The exit poll results, both national and state, cited in my previous post have now been substantially revised and do not look particularly favorable to Kerry. While some of the patterns discussed previously remain, others have changed fairly dramatically. Much more discussion to follow, of course, but way too tired to pursue it now.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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January 16: Towards a 2028 Democratic Primary Calendar
Don’t look now, but it’s already time for the DNC and the states to figure out the 2028 Democratic presidential primary calendar, so I wrote an overview at New York:
The first 2028 presidential primaries are just two years away. And for the first time since 2016, both parties are expected to have serious competition for their nominations. While Vice-President J.D. Vance is likely to enter the cycle as a formidable front-runner for the GOP nod, recent history suggests there will be lots of other candidates. After all, Donald Trump drew 12 challengers in 2024. On the Democratic side, there is no one like Vance (or Hillary Clinton going into 2016 or Joe Biden going into 2020) who is likely to become the solid front-runner from the get-go, though Californians Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris lead all of the way too early polls.
But 2028 horse-race speculation really starts with the track itself, as the calendar for state contests still isn’t set. What some observers call the presidential-nominating “system” isn’t something the national parties control. In the case of primaries utilizing state-financed election machinery, state laws govern the timing and procedures. Caucuses (still abundant on the Republican side and rarer among Democrats) are usually run by state parties. National parties can vitally influence the calendar via carrots (bonus delegates at the national convention) or sticks (loss of delegates) and try to create “windows” for different kinds of states to hold their nominating contests to space things out and make the initial contests competitive and representative. But it’s sometimes hit or miss.
Until quite recently, the two parties tended to move in sync on such calendar and map decisions. But Democrats have exhibited a lot more interest in ensuring that the “early states” — the ones that kick off the nominating process and often determine the outcome — are representative of the party and the country as a whole and give candidates something like a level playing field. Prior to 2008, both parties agreed to do away with the traditional duopoly, in which the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary came first, by allowing early contests representing other regions (Nevada and South Carolina). And both parties tolerated the consolidation of other states seeking influence into a somewhat later “Super Tuesday” cluster of contests. But in 2024 Democrats tossed Iowa out of the early-state window altogether and placed South Carolina first (widely interpreted as Joe Biden’s thank-you to the Palmetto State for its crucial role in saving his campaign in 2020 after poor performances in other early states), with Nevada and New Hampshire voting the same day soon thereafter. Republicans stuck with the same old calendar with Trump more or less nailing down the nomination after Iowa and New Hampshire.
For 2028, Republicans will likely stand pat while Democrats reshuffle the deck (the 2024 calendar was explicitly a one-time-only proposition). The Democratic National Committee has set a January 16 deadline for states to apply for early-state status. And as the New York Times’ Shane Goldmacher explains, there is uncertainty about the identity of the early states and particularly their order:
“The debate has only just begun. But early whisper campaigns about the weaknesses of the various options already offer a revealing window into some of the party’s racial, regional and rural-urban divides, according to interviews with more than a dozen state party chairs, D.N.C. members and others involved in the selection process.
“Nevada is too far to travel. New Hampshire is too entitled and too white. South Carolina is too Republican. Iowa is also too white — and its time has passed.
“Why not a top battleground? Michigan entered the early window in 2024, but critics see it as too likely to bring attention to the party’s fractures over Israel. North Carolina or Georgia would need Republicans to change their election laws.”
Nevada and New Hampshire have been most aggressive about demanding a spot at the beginning of the calendar, and both will likely remain in the early-state window, representing their regions. The DNC could push South Carolina aside in favor of regional rivals Georgia or North Carolina. Michigan is close to a lock for an early midwestern primary, but its size, cost, and sizable Muslim population (which will press candidates on their attitude towards Israel’s recent conduct) would probably make it a dubious choice to go first. Recently excluded Iowa (already suspect because it’s very white and trending Republican, then bounced decisively after its caucus reporting system melted down in 2020) could stage a “beauty contest” that will attract candidates and media even if it doesn’t award delegates.
Even as the early-state drama unwinds, the rest of the Democratic nomination calendar is morphing as well. As many as 14 states are currently scheduled to hold contests on Super Tuesday, March 7. And a 15th state, New York, may soon join the parade. Before it’s all nailed down (likely just after the 2026 midterms), decisions on the calendar will begin to influence candidate strategies and vice versa. Some western candidates (e.g., Gavin Newsom or Ruben Gallego) could be heavily invested in Nevada, while Black proto-candidates like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Wes Moore might pursue a southern primary. Progressive favorites like AOC or Ro Khanna may have their own favorite launching pads, while self-identified centrists like Josh Shapiro or Pete Buttigieg might have others. Having a home state in the early going is at best a mixed blessing: Losing your home-state primary is a candidate-killer, and winning it doesn’t prove a lot. And it’s also worth remembering that self-financed candidates like J.B. Pritzker may need less of a runway to stage a nationally viable campaign.
