary ended up on March 15.  But I’m actually not sure that either Bush or Rubio were heavily pushing one way or the other on that question.