Friday, October 23, 2015

South Carolina Democrats Are Not Getting Snubbed

Democrats in the Palmetto state may feel like they are getting snubbed by the candidates vying for the party's presidential nomination, but they aren't.

The National Journal's Adam Wollner digs into some of the theories floating around South Carolina -- Clinton has a big lead in the polling conducted in the state mainly -- to explain the deficit. Collectively, however, they fall short of providing the context necessary to understand what is happening in the first in the South primary state.

Apples to Oranges comparisons
Comparing the state of play in the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination race to the 2016 Republican process or the 2008 Democratic battle is imperfect. Partly that is a function of the varying levels of competition in those respective nomination races, but another contributing factor is that there just are not as many candidates fighting for the 2016 Democratic nomination as there were in the 2008 race or are in the 2016 Republican primary. More candidates yield more visits. And that trend is enhanced when there is also a comparatively higher level of competition among a larger group of candidates.

Context and Iowa
One way to shoot down the perception that South Carolina is getting snubbed and to highlight the above point is to compare the attention South Carolina receives from the candidates to that which Iowa receives (within cycles). In other words, compared to Iowa, what is the share of attention -- candidate visits -- South Carolina is receiving?

During the competitive 2004 Democratic primary race -- one that was both contested and had more candidates involved than is the case in 2016 -- South Carolina had 183 visits (see Ridout and Rottinghaus 2008). Iowa was visited by the Democratic candidates 860 times. South Carolina, then, had approximately one-fifth the number of visits that Iowa did in 2004. Four years later, South Carolina had 143 Democratic visits as compared to 1214 to Iowa (see Putnam 2009). In 2008, South Carolina had roughly 10% of the visits that Iowa received.

In 2016?

As Wollner points out, so far this year, Iowa has had the Democratic candidates come calling 91 times. South Carolina has only had the candidates on the ground campaigning for just 19 days. That is a ratio that is comparable to the one South Carolina visit for every five in Iowa witnessed in the 2004 cycle.

Looking at the just the raw numbers, visits are down for both (and across the board for all states for that matter). But, again, that is a function of the number of candidates involved in the race and how competitive it is.

There is one other factor that feeds into the perception of being snubbed in the Palmetto state. Democrats there and elsewhere have not seen a competitive primary race since 2008. None of them really like the prospect of sitting on the sidelines in 2016. In South Carolina, Democratic activists and voters see Bernie Sanders doing quite well in polls in Iowa and New Hampshire and that that has not translated down South. Again, those folks do not want to be on the sidelines for four or eight more years awaiting a competitive presidential nomination race. They want a piece of the action that Iowa and New Hampshire are getting.

But the thing is, neither the Hawkeye state nor the Granite state are really getting the attention either. There just are not enough candidates involved nor is the race competitive enough (see polling, endorsements and fundraising).

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It also bears mentioning that of all the carve-out states, South Carolina is the least competitive in the general election phase of the presidential election process. If the Clinton campaign has one eye on the general election, then that May also push her to Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada more. That does not appear to be the case at this point, however.



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Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Second place got you a Greyhound ticket to Palookaville

Look, FHQ has followed Republican strategist, Mike Murphy, since before the time that there was an FHQ. And while he gave Sasha Issenberg a fantastic inside look at some of the thinking from within the super PAC that has aligned itself with Jeb Bush, the true nature of rules changes -- with respect to the delegate allocation process in the Republican Party -- really got lost in translation.

Murphy had this to say in response to Issenberg's question about when the consolidation/winnowing of candidates might begin in earnest in this 2016 cycle:
Well, that's what the primaries are for, but the calendar's changed a little bit. We only have 10 pure winner-take-all states now. The Republican Party, we used to be the Social Darwinists: second place got you a Greyhound ticket to Palookaville. Now we're proportional, mostly by congressional district. From Feb. 1 to March 15, we have a bunch of big states; Ohio, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina probably. [Looks at primary calendar/map on wall of office.] I think my map's out of date now, I'm not sure we got North Carolina moved. So you've got this 45-day blitz of a tremendous amount of number of delegates being chosen, mostly—not all, as Florida's winner-take-all—but mostly in a heavily proportional system.
First of all, there's no need to print up an outdated primary calendar and map and put it on the wall. You can always find one right here. FHQ's been updating that one since January 2012.

More importantly, let's dive down into this winner-take-all and proportional stuff. Yes, the Republican National Committee has a set of rules that require states with primaries and caucuses in the March 1-14 window to allocate their delegates proportionally. But that is not a new thing. The proportionality requirement was added for the 2012 cycle and covered the entire month of March.1 The RNC did tighten its definition of what constitutes proportionality for the 2016 cycle, but the amount of delegates available in the respective windows is still about the same.

Again, these are subtle changes. Applying the 2016 standard to 2012 would have meant a reallocation of just 28 delegates. That is a drop in the bucket.

As FHQ has pointed out, the real distinction is between a true winner-take-all allocation and every other method. And Murphy does that.

But he oversells it.

This idea that the Republican Party has transitioned from a winner-take-all system across the board -- something akin to the electoral college -- to the system in place for 2016 is just wrong. To restate, there was a proportionality requirement in 2012. It held the number of winner-take-all states to just six.

That number in 2008, pre-proportionality requirement?

11.

There were just eleven states that were truly winner-take-all in 2008. That is just one more than than the ten in 2016. And in both cases, the truly winner-take-all states represented approximately 20% of the total delegates.