So sketching out the tracks for all those 2028 horses, particularly among Democrats, is a bit of a game of three-dimensional chess. We won’t know how well they’ll run here or there until it’s all over.
What about voting purges? Greg Palast, author of “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy,” writes on his website http://www.gregpalast.com that voting purges, some of which could be illegal, in the states of New Mexico and Ohio could have swung the vote to Bush and not to Kerry. The problem existed in Florida in 2000 and likely did in 2004.
Let’s face it….The R’s will do anything to hold power. The only thing for Dems to do is cheat better than them or to outsmart them in their cheating game. Maybe we need to run candidates for SOS in southern states as Republicans and after the win, lead as a Democrat. I feel the R’s care more about their party being in power than they care about their country being a democracy. Ironically, their voting habbits insure neither their political freedom or a country based on freedom.
The reasoning is mind boggling. Here’s how it goes: exit polls show Kerry is ahead in certain states. Final results show Bush is ahead. Therefore, voting machines must be broken or there’s a conspiracy.
Could it be true the exit polls were *biased*? Nothing evil or premeditated even… just biased, possibly leading, surveys?
Wouldn’t that be a shock.
Satisfying as it might be to do the Reps what DeLay did to the Dems, it would be the worst possible course of action–not only because it wouldn’t work (face it: Dems aren’t sufficiently bloody-minded) but because it would do great damage to the Republic.
So, let me understand this.
The exit polls are correct almost everywhere to within 0.1%. In Florida and Ohio, the two states where electronic voting critics have been complaining that there is no paper trail, the margin of error is 4%.
Yet, you think it’s the polls that are fault, not the electronic voting machinery. I’m not claiming there was deliberate fraud, although I am open to the possibility, just that it seems like closer scrutiny is warranted.
For example, there is anecdotal evidence that the computer interface was designed such that people whose hand grazed the edge of the screen caused the choice to be flipped. This may easily account for a few percent of the voters choices going awry.
I think the comment from onprotractedwarfare sums up the terrible situtation quite well. I can’t help wondering whether after the coming disasters a modern equivalent of FDR will emerge to help put at least some of the pieces back together. I also can’t help reflecting that FDR didn’t have to contend with CNN, Fox, and the like.
This is a huge defeat for us. Even if Kerry pulled Ohio he would be a minority president. We can’t say our message didn’t get out. The resources were there. The situation in the Senate and the House is very bad. I would like to know what kind of message we have that can be understood and bought by a majority of citizens, short of issuing a machine gun to every household, putting a Baptist preacher in every science room, and burning gays at the stake. (In retrospect it clearly was a stroke of Republican genius to have the anti-gay measures on the ballots. But we have to wonder why so many people fell for it.)
Speaking for myself, I am familiar with the literature on “critical realignments” and all I can say is we are definitely in a specific sort of electoral era. Reagan was the start and it jelled in 1994. This could easily last till 2014-2020 if past “electoral systems” hold. I’m running out of decades in my personal arsenal to be around for this to turn around. And there are a lot of lurking calamities: on the dollar, in the environment, in the Middle East, that are going to come crashing down in the next four years which the re-elected national leadership won’t be able to cope with and which won’t be reversible by Dems with a simple election victory, even if it is a sweep.
My predictions for the next four years: A severe financial crisis, probably associated with a decline in the dollar; the draft; a national sales tax; privatization of social security; reversal of R v Wade; and some kind of very bad news on the environmental front.
I do think that we should be thinking along the lines I have posted here before, to wit, that we should at a minimum be signing up for contributions of $10 to $20 a month to the Democratic party to help it get on its feet for a permanent mobilization.
The other thing I think we need to look at is whether in certain areas, like CA, MA, NY, maybe CT, we can do to the Republicans something analogous to what was done to the Dems in TX. Obviously there won’t be a redistricting opportunity. But in the current juncture having “Red” members of Congress in blue states is a luxury we can ill afford, so strategies need to be developed that chisel away at the very concept of a “safe seat.”
The bright side: we showed we can raise money en masse and mount a vigorous campaign. That’s about it.
Well, based on all the comments and analysis I read that said Bush would not win because his highest approval ratings were his ceiling in the popular vote, and all the polls were rated unfairly to rvs instead of lvs, I took two weeks off work to focus on this election. I read the blogs alot, did gotv efforts, donated all the spare cash I had to get Kerry elected, because based on all the analysis I read here and on MYDD, it seemed improbable Bush would win. All the major media polls were biased, they were oversampling repubs, blah, blah blah.
Turns out they were right. We’re living in a right-wing, Christian conservative nation and I don’t see anyway for the democratic party to compete nationally. Look at all the red on that map. It’s heartbreaking. The dems and all the hopefuls like yourself and your contributors need to wake up and admit — we are on the outside looking in.