One of my favorite wonky topics is the presidential nominating process, and as it happens, the way it’s shaping up for Democratic in 2024 is unusual, as I explained at New York:
Donald Trump’s 2024 announcement signaled that we are now officially in the run-up to the next presidential election. But there’s a big missing piece of basic election infrastructure, at least for Democrats: The order of states holding presidential primaries is very much up in the air.
Earlier this year, the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, which sets guidelines for the nomination process and administers sticks and carrots to get states to comply, announced it would authorize five “early states” allowed to have nominating contests prior to March 1, 2024. The four states that were allowed across this golden rope line from 2008 through 2020 — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina — would have to reapply for privileged status along with everyone else. As many as 20 state Democratic parties expressed interest in vying for these five spots. But because some of the changed calendar positions would require action by the state government, which typically control and finance primaries, the DNC delayed a final selection until after the midterms sorted out who ruled where.
Now Michigan Democrats, who flipped both legislative chambers and hung on to the governorship this month, are galvanizing the 2024 calendar discussion with a clear bid for an early spot, as NBC News reports:
“Michigan Democrats — led by Rep. Debbie Dingell — feel well positioned to join the coveted ranks of the early states, after they made huge gains in the Nov. 8 election. With Iowa facing possible eviction from the early states, many expect Democrats to elevate a Midwest state.
“Democrats now have full control of the Statehouse in Lansing, which would allow them to easily change state laws to support a new date for the 2024 primary.”
The DNC’s previously announced criteria for early states, as reported by CBS News, were diversity (racial, ethnic, geographic, and economic diversity as well as union representation), general-election competitiveness, and feasibility (whether states can move their contest into the early window, if they can run a “fair, transparent and inclusive nominating process,” and the logistical requirements and cost of campaigning in that state). It was an unstated but understood criterion as well that the five early states would represent different regions. So Michigan may be competing for an early-state slot with Minnesota, where Democrats also nailed down a trifecta in the midterms.
Iowa’s traditional first-in-the-nation caucus has looked doomed all along. The state is famously nondiverse and is now solidly Republican in general elections. The “feasibility” of an Iowa event was also called into question by the 2020 fiasco, in which no Iowa caucus results were announced until the next day.
New Hampshire will be harder to dislodge, despite its nondiverse population, because of a state law that authorizes the secretary of state to move the primary date around in order to maintain the position of first primary. But Nevada Democrats are making a sustained effort to leap ahead of New Hampshire by switching to a primary and aggressively advertising their superior diversity and obvious competitiveness. It’s unclear, however, whether Republican Joe Lombardo’s gubernatorial win in Nevada will disrupt efforts to authorize a new state primary.
That points to one of two variables complicating the early-state selection process: By and large, Republicans are happy with the existing order of states. There is no pressure within the GOP to dump Iowa or displace New Hampshire or do anything else unusual. So in states where Republican cooperation is necessary to move things around or make the requisite resources available, Democrats have to convince their partisan enemies to care about it as well. And if the proposed new primary date in any given state violates the RNC’s existing calendar rules, that state’s Republicans could be penalized and lose delegates to their own convention. The prospect of a serious battle for the GOP presidential nomination adds another series of calculations.
It’s a Rubik’s Cube, and that’s largely why the existing calendar for both parties has stayed in place for so long aside from the fact that, in Iowa and New Hampshire, both parties have long cooperated to defend their calendar privileges like crazed badgers.
The other big variable facing Democrats is the broader context: What sort of decisions will Democrats be facing in 2024? At this point, we don’t know for sure whether President Biden is running for a second term, and we don’t know if he’ll face major competition if he does. If Biden has to fight for renomination, how he performed in particular states in 2020 may have some influence on a loyal DNC deciding where he has to run in 2024. That might really doom Iowa, if it’s not already doomed, given Biden’s fourth-place finish there in 2020. And Biden finished fifth in New Hampshire. The DNC likely wouldn’t want to give calendar privileges to the home state of a potential rival.
But decisions have to be made, and the Rules and Bylaws Committee is set to make them when it meets from December 1 through 3 in Washington, D.C.
W need young people and minorities turning out to vote. It’s good to see that the future has hope i’m 25 myself.