Those are not markers of significant change. That is perpetuating the myth of the winner-take-all Republican presidential nomination process. It was never like that. The RNC traditionally afforded states the latitude to set their own delegate allocation rules. Just as today, that meant a variety of types of contests; some winner-take-all, some proportional, some in between the two, and until this cycle, some caucus states sent unbound delegations to the national convention.

Has the RNC changed the rules for 2016? Yes, it has. However, those changes are much more subtle than a lot are either letting or otherwise do not realize. Not all the tickets were to Palookaville.

...though at the end of the process when a nominee was clear it may have seemed that way.


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1 The 2012 proportionality window contained contests that accounted for roughly 35% of the total number of delegates available in the Republican presidential nomination process. That number in 2016 is around 40% but in two fewer weeks time.


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Wednesday, October 14, 2015

2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: SOUTH CAROLINA

This is part three of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable. 

SOUTH CAROLINA

Election type: primary
Date: February 20 
Number of delegates: 50 [26 at-large, 21 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: winner-take-most/winner-take-all by congressional district
Threshold to qualify for delegates: n/a
2012: winner-take-most/winner-take-all by congressional district

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South Carolina is unique among its carve-out state brethren. Sure, the presidential primary in the Palmetto state is First in the South, but the South Carolina primary represents the lone exception to the proportional delegate allocation that the other three states -- Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada -- use. Actually, that distinction means South Carolina is the only non-proportional state (at least by the Republican National Committee's standards) before March 15 opens the post-proportionlity period of the 2016 presidential primary calendar.

The other three carve-out states utilize an allocation system that proportionally allocates their respective shares of delegates based on the statewide result of the primary/caucus. South Carolina, on the other hand, is a state where the distinction between at-large and congressional district delegates matters. The key here is that in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, the statewide vote affects a pool of delegates that includes at-large, congressional district and sometimes automatic delegates. In South Carolina the pool is separated. The statewide vote dictates who wins the 29 at-large and automatic delegates, and the results in the state's seven congressional districts directs the allocation of each district's respective three delegates.

If a candidate wins the statewide vote, that candidate claims all 29 delegates. If a candidate receives a plurality in one of the seven congressional districts, that candidate is awarded all three delegates from that district.

A statewide win means that the resulting allocation of delegates is weighted in favor of the winner. Said candidate would not only claim over half of the available delegates (29 out of 50), but would also be well-positioned on the congressional district level as well. Winning statewide tends to but does not necessarily mean doing well in the congressional district vote. While Newt Gingrich won South Carolina in 2012, he lost one congressional district and its two delegates to Mitt Romney. Similarly, John McCain won South Carolina in 2008, but split the then six congressional district with Mike Huckabee, yielding the former Arkansas governor 6 delegates.

In both cases, the winner left the South Carolina primary with at least a three to one delegate advantage over the next closest competitor. And in Gingrich's case, it was more than 10:1.

The South Carolina Republican allocation method, then, is built to advantage the winner more than a strictly proportional method of allocation, but less than a strictly winner-take-all scheme. It should be noted however, if a candidate wins statewide and in each of the seven congressional districts, then South Carolina essentially becomes a winner-take-all state.

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One additional area where there is some observed variation between states concerns how and how long delegates are bound to particular candidates at the national convention. The South Carolina Republican version of this has the delegates voting for the statewide winner or the winner of the congressional district on the first ballot only. If that candidate/those candidates is/are not nominated then those delegates are bound to the second or third place finisher statewide or at the congressional district level. If none of those three are nominated, then the delegates are unbound.

Presumably, the system works the same way for candidates who may have won South Carolina delegates, but who subsequently withdraw from the race. Those candidates are less likely -- obviously -- to have their name placed in nomination at the convention in Cleveland. But should a winning candidate withdraw, then their delegates are then bound to the second place finisher. If that candidate drops out, then the delegates go to the third top vote-getter. In both cases, that delegate transference is dependent upon the candidate ultimately being nominated. If not, then those delegates will be unbound free agents.

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State allocation rules are archived here.



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Monday, October 12, 2015

2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: NEW HAMPSHIRE

UPDATED 2/9/16

This is part two of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Election type: primary
Date: presumably February 9 [not officially set yet]
Number of delegates: 23 [14 at-large, 6 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional based on statewide results
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 10%
2012: proportional primary

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The more things change, the more they stay the same.

While the presidential primary calendar and the position of New Hampshire primary specifically have changed over the years, the Granite state has always maintained its position as the first presidential primary in the queue and has had the same method of allocating national convention delegates for the majority of the post-reform era. That is to say, New Hampshire has been first and has allocated a share of its apportioned delegates to candidates based on their statewide performance in the presidential primary.

There is a 10% threshold set by state law that candidates must reach or surpass in order to qualify for delegates, but New Hampshire, with so few delegates traditionally, is customarily less about the delegate score than it is about winning, placing or showing (as compared to expectations). Winning some small fraction of just 23 delegates means less, in other words, than punching one of the limited number of tickets out of the Granite state. It is the result that tends to winnow the field rather than the delegate haul.

Still, since FHQ is here to discuss delegate allocation, let's do so fully. The one caveat to all of this is that fractional delegates round to the nearest whole number. Any leftovers -- unallocated delegates -- are awarded to the top vote-getter. 2012 offers a nice example of this practice. Mitt Romney won just under 40% of the vote. That cleared the 10% threshold and meant he was awarded a 39.3% share of the 12 delegates that were available in New Hampshire (post-penalty). The former Massachusetts governor and eventual nominee received 5 delegates, Ron Paul netted 3 and Jon Huntsman got 2.1 The two remaining unallocated delegates -- again, out of 12 -- were allocated to Romney, the winner of the statewide vote. Romney, then, received less than half of the statewide vote, but got more than half of the available Granite state delegates.

