2016 Primary Calender vis-a-vis FRONTLOADING

[Statistikhengst]

If the title caught your eye, then that is good!

This website is EXCELLENT at getting out the latest details about the upcoming primaries:

Frontloading HQ The 2016 Presidential Primary Calendar

"Frontloading" is the phenomenon we experienced in 2008 and to some extent, in 2012, where some states deliberately ignored the rules of the two major political parties and moved their primary dates up in the calendar to a date before the officially sanctioned start date. This resulted in massive delegate penalties for Michigan and Florida in 2008 and again for Florida in 2012.

He also has a tentative map of how things are shaping up:

I will remind again that this map is only tentative, it is bound to change a number of times yet.

And just to show how deeply I delved into the primary dates, rules and delegate selection process, I put out this prelim on the GOP Primary calendar for 2012 on August 15, 2011:

Statistikhengst s ELECTORAL POLITICS - 2015 and beyond The 2012 Republican Primary Caucus Calendar

And then updated it with all sorts of new information on January 3, 2012:

Statistikhengst s ELECTORAL POLITICS - 2015 and beyond 2012 GOP Primary Season Calendar - massive update

For 2012, I only did the Republican side of the calendar, which not always coincides exactly with the Democratic side. But for 2016, I will be doing both sides.

If you are interested in seeing how your state divvied-up delegates in 2012, you might enjoy the link from January, 2012.

A specific combination of starting states in the Primary calendar can either lead to a massive advantage for one candidate, or, if there are many candidates, a veritable logjam.

For 2016, I plan to put out my first major write-up on the Primary Calendar in June of this year, with an update maybe in November, as needed, and will be using the write-up from January 3, 2012 to show all changes of import.

The tendency in the GOP, from 1996 to 2000 to 2008 (no GOP primaries in 2004) to 2012 has been to move away from WTA and to move more toward some form of proportional representation. With up to 11 possible GOP candidates, that can indeed lead to a logjam, but then again, maybe not. Ditto for the Democratic side, but for now, we only see one clear front-runner candidate (Hillary Clinton).


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This thread is an FYI thread.
If you have any primary information that is not already covered at the Green Papers, feel free to put it on this thread.

 

[Statistikhengst]

An extremely important piece of the primary puzzle came together over the weekend, quietly, and without any fanfare.

Last Saturday, the Florida GOP set it's 2016 primary date and changed it's delegate allocation rules, setting Florida up to be perhaps, just perhaps, the most contentious primary state of them all for the Republicans. It could also cause a bevy of states to consider moving their primary date, for strategic reasons. That's what makes this information so fascinating. Details below.

---------------------------------------------------------------

First, the FL GOP has moved the Primary date to Tuesday, March 16, 2016, six weeks after the Iowa caucuses and five weeks after the NH Primary.

This means that this time around, Florida is NOT "frontloading" and will therefore not be penalized for such, as was the case in both 2012 and in 2008. In both cases, on the Republican side, Florida lost half of it's delegates (so did Arizona and Michigan, at least in 2012).

Second, The Florida GOP changed it's delegate allocation to WTA (winner-take-all) for the entire state, based on the winner of the statewide popular vote in the primary. This means that the GOP candidate who wins the most votes in the Florida primary gets all 99 delegates.

In 2012, it was WTA per CD in FL, meaning that the delegates were "officially" supposed to be divvied up based on which candidate won the most votes in each particular congressional district. That being said, in 2012, in spite of the WTA-by-CD rule, Mitt Romney ended up getting all 50 of Florida's 99 delegates (don't forget: it lost half of them because of "frontloading").

This means that Florida is setting itself up for a pretty epic battle between two favorite sons: Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. This also explains why Jeb Bush is waiting to announce, because in the time before he announces, he, as a currently non-elected person, can raise as much outside money as he wants, but as soon as he announces, he is restricted by FEC fúndraising restrictions. Since Senators and Governors don't get this luxury, this is why the GOP Senators have already announced (Cruz, Paul, Rubio, soon, Graham, etc). More $$$ means more competitiveness. It's that simple.