Just an observation: my 21 year old son said most of his friends from college are strongly anti-Bush and active in politics. However, he also hangs out with a large group of kids who went into blue-collar jobs after high school. Those kids are either pro-Bush or don’t care at all.
FWIW….
I don’t think Sully could ever bring himself NOT to vote for Bush. I’ve seen the way he almost breaks away and then comes rushing back for some reason or another.
I don’t really know about the others though.
By the way (a quick thought after scanning a number of well-known libertarian blogs):
Kerry/Edwards would be well advised to try to exploit the rift between social conservatives (who adore “Shrub” and “Right Wing Dick” no matter how much they screw up Iraq or the federal deficit) and libertarians. Most of the leading libertarian bloggers such as Andrew Sullivan, Jacob Levy and Dan Drezner are now leaning strongly towards voting for Kerry this year.
One nice soundbite in the current “values” flamefest would be for Kerry to publicly taunt the GOP for giving so much air time to Arnie, Rudy, John McCain as GOP convention speakers. Kerry should join forces with the Family Research Council(!) by saying the Bush Administration should show what its “values” are by giving a prominent place to guys like Ashcroft, Rick Santorum, Sam Brownback, Henry Hyde etc.. Wouldn’t it be great if the New York convention would primarily showcase bible-thumpers, homophobes and other intolerants… That was a major reason why Poppy lost the 1992 elections to Clinton; the GOP convention in Houston had to give lots of room to disgruntled social conservatives, and it scared away the moderates.
As an aside, I have always thought Ruy’s book about the “Emerging Democratic Majority” might not necessarily predict the future even if the demographic/cultural trends turn out to be correct. Doesn’t it make sense to assume the Republican Party only will start to favor socially moderate fiscal conservatives at the expense of social conservatives, when that happens? After all, Arnold Schwarzenegger, William Weld, Michael Bloomberg & Rudy Giuliani have all been successful in heavily Democratic states.
MARCU$
Well that’s great news, then. Remember: the GOP automatically benefits from a low turnout on election day plus mis-informed voters.
BTW, didn’t some polls indicate a shocking number of Americans actually believe WMDs *have* been found in Iraq and that they *were* used against U.S. troops during the invasion?? No — I am not talking about the single artillery shell containing sarin found so far. I am talking about the whole shebang that Cheney strongly “suggested” would be found in Iraq by now.
It is frustrating isn’t it? If many people can’t even tell Osama’s Afghanistan from Saddam’s Iraq, or fact from fiction in general, it’s little wonder “Shrub’s” $200-million hate campaign of mis-information is quite effective.
MARCU$
As the mother of three – ages 25, 22 and 18 – I can agree with Sean that the members of the younger generation I come into contact with are heavily involved in this year’s election. It’s a frequent topic of passionate conversation among them. This is no generic election to them – they feel their own future is in the balance.
I keep seeing the name Adam Parkhomenko showing up places. He is only 18 years old. He is the one who tried to get Hillary Rodham Clinton to run for President this year. Does anyone have any contact information for him? There is info about him here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=Adam+parkhomenko
I fear that the disparity between those in the know and those not in the know will grow wider and wider in the 18-29 (though I think that’s a little too large of a lumping in my opinion).
Wonky kids are great but I really wonder if that’s a percentage which is growing.
As an 18-29 year old I don’t see too much wrong with some cyber-worshipping but then, as someone who has actually given money to political campaigns, and followed primaries since 2003, I am admittedly not a typical 18-29 year old.
The ignorance of 18-29-year-olds is, to judge from my not necessarily representative experience of living in a college town, not conspicuous by the standards of the American electorate. And I also see among them an undiminshed ability to analyze what information they do absorb. Most heartening, I’ve met a hell of a lot more wonky kids than I would have dreamed, a few years go, of existing in 2004. In the the late 1990s, we all pretty much expected a cyber-worshipping, materialistic Dark Ages to to descend when the Baby Boomers left the scene. It still might happen, but at least cautious optimism is justified now.
I predict, safely, I think, that voter participation among 18-29-year-olds this year will be at least 20 percentage points above its 2000 level, and I am willing to wager $100 that it will be 30 percentage points higher. Any takers can e-mail me to negotiate conditions:)
There was a poll that Amy Sullivan (of politicalaims.com) pointed to that showed some pretty uneducated folks out there… Though I guess it’s good that Democrats have a favourable party ID…