There is, then, a little boost that is provided to the winner in the event that there are unallocated delegates. That advantage may be enhanced even more depending on which candidates in a large field clear the 10% threshold. If many candidates qualify for delegates, the winner's cushion will be minimal, but if just a handful of candidates meet the vote share requirement, the number of unallocated delegates to be awarded to the winner will increase.

If we were to use the Huffington Post Pollster average (as of 2/9/15) in the New Hampshire polls here is who would qualify for delegates:
Trump -- 31.0% -- 7 delegates  
Rubio -- 14.7% -- 3 delegates 
Kasich -- 14.1% -- 3 delegates 
Cruz -- 11.9% -- 3 delegates 
Bush -- 10.2% -- 2 delegates
That leaves 5 unallocated delegates; all of which would go to Trump. No, 12 total delegates is not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. However, 1) that is a victory with a nice resultant delegate advantage and 2) means that the winner -- Trump in this case -- would leave the Granite state with over half the delegates from a proportional primary. That latter fact is more significant in the race to secure majority control of at least 8 state delegations to be placed in nomination at the convention. That is an important point in the face of the arguments that proportional allocation in states will make getting to majority control in eight states more difficult. Yes, but it is more nuanced than that.

Finally, should a candidate who has won New Hampshire delegates withdraw from the nomination race, that candidate's delegates are released and free to support a candidate of their choosing.

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State allocation rules are archived here.


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1 It is important to note that the denominator in determining the percentage is the total statewide vote and not the total of just the candidates over 10%. That, along with the number of candidates over the threshold, has big implications for how many unallocated delegates there will be.


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Tuesday, October 6, 2015

2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: IOWA

This is part one of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable. 

IOWA

Election type: caucus
Date: February 1
Number of delegates: 30 [15 at-large, 12 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional based on statewide results
Threshold to qualify for delegates: Somewhere between some small fraction of the vote above 0 and 1.67%.1
2012: non-binding caucus

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Back in the summer, FHQ discussed how Iowa Republicans could respond to the new-for-2016 RNC requirement that states bind their delegates to candidates based on the results of the preference vote in primaries and caucuses. As first in the primary calendar queue, the Republican Party of Iowa has a bit of a balancing act to pull off and with a number of options to boot. On the one hand, the party could have chosen to hold winner-take-all caucuses (Carve-out states do not fall under the proportionality requirement.). And while that would have had Iowa giving a candidate a sizable delegate boost right out of the gates, going that route is not all that consistent with how the national party views Iowa's and the other carve-out states' role in the process; as part of the "on-ramp".2 Iowa also has some interest in retaining its first-in-the-nation status. Acting counter to the intent of the national party is not in the the way to achieve that outcome.

Instead, Iowa Republicans opted to comply with the new binding requirement by adopting a strictly proportional method of allocating its 30 delegates to the national convention in Cleveland.3 And they did so in the simplest terms, tying the delegate allocation to the statewide vote in the February 1 caucuses (rather than splitting it up based on the statewide and congressional district results). Candidates, then, will win delegates approximately in proportion to their vote in the caucuses assuming they receive at least a 3.33% share of the vote to mathematically qualify for delegates.

The caucus/convention process will then proceed as it always has. The difference in 2016 will be that delegate slots will be bound to candidates based on the collective precinct caucus results. Those slots will be filled in subsequent steps of the process. That is the big change for Iowa and the majority of other non-binding caucus states from 2012.4

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State allocation rules are archived here.


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1 If n-1 candidates all receive a share of the vote that rounds their share of delegates awarded up, and if there is still an unallocated delegate, then that last candidate would be granted that delegate by virtue of being "closest to the rounding threshold". This is technically true even if that candidate -- the last remaining candidate -- receives just one vote. Now, this is unlikely to happen, but does give us some indication that, depending on how the vote breaks, Iowa could allocate delegates to some candidate with virtually no threshold.

2 Roughly, that "on-ramp" is a sequential retail politics environment that gives voters in smaller states the opportunity to meet and hear from the candidates face-to-face. By extension that levels the playing field by not forcing candidates, their campaigns and attendant super PACs to immediately prepare for a multi-state fight waged over the airwaves. In other words, the on-ramp is intended to nurture competition and potentially create momentum behind any candidate, regardless of resources.

3 Here is the relevant section from Article VIII of the Bylaws of the Republican Party of Iowa:

4 Importantly, if only one candidate is placed in nomination at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, then the entire Iowa delegation is bound to vote for that candidate.


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Friday, October 2, 2015

2016 Republican Delegate Allocation Rules by State


Convention: State will bind delegates to the national convention at a state/territory convention. Other conventions will leave the delegation unbound.

Proportional: State will proportionally allocate delegates based either on the statewide primary/caucus vote or on the combination of the statewide and congressional district votes.

Proportional with Trigger: State will follow above proportional rules but allows for a winner-take-all allocation if a candidate wins a majority of the vote statewide or at the congressional district level.

Hybrid: State will follow some form of winner-take-most plan (i.e.: winner-take-all by congressional district) or directly elects delegates on the primary ballot.

Winner-take-all: State will award all delegates to the plurality winner of the primary or caucus.

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October 1 came and went with little fanfare. But that was the deadline for states to have finalized and submitted delegate selection plans to the Republican National Committee for approval. Most of the rules have been adopted by state parties at meetings and conventions throughout 2015. That gave the RNC a chance to green light most of them as they became available.

Some plans, however, are more available than others as FHQ found when trying to put together a "what do we know now about delegate allocation rules" post over the course of this week. Thankfully Zeke Miller at Time came along and filled in a number of those gaps.

I will make some broad comments now and revisit this on a state-by-state basis as 2016 approaches (more specifically in October and November). What should we focus on? Here are a few things:

1) Which states have new rules since 2012?
Most of the changes cycle-over-cycle are from formerly non-binding caucus states that, due to a change in the RNC rules, had to adopt a binding plan. Iowa, Minnesota, Maine and Washington to name a few developed differing sets of binding rules. Two other states, Montana and Nebraska traded beauty contest primaries with non-binding caucus/convention systems for winner-take-all primaries. Others like Ohio made a switch to winner-take-all rules to advantage one candidate or another. 
2) For (proportional) states in the proportionality window and out, is there a threshold that will limit which candidates will qualify to be awarded delegates?
This is a big one that will very likely aid the winnowing of this atypically large field of Republican presidential candidates. Candidates will very likely be separated into at least four groups: 
a) those who win contests
b) those who lose contests
c) those who win delegates
d) those who do not win delegates

The candidates who fall into categories b or d are going to feel pressure in various ways to drop out of the race. The saving grace for those candidates in category b is if they are winning delegates, but staying in striking distance.
3) For other (proportional) states in the proportionality window and out, is there a winner-take-all trigger [see striped states above]?
In other words, can a candidate win all of the delegates or all of the either statewide/at-large or congressional district delegates if they win the state or the congressional district? There are a lot of these trigger states on the calendar in the proportionality window. Their impact -- as potential winner-take-all states -- very much depends on the size of the field and competition among the candidates at the point that a contest is held. As FHQ pointed out in 2011 and again this year, the smaller the field is, the more likely it is that a backdoor winner-take-all contest will be triggered. It is difficult to see that with 15 candidates involved now, but the field will winnow and the calculus will change. 
4) What else is there to know?
Lots. There are rounding schemes and recalculations of delegate allocations and other sliding rules that are conditional. As always this process is a patchwork of rules in 50 states. There is a lot of variation; a lot of caveats. FHQ will be doing a tour through all 50 states as we did in 2012 and the additional territories where rules are available and state party officials willing to talk to fill in gaps. Updates will come often over the next couple of months and will be archived here for future reference
And here is the full report on delegate allocation rules from the RNC.



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Thursday, October 1, 2015

North Carolina Presidential Primary Shifts to March 15 After McCrory Signature

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory (R) signed HB 373 into law on Wednesday, September 30. The action untethers the presidential primary in the Tar Heel state from the earliest South Carolina presidential primary and sets a firm date (March 15) for the 2016 cycle.

The move two years ago to push the North Carolina presidential primary away from the usual May date where it was consolidated with other primaries has been controversial ever since. Not only did it introduce budgetary issues -- having to fund a new and separate presidential primary election -- but it made the state's parties vulnerable to national party penalties for conducting their delegate selection processes through a non-compliant (too early) primary. Both factors put almost instant pressure on partisans in the legislature to make a change.

The General Assembly sought to deal with the latter factor (primary timing) first and in the last months has moved to shift the May primaries up to coincide with the earlier presidential primary to solve the budgetary expenditure.

Now that the bill has passed the legislative hurdle and been signed into law all of that is settled for 2016. That means that the March 15 North Carolina presidential primary will coincide with similar contests in Florida, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio. However, bear in mind that this change -- North Carolina primaries in March -- is only in effect for the 2016 cycle. The date called for in the law is specific to 2016. That means that everything will revert to the way it was prior to the signing of this law after 2016. The regular primary will shift back to May and the presidential primary will once again be tied to the South Carolina presidential primary.

That is not unlike how New York has handled its presidential primary scheduling the last two cycles. The primary is scheduled on a February baseline, but has been shifted temporarily -- with a sunset in the law -- to compliant dates for 2012 and 2016. Strategically, that method forces the legislature to think about and act on the presidential primary date every cycle (as opposed to letting the negative inertia of a late, consolidated primary lead to a maintenance of the status quo; a late date).

But for now, North Carolina is compliant with national party rules and will have a March 15, 2016 presidential primary date.


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Tuesday, September 29, 2015

So the RNC is Floating the Idea of a New Presidential Primary Order?

Tim Alberta has an interesting item up at the National Journal today. In it, Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, indicates that he and others in the party are open to a discussion about "wheth­er or not the same old or­der and the same old sys­tem is the best sys­tem for how we choose nom­in­ees of our party".

In a broad sense, this is nothing new. The national parties do this every four years. Both the DNC and RNC revisit the rules of the just completed cycle and tend to revise them when and where they see the need to correct the perceived problems of the past. In other words, the national parties usually fight the last war.

But what Priebus is suggesting is a more thorough examination of the process before 2020. One that, the end goal of which, may be to introduce a fundamentally different system. He raises the type of rotating regional primary system that bears some resemblance to the one the National Association of Secretaries of State have pushed for years.1 Priebus also brought up the kind of lottery system (to determine primary and caucus order on the calendar) that is seen in system proposals like the American Plan.

Before everyone jumps on the bandwagon of change or, worse yet, folks in Iowa and New Hampshire start to freak out because they aren't "sacred cows" anymore, let's take a step back and look at the institutional impediments that will very likely stand in the way of such sweeping changes.

The first and largest impediment is that the RNC can change all it wants, but a changed system is really never going take hold unless there is similar buy-in from the DNC. When the national parties coordinate these types of changes, even if only in an informal way, they tend to institutionalize both more quickly and in a more lasting way. There is some evidence to suggest that when they don't offer a united front against the states -- both state parties and state governments -- the states can use that inter-party division over the rules of the game against the national parties and to their (the states') own advantage.

Take, for example, the roguery of the last couple of cycles. Actors in both Florida and Michigan called the national parties' bluff in 2007 and moved their respective primaries into positions on the calendar that broke with the guidance in the national party delegate selection rules. Other than a 50% penalty that those states and others were willing to take in order to have an early influence on the nomination race, the RNC looked the other way. The DNC, on the other hand, exercised the party rule that gave its Rules and Bylaws Committee the discretion to increase the severity of their own 50% penalty.

The rules were similar in both parties, but the penalties were different. Some Republican-controlled states used that mismatched rules regime across the two national parties to their advantage and wreaked some level of havoc with the presidential primary calendar in 2008.

The reaction for 2012 was that both parties agreed to a later start date -- not January -- but the Republican Party did not increase its 50% penalty to enforce that start point. The result was a repeat of the 2008 calendar chaos. If states were willing to take the 50% hit in 2008, then they were just as willing to take it again in 2012. The RNC learned that lesson after 2012 and synced the severity of their penalty -- the new super penalty -- with the potential severity of the DNC penalty. That has yield a much calmer primary calendar formation for the 2016 cycle.

Lesson learned.

That said, there are lessons to be gleaned from that process that might also inform us about how likely we are to see a significant change to the way that the Republican Party nominates its presidential candidates in the future. If the RNC makes those changes and the DNC does not also make a similar move, then Democratic-controlled states are going to be differently motivated than Republican-controlled states. If Democratic-controlled states don't play along, then those states get left out of the lottery or regional sequence.

Now, the obvious counter to that is that the RNC could just penalize those states into submission. They were willing to do that to keep states in line on the calendar for 2016, right? That move is less effective if the Democratic Party is pulling the strings at the state level. They are not dissuaded by penalties that will not affect them or their candidate. Instead, a new system without DNC buy-in might lead to Republican state parties in Democratic states abandoning non-compliant primary elections for compliant caucuses that they control (and for which the state parties pick up the tab).

That brings in a whole host of issues related to participation that may bring unintended consequences into the process that the RNC does not want.

The other factor that works against fundamental system change ties into that notion of unintended consequences. No one likes that Iowa and New Hampshire always go first other than folks in Iowa and New Hampshire. But from the national party perspective, sometimes you go with the devil you do know versus the devil you don't know. Neither national party may like that Iowa and New Hampshire go first, but they do like that they have a pretty good idea after over 40 years of repeated experimentation how Iowa and New Hampshire (and now Nevada and South Carolina) will go. The parties don't have certainty there, but there is less uncertainty with Iowa and New Hampshire at the front of the line than if they were to substitute North Dakota and Vermont in their place, for instance (or really any other combination of the other 48 states).

It is that uncertainty that often forces the national parties back the status quo, or if not the status quo then using it as a baseline from which to tweak the rules. There is a reason that the DNC added Nevada and South Carolina to the mix in 2008. Replacing Iowa and New Hampshire proved too difficult, so they opted to add a couple of states that brought in some regional and racial diversity to the beginning of the calendar.

Would a rotating regional primary system help produce a better Republican presidential nominee? Would the American plan? Perhaps, but the only way to find out is to test them out. And the parties cannot do that in a lab. They cannot determine in advance that there will not be unintended negative consequences beforehand. That test only happens in real time during primary season, and the impact is uncertain.

Existing institutions are hard to uproot when the alternative does not offer sure fire sure thing results. That is why the national parties continue to collectively -- internally -- come back to the status quo. They tend to be unable to collectively agree on a substitute that offers any more certainty than the current system. That is why there are only ever incremental changes to the delegate selection rules.

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It is a popular question these days in the context of the 2016 presidential race, so FHQ will pose it here in this discussion as well: Maybe 2020 will be different. What if the rules making for 2020 is different?

Well, everything above speaks against the type of fundamental, sweeping change that Chairman Priebus describes. However, there is precedence here. The Democratic Party after 1968 tore the house of cards down and rebuilt a new system around primary and caucus results impacting delegate allocation and thus the membership of the national convention that nominates a presidential candidate. They made that change unilaterally.2 Republicans only joined in later when state laws in Democratic-controlled states had some influence on the Republican presidential process in 1976.  The RNC, more or less, got forced into the new system. It was too convenient and too politically costly not to be a part of the new system.3

After 40 years, the RNC may be able to return the favor, leading the charge in changing the nomination system. It is not inconceivable. But it is still likely dependent on Democratic Party buy-in. If the DNC or Democrats generally perceive that the system the RNC institutes or wants to institute benefits the Republicans, then the DNC might be drawn in to changing as well.

There is a pretty good parallel for this in 2016. The RNC codified presidential primary debates limitations in their rules for the 2016 cycle. While the DNC did not craft specific rules for their own debates, they did follow suit in limiting the overall number of debates. Both national parties shared the view that the limits carried with them some utility to the overall nomination process.

That may or may not happen with the overall delegate selection rules for 2020. To bring about big changes the national parties have agree on something more than just getting rid of Iowa and New Hampshire. But just that sort of incremental change may be something the parties can collectively bring about. That is in line with what we know about the how the institutions of this process tend to operate.


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1 NASS did recently drop its recommendation of the rotating regional primary system, but not because it no longer supported it. Rather, the system had failed to gain traction and the recommendation was not having any perceived impact.

2 And it helped that most of the state legislatures in the country were also controlled by the Democratic Party. Those states had incentive to play along with the changes. It should be noted that Republicans hold a similar level of advantage in state capitals across the country now. That may be to the national party's advantage in implementing a new system.