If Missouri sticks with WTA for the entire state and so does MI, AZ, VT and VA, then, with FL together, that's about 300 GOP delegates that are all "statewide WTA".

So, here is a prediction: it is very likely that FL just caused the GOP state parties in MI, AZ, VT and VA to consider moving their primary to March 15, 2016, in order to cause a "death blow" primary to happen, because were this to be the case, one GOP candidate could possibly walk away from March 15th with such a commanding lead in the delegate count that the battle among the 12-15 expected candidates may then, for all intents and purposes, be over. I didn't write MO in that sentence, because MO will indeed also have it's primary on March 15th, 2016, so that means that 148 WTA delegates are already guaranteed on that day. If Kasich also joins the fray, then it makes me wonder if Ohio may changes it's allocation rules and primary date as well.

Strategically, March 15th is a good date: the primaries on March 12th (Saturday) are for the territories outside of the USA, so the candidates will have a good 7 day period to focus only on FL and MO at this point in time. With the winner of FL likely to be either Bush or Rubio (this is just a hunch, nothing more at this time), then I suspect that the other candidates will be crawling all over Missouri.

This also means that March 15th could end up dwarfing the importance of the Iowa caucuses and the NH, SC and NV primaries. This also explains why Jeb Bush is not sweating Iowa all that much, at least yet.

It will also mean that a ton of money will flow to Florida, probably considerably more than either in 2012 or 2008. There were over 100 polls of Florida last time around, I expect it to go as high as 150 this time around.

In August of 2011, as indicated in the OP, I put out the 2012 GOP primary calendar and then revised it in January 2012, because a number of important changes were made by some of the GOP state parties, which often do this very quietly, not seeking media fanfare. I will be doing the same this year, hopefully, in July, with an update in January 2016.

It's this kind of information that is critical for seeing how the battlefield is shaping up. For this reason, a long tag list, which I rarely do these days. Hope you don't mind.




Derideo_Te
Mertex
Pogo
AceRothstein
Grandma
Luddly Neddite
nat4900
Vandalshandle
cereal_killer
LoneLaugher
Dot Com
CrusaderFrank
Nyvin
BluePhantom
TyroneSlothrop
Cassy Mo
IcebergSlim
Mac1958
BULLDOG
ClosedCaption
JoeB131
Wolfsister77
guno
kiwiman127
konradv
Lakhota
Nosmo King
NoTeaPartyPleez
SteadyMercury
Wry Catcher
Dad2three
TheGreatGatsby
westwall
Coyote
jillian
auditor0007
Faun
Hossfly

 

[Grandma]

Next year is going to be nowhere short of crazy.

I have to wonder how republican voters feel about this.

I know if there were 15 - or more - democrats to choose from, I'd be pissed with this rule.

 

[Statistikhengst]

An extremely important piece of the primary puzzle came together over the weekend, quietly, and without any fanfare.

Last Saturday, the Florida GOP set it's 2016 primary date and changed it's delegate allocation rules, setting Florida up to be perhaps, just perhaps, the most contentious primary state of them all for the Republicans. It could also cause a bevy of states to consider moving their primary date, for strategic reasons. That's what makes this information so fascinating. Details below.

---------------------------------------------------------------

First, the FL GOP has moved the Primary date to Tuesday, March 16, 2016, six weeks after the Iowa caucuses and five weeks after the NH Primary.

This means that this time around, Florida is NOT "frontloading" and will therefore not be penalized for such, as was the case in both 2012 and in 2008. In both cases, on the Republican side, Florida lost half of it's delegates (so did Arizona and Michigan, at least in 2012).

Second, The Florida GOP changed it's delegate allocation to WTA (winner-take-all) for the entire state, based on the winner of the statewide popular vote in the primary. This means that the GOP candidate who wins the most votes in the Florida primary gets all 99 delegates.

In 2012, it was WTA per CD in FL, meaning that the delegates were "officially" supposed to be divvied up based on which candidate won the most votes in each particular congressional district. That being said, in 2012, in spite of the WTA-by-CD rule, Mitt Romney ended up getting all 50 of Florida's 99 delegates (don't forget: it lost half of them because of "frontloading").

