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.
the correct link for WSJ’s battleground poll results page is this one:
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-battleground04-frameset.html
On the Truman-Dewey race in 1948.
This is a classic that has long been taught in survey research courses — and there are some interesting points that suggest things to consider this year.
First of all, the last Gallup poll was conducted in mid October. It did not pick up Harry Truman’s passionate late campaign by rail, and it did not pick up the near collapse of the Wallace campaign in the last weeks. Remember, 1948 was a 4 way campaign, Truman and Dewey, plus Strom Thurmon on the Dixiecrat ticket, and Henry Wallace running as a progressive.
But the real polling era was Gallup’s — they had not considered the need to adjust their polling results to the vast demographic changes that were the result of World War II. In many respects, they still operated off demographics from the 1940 census — and the War had changed lots of things.
In particular, Northern Industrial States had many precincts that were 3-4 times as populus post war as pre-war. But housing was scarse, and people were living doubled and tripled up. THIS WAS PARTICULARLY TRUE IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY. With the labor movement putting massive effort into registeration and GOTV that year — Industrial worker precincts were way underpolled given their population.
But it was really the Black Community that made the critical difference. In fact, Gallup did not really poll blacks, and it employed no black interviewers, and apparently they just assumed Blacks were Republican. But that wasn’t true any more. Blacks who had migrated from the South — from can’t vote states to places like illinois and PA where the CIO would actually take them down to register after work — fully understood Truman had started to integrate the services, supported Fair Employment Practices, had voted in the Senate for the anti-Lynching laws — and most important, had the courtesy to ask for votes. It’s the moment of the “big switch” which had been underway for some years. Blacks turned out big time in 1948, and provided the margin in Industrial States that put them over the top for Truman.
In many ways this election could be somewhat parallel to 48 in that the technology change from land lines to cell phones could be systematicly missing a significant segment of the electorate. Likewise, I am not certain we yet know how the GOTV strategies of this year are going to work.
Bill,
I’m not sure why, but it takes time for changes in national polling to be reflected in polling from individual states. The states usually lag the national trends. However, electoral-vote.com, for what it’s worth, has it Kerry 253 Bush 264. Not bad.
Actually, Kerry’s further ahead in the electoral college than he is in the general population.
Things are looking better for Kerry in the polls but he still shows quite a bit behind in the electorial college. It seems like if he is nearly tied in the polls he should be tied in the college.
I know this blog is for polling, but below is an interesting article that I think sums up the campaign from here on out:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1322354,00.html
Also, demtom, back in 1948 they basically didn’t poll undecideds, and many of the national polls vastly overrepresented the pro-Dewey northeast.
Thoughtful comment Ramdan and I would add that it all depends on the distribution of a relatively small number of voters in a small number of swing states. A nail biter, at this point anyway.
I certainly hope the tightness of the race is giving Nader voters pause.
More pro Kerry polls for Iowa, Minnesota, Florida, Wisconsin and New Mexico…
http://actforvictory.org/act.php/truth/articles/new_swing_state_polling_from_america_coming_together/
Enjoy.
-DS
This is going to be a breakout year for voting. High registration, high motivation (on both sides) and improved GOTV efforts will result in the highest participation we have seen.
Polls aren’t able to track the new voters that only have cell phones, or don’t meet the likely voter filter. Frankly, that filter is clogged, and needs to be cleaned. This year is nog going to conform to the model of previous years.
It’s close now, but the momentum has shifted. Be careful of pitfalls, and watch out for an Octuba surprise.
Bush basically has done a terrible job in the last 4 years, so he doesn’t have much to run on. This week his best reason for invading Iraq was blown out of the water. His post invasion strategy was shown to be flawed. And he showed his ugly scowl to over 60,000,000 on tv.
The Los Angeles Times had an editorial on Thursday, October 7, 2004 saying
“Is He a Dope?
Although neither group likes to say so, some Americans who support President Bush and many who don’t support him have concluded over four years that he may not be very bright. This suspicion was not allayed by Bush’s answers in the first presidential debate a week ago.”
There’s no good news for Bush in this poll. None.
Waiting for some comments on the WSJ-Zogby Battleground Poll completed yesterday:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adi/interactive.wsj.com/us_business_news;famil=news;s0=;s1=;s2=;u=ThuOct7120553EDT2004019722341;meta=DEN;sz=120×600;ptile=1;ord=11385113851138511385
Adding in all leaners within margin of error gives Kerry the win with 322 to Bush’s 216. Removing the states within the margin of error puts it Kerry: 243 electoral votes to Bush: 189. This appears to be the largest number of electoral votes outside of the margin of error for either candidate since Kerry’s 252 on 7/12. (Other previous bests are 235 for Kerry on 8/2 to Bush’s 225 on 8/23.)
WSJ’s analysis basically tries to undermine some of the poll they sponsored. Interesting.
-DS
using this poll and all other nationals polls via pollingreport.com
Difference of 1.16%
bush 47.6
kerry 46.5
not using polls if they are greater than 2 STDEVs from mean
bush 47.33
kerry 46.66
its a 0.66% difference. if we expect 110,000,000 voters than thats a difference of just 730,000 people
I think Bush is very close to the “tipping point” where things will quickly start to unravel. If Kerry crushes Bush in Friday’s debate, which i believe he will, the momentum might be unstoppable. As GWB’s platform is built upon a bed of lies, his campaign might crash harder than all of us suspect.
Well, this is certainly encouraging news for Kerry, although I don’t know what to think about the reason(s) for it. Too late for a post-debate bounce from last week. Is there any such thing as a pre-debate bounce?
This has been a week from hell for the GOP on Iraq. Meanwhile, Bush and Cheney continue to insist that Saddam might not have had weapons or the means to develop them, but he WANTED them, so the war was the right thing to do. And, by the way, everything’s goin’ fine. Maybe LVs and RVs across the country are starting to think that the president and vice-president have actually lost their minds.
I’ll tell you what, though. This polling roller coaster is starting to drive me crazy. November 2 can’t get here fast enough. I can’t take much more of this.
Has anyone created an algorithm that translates a popluar vote into the most probable electoral vote? Is that even possible?
Are we supposed to be looking at poll results from likely voters or not? Isn’t Bush over 50% in any poll bad news….
I’ve asked this question elsewhere and never got an answer: has there ever been a time when an incumbent trailed in a serious presidential poll this close to an election and came back to win? I suppose Truman would be one case, though apparently, back then, pollsters stopped surveying right after Labor Day, believing opinion was solidified by then. It strikes me as a very ominous sign for Bush.
It’s hard to find any polls at this point that give Bush 50% or better; the only distinction among the varoius polls is how low Bush’s number goes (somewhere from 45 to 49), and how much of the opposition has so far declared for Kerry. Zogby, for instance, has it Bush 46/Kerry 44, but his profile of the undecided makes it clear they’re most Kerry votes waiting to happen.
Meantime, the reports of new registrations read like a DNC fantasy. If these numbers translate into real turnout gains in November, we could be looking at something extraordinary.
Okay, note to self: turn off the excitement meter and hunker down. 26 grueling days to go.