3 The newly powerful and proliferating primaries provided a cheaper, state-run and state-fund mechanism for producing results that could be used for delegate allocation. It was also potentially foolish for the Republican Party to sit on the sidelines and watch Democrats invite more people into the nomination process (higher turnout in primaries than in caucuses), thus engaging them for later during the general election.


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Sunday, September 27, 2015

Trouble Seems to be Brewing in North Carolina

North Carolina may or may not be a microcosm of the national Republican Party, but one thing is for sure, the disagreements between the two chambers in the North Carolina General Assembly are not confined to just the legislature. Now, Governor Pat McCrory and the Republican Party in the Tar Heel state are involved, and the presidential primary is at the heart of at least one of the feuds (for lack of a better term).

The controversial presidential primary legislation that narrowly passed the House after a less contentious trip through the Senate last week has drawn the ire of both the governor and the North Carolina Republican Party. Neither is seemingly pleased with the rider added to HB 373 during conference committee stage that has opened the door to legislative caucuses creating campaign committees to raise money (thus circumventing the state parties). That raises the potential for a veto though Governor McCrory can allow the bill to become law without his signature as well. A veto would mean that North Carolina would not shift into a March 15 primary date and would end up non-compliant with Republican National Committee delegate selection rules (tethered to the South Carolina Republican primary).

To top it all off, the North Carolina Republican Party Executive Committee voted over the weekend to stick with the proportional delegate allocation method the party has traditionally used throughout much of the post-reform era. Assuming that HB 373 is signed or becomes law, that would be at odds with the new primary law that calls for a winner-take-all allocation of delegates. As FHQ explained then:
Finally, the winner-take-all language would come into some conflict with the rules of the North Carolina Republican Party regarding delegate allocation if passed. The party rules do defer to both national party rules and state statute (which the winner-take-all provision would be if passed and signed into law), but do call for the proportional allocation of national convention delegates based on the results of the presidential primary. Yet, RNC rules give precedence to state party rules in those cases of these types of disputes. And while those issues between the state party rules, the national party rules and the likely new state statute have not necessarily been squared, there are no signs of any storm clouds on the horizon. The state party is not raising any concerns over this legislative change at this point. And it is unlikely to with the RNC deadline to finalize delegate selection plans looming next week.
Well, now it appears there are some storm clouds. The bill, should it become law, does not provide cover to the state party because the only out is if there is a conflict with national party rules. If North Carolina had, by law, a winner-take-all, March 15 presidential primary, then that winner-take-all allocation would be compliant with the RNC rules. There is no national party violation there. Thus there would be no out for the North Carolina Republican Party under the presumed law. And unless the North Carolina Republican Party Executive Committee changed the wording of the party rules deferring to state statute, then it is stuck with a winner-take-all allocation.

Well, it is stuck unless the state party wants to take the state to court over the presumed new law. That route costs money and also takes time. Both are important, but with an election looming, that is potentially more time than is likely needed to keep the decision of the primary in limbo. The outcome is likely to favor the party -- freedom of association and all -- but the bigger question is the wait for all interested parties concerned. Keep in mind the filing window for the March 15 primary is set for the first three weeks of December. If that February option for the presidential primary comes back on the table, that pushes things up in to November at least another three weeks.

The other option is to take the conflict to the RNC credentials committee heading into the national convention next summer. RNC rules give precedence to state party rules over state law, so the NCGOP could likely argue effectively to retain a proportional allocation of its national convention delegation. However, that task would be all the more difficult if the party rules specifically state that it defers to state law.

If it was not already a mess, one could call all of this messy. But this just got a little messier.


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The Chaos Theory of Republican Presidential Nominations Under an Iron-Fisted RNC

Steven Rosenfeld had an interesting delegate selection rules/process piece up at Salon/AlterNet last week. He reached out to FHQ to discuss those rules and their implications for the RNC and Donald Trump, but unfortunately we never were able to connect. While I wish that hadn't been the case, I do think that both Richard Berg-Andersson and Tony Roza from the Green Papers, nonetheless, pretty closely captured a number of items I would have raised.

Still, FHQ has some comments in reaction to Rosenfeld's piece.

First, the rigging frame -- that the RNC will engineer the state-level delegate selection rules in such a way as to prevent a Donald Trump nomination -- is not consistent with what we know about how the presidential nomination process operates. The Republican National Convention adopted the 2016 national delegate selection rules at the 2012 convention in Tampa. It tweaked them slightly in the time between the convention and August 2014; readopting a proportionality requirement affecting a smaller calendar window, revising the language empowering the national party to enforce the new binding requirement that came out of Tampa and adding a rule to limit the number of primary debates among others.

A majority of the convention passed the 2016 rules, and the changes made in the time since had to garner majority support at the RNC Rules Committee stage before passing a three-quarters supermajority threshold before the full 168 member RNC in order to be implemented. And while there were voices in dissent at every checkpoint -- be it at the convention or any of the seasonal meetings the RNC holds -- the so-called establishment position won each time. And, in the case of the changes made outside of the convention, those changes achieved near consensus-level support from the members of the Republican National Committee.1

Those are not rigged results. In actuality, they are consensus-built national party delegate selection rules. The parties on both sides of the aisle often fight this last war; drafting rules consistent with those already in place, but that troubleshoot the problems that existed in the previous cycle(s).2 Again, that is not rigging. That is crafting rules in a context where different people from state parties all over the country have different views on what the rules should be; what the goals of the party and the nomination process should be. In other words, these rules are the product of politics. That process has yielded a pretty clear signal to this point: despite the diversity of opinion among members, the 168 members of the RNC have been pretty unified on the matter of the 2016 delegate selection rules. That is not to suggest that there is not dissent, but that, to the extent it exists, it has been minimal.

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But Rosenfeld is not really talking about the RNC influencing the national rules of the nomination process. Instead, he is picking up on and advancing UT-Austin law professor Sanford Levison's wild theory that the Republican National Committee will massage state-level delegate allocation rules -- whether winner-take-all, proportional or some method in between the two extremes -- to derail Donald Trump's candidacy. This notion is ridiculous for a number of inter-related reasons.

First, state parties make the decisions on how delegates to the national convention will be allocated to particular candidates based on the results of primaries and caucuses. This does not mean that those state parties are not open to influence from the national party, but that task is and would be quite difficult. In other words, it is much easier said than done. The national parties themselves are somewhat decentralized as already described, but the state party executive and state central committees that vote on and thus choose the rules that will govern the state-level delegate allocation processes are another layer of decentralization altogether. If there is a diversity of views within the national party, then there are even more opinions involved when more people -- in the form of state party executive committees and state central committees -- are invited into the process. Additionally, there is variation on this from state to state. Some states are more aligned with the positions of the RNC than others.

But keep in mind also that state parties are like the national parties in one important respect. Since, they too are decentralized to some degree and are balancing a varying multitude of views, state parties often are plagued by the same politics with which national parties can be afflicted. Given a political environment, parties -- whether state or national -- often take the path of least resistance. Like the national parties, state parties tend to carry over the same delegate selection rules from the previous cycle. That can be a function of either majority agreement that those are the best rules or that disagreement within the state party over the rules means that the status quo position (the same rules from the last cycle) prevails. The one exception is when the national party requires a rules change (but FHQ will come back to that momentarily).

The presidential nomination process is all a huge instance of party coordination in a decentralized environment. That alone speaks volumes about how mismatched the Levinson hypothesis is with how this all actually works. But there is more to this presidential nomination coordination problem than decentralization. That hovers over the entire process, but does not provide an adequate picture of how off Levinson's view is.

One other factor that ought to be included is how the Republican National Committee approaches or has historically approached the regulation of state-level delegate selection rules in the modern era of presidential nominations. They have tended to be very hands-off; allowing states to devise rules that are tailor-made for that state. In that way, it is consistent with national party's general adherence to the notion of limited (federal) government. State and local interests/parties are better able to make those decisions than the national party.

Over time, however, the RNC has become slightly more hands-on in its dealings with state party-devised delegate selection rules. Those cases have tended to be in response to state-level abuses of the national party guidelines -- the national party delegate selection rules. Again, this fits in with the idea that the national parties are often fighting the last battle, the one from four years prior. It is all cyclical: national parties set rules, states react (either following or breaking the rules), national parties react to those abuses. And on and on the cycle goes.

In both parties, there have been problems during recent cycles in dealing with the handful of states that have chosen to hold either primaries or caucuses outside of the national party-designated window. Those states have gone too early. But in those cases, the national parties have tended to deal with those problems between cycles rather than within them. The one exception is that the DNC affords its Rules and Bylaws Committee the option of increasing the (50%) penalty on states that go too early. That is intended to create some additional leverage that can be used against states before the actual voting begins. But the RNC has no similar ability. It can only make rules changes between cycles.

And even if the national party did have that ability, getting state governments to respond is another matter. This is another way in which the process is decentralized. In the majority of states, the delegate selection/allocation process is filtered through a primary election. And in most of those states it is the state government -- not the state party -- that is making the decision on when the primary will be held.3 The state party has limited say in that process. The national party has limited say in that process. Yes, the state party has the final say in whether they opt into a primary or foot the bill for a caucus themselves. But those state parties have incentive to choose the cheaper option, the primary.

The fact that Florida, Michigan and Arizona broke the RNC rules on timing during the 2012 cycles should tell us something about exactly how much power and influence the national party over the states.

The final problematic factor in the Levinson hypothesis is something he basically points out. The incentives of wading into the patchwork of state-level rules are not clear.
There are risks for an anti-Trump GOP establishment with either approach. Pushing more states into the proportional representation camp lengthens the race to accumulating 1,236 delegates. But that “would presumably assure Trump of getting some significant number of delegates, assuming he hasn’t flamed out,” Levinson said. However, pushing more winner-take-all states “obviously is a greater roll of the dice.”
If a national party is coordinating this process, even if only loosely, it is likely not inclined to "push" states to have either winner-take-all or proportional rules. The field of candidates will winnow over time, but how it winnows and importantly when it winnows are unknown factors at this point. That those are unknowns now makes it increasingly difficult for a national party -- or a state party setting their own rules for that matter -- to effectively and exactly make rules across a series of states that will definitively advantage (or disadvantage) one candidate or one type of candidate. The parties at all levels are wary of unintended consequences and this is one area -- state-level rules making -- that can produce them quite quickly.

Now, the RNC may attempt to influence state parties' delegate selection plans, but their rate of success there is likely to be mixed at best. It is not that the national parties are not powerful. They are. But they are also limited in how they can respond to states. As Tony Roza points out in Rosenfeld's article, the state parties submit plans to the RNC and the RNC green lights those plans or rejects them. [The same is true for Democrats, though the sequence of submission and approval/rejection is frontloaded.] While that potentially provides an opportunity for the RNC to massage state-level delegate allocation rules, the party does not tend to handle these matters that way. First, there is no evidence that the RNC does anything other than give a thumbs up to these plans. Faced with a Florida plan in 2011 that called for both a non-compliant primary date and non-compliant allocation formula (winner-take-all in the proportionality window), the RNC, nonetheless gave a thumbs up to the plan. And that was an instance where the party had national level rules (penalties) in its favor, backing it up. There was a violation. Additionally, when the RNC considered increasing the penalties on rogue states in the late summer of 2011, it opted not to.