This means that Florida is setting itself up for a pretty epic battle between two favorite sons: Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. This also explains why Jeb Bush is waiting to announce, because in the time before he announces, he, as a currently non-elected person, can raise as much outside money as he wants, but as soon as he announces, he is restricted by FEC fúndraising restrictions. Since Senators and Governors don't get this luxury, this is why the GOP Senators have already announced (Cruz, Paul, Rubio, soon, Graham, etc). More $$$ means more competitiveness. It's that simple.

If Missouri sticks with WTA for the entire state and so does MI, AZ, VT and VA, then, with FL together, that's about 300 GOP delegates that are all "statewide WTA".

So, here is a prediction: it is very likely that FL just caused the GOP state parties in MI, AZ, VT and VA to consider moving their primary to March 15, 2016, in order to cause a "death blow" primary to happen, because were this to be the case, one GOP candidate could possibly walk away from March 15th with such a commanding lead in the delegate count that the battle among the 12-15 expected candidates may then, for all intents and purposes, be over. I didn't write MO in that sentence, because MO will indeed also have it's primary on March 15th, 2016, so that means that 148 WTA delegates are already guaranteed on that day. If Kasich also joins the fray, then it makes me wonder if Ohio may changes it's allocation rules and primary date as well.

Strategically, March 15th is a good date: the primaries on March 12th (Saturday) are for the territories outside of the USA, so the candidates will have a good 7 day period to focus only on FL and MO at this point in time. With the winner of FL likely to be either Bush or Rubio (this is just a hunch, nothing more at this time), then I suspect that the other candidates will be crawling all over Missouri.

This also means that March 15th could end up dwarfing the importance of the Iowa caucuses and the NH, SC and NV primaries. This also explains why Jeb Bush is not sweating Iowa all that much, at least yet.

It will also mean that a ton of money will flow to Florida, probably considerably more than either in 2012 or 2008. There were over 100 polls of Florida last time around, I expect it to go as high as 150 this time around.

In August of 2011, as indicated in the OP, I put out the 2012 GOP primary calendar and then revised it in January 2012, because a number of important changes were made by some of the GOP state parties, which often do this very quietly, not seeking media fanfare. I will be doing the same this year, hopefully, in July, with an update in January 2016.

It's this kind of information that is critical for seeing how the battlefield is shaping up. For this reason, a long tag list, which I rarely do these days. Hope you don't mind.

Important update:


Interestingly enough, OHIO just moved it's primary date to:

Tuesday, March 16th, 2016, the same day as the epic Florida primary battle is going to be:

The Green Papers What s New


This is interesting because Ohio is, for all intents and purposes, also WTA (WTA by CD) and should John Kasich declare his candidacy for President, he could definitely win the Ohio primaries on that day, thus blunting any perceived edge that either Bush or Rubio could take from a Florida win. Which means that MO, which is also holding primaries on that day, could become even more important for a candidate like Mike Huckabee or Ted Cruz or Rand Paul.

Please note this information from the posting of my own that I quoted:

If Kasich also joins the fray, then it makes me wonder if Ohio may changes it's allocation rules and primary date as well.

And it was so.....


Chuckle, chuckle....



Derideo_Te
Mertex
Pogo
AceRothstein
Grandma
Luddly Neddite
nat4900
Vandalshandle
cereal_killer
LoneLaugher
Dot Com
CrusaderFrank
Nyvin
BluePhantom
TyroneSlothrop
Cassy Mo
IcebergSlim
Mac1958
BULLDOG
ClosedCaption
JoeB131
Wolfsister77
guno
kiwiman127
konradv
Lakhota
Nosmo King
NoTeaPartyPleez
SteadyMercury
Wry Catcher
Dad2three
TheGreatGatsby
westwall
Coyote
jillian
auditor0007
Faun
Hossfly

 

[Grandma]

It would suit me just fine if Kasich won the primary. It guarantees an even bigger winning margin for Hillary.