Most of the state party rules are publicly available, and most of them follow closely the rules of four years ago. There are exceptions, but collectively the picture of the rules that are public sets a baseline now for us to look back on later in the year when the RNC has approved and thus finalized the state-level rules. We will know then whether the RNC has in fact massaged the rules. Chances are pretty good that the national party will leave well enough alone. If it pressed forward with such an intervention, word would get out and that would further stir up the hornet's nest of discontent that is already brewing, for the time being propping up (in the polls anyway) outsider candidacies like Trump's. The RNC does not want that kind of backlash, and besides does not operate with that kind of iron fist anyway. They might intervene on matters like who participates in primary debates (i.e.: no more kiddie table debates, an increasing threshold of support for participating in those debates or a decreasing number qualify over time American Idol-style, etc.), and while that is important, it speaks to how limited the RNC is in controlling the process. The national parties really only seek to facilitate or manage the presidential nomination process.

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The second comment-worthy item in Rosenfeld's piece concerns the Haugland-driven, rules-based chaos theory of the 2016 Republican presidential nomination process. If one works hard enough, it can be tied in with the delegate allocation discussion above, but in practice, it makes for a Frankenstein's monster of an article when bringing the two parts together. The article really seems little more than an attempt to shed some light on a couple of fringe hypotheses, Levinson's and Haugland's.

By FHQ's count this is at least the third vehicle for Haugland's Rule 40-based chaos theory; following Dave Catanese's and Reid Wilson's lead. The premise is basically this:
  1. There are now 15 candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination.
  2. RNC rules require a candidate or candidates to hold a majority of delegates in at least eight state delegations at the national convention in Cleveland.
  3. RNC rules require states with contests during the first two weeks of March to proportionally allocate their delegates to candidates based on the results of their primaries and caucuses.
  4. There are likely to be between 20 and 25 states that hold contests in those two weeks (March 1-14).
  5. Together, all of the above in combination make it less likely that any candidate gets to the level of majority control of eight delegations.
  6. Brokered convention!
Yeah, maybe. But in reality, this hypothesis is the victim of overanalyzing the rules and underanalyzing some of the regular patterns of the presidential nomination process in the post-reform era. Stated differently, it puts the cart before the horse.

2016 could be different. It could also be that it falls into the regular winnowing pattern that tends to mark these processes. That is one element that is common to each of these pieces: They emphasize the chaos because it makes for a better story than "the field will winnow and there will be a ho-hum pep rally of a convention that gives way to the general election phase of the campaign". There are reasons to believe that the 2016 Republican field of presidential candidates will winnow in ways similar to most of the rest of them since 1972.

First, as Catanese mentions, states whose contests fall in the proportionality window have the option of putting in place thresholds (of the vote) that candidates have to meet in order to win delegates at the statewide and congressional district levels. Proportionality window states can set that threshold as high as 20%. On the surface, that minimum threshold is intended to limit the number of candidates who emerge with delegates bound to them from a given state. That is even true in the scenarios where no candidates reach the threshold (the top two candidates win the delegates) or only one candidate receives 20% or whatever the threshold is set to (in most cases, either that candidate gets all of the district/statewide delegates or that candidate shares those delegates with the district/state runner-up). Most of the SEC primary states fit this category.

That is going to have the likely effect of creating at least two classes of candidates: those with delegates and those that have none or very few. That latter category will face increasing pressure in a sequential process to put up or shut; to win contests and/or delegates or drop out. Yes, that is true even with super PACs. Donations to and spending from those groups is going to becoming increasingly results-driven as the process continues. That goes for the remainder of the invisible primary phase (increase your poll numbers or get out) as well as when the process moves from Iowa to New Hampshire to South Carolina and onward (win delegates or get out). Neither super PACs nor voters are going to be drawn to candidates who have only demonstrated that they cannot move up the polls or win contests/delegates. This is a naturally occurring phenomenon typical of the sequential presidential nomination process.

But what if the winnowing only occurs to a certain point, leaving four or three or two candidates? Actually, it is likely that the field shrinks after the February contests and continues in March/April until it is down to two candidates.

But why?

It is tempting to say that that the above threshold is like the electoral process in a parliamentary system, the membership of which is dependent upon a system of proportional representation. Those systems have thresholds too. Duverger's law would tell us that that type of system would end up with multiple parties in the governing coalition even with a minimum threshold for gaining seats in the parliament. Why would the Republican presidential process with thresholds for delegates be any different? Why would it not produce a stable group of multiple (and not just two) candidates?

The answer lies in the fact that the presidential nomination processes for both major parties in the United States are actually 50(+) contests that are happening in a sequence, rather than just one vote in the parliamentary example. Each step in the sequence gives onlookers -- voters, donors, super PACs, the candidates and their campaigns -- an opportunity to revisit the tally, the score in the horse race. Those opportunities -- those chances to reflect on how the process is progressing -- means that there are constantly points where the collective process is separating the wheat from the chaff.

But some may ask, if you are a candidate who has a fair number of delegates, why would you drop out and give up any leverage at a convention that may not be a coronation for a presumptive nominee? Why would you free up delegates -- your own -- to have no choice but to gravitate toward that presumptive nominee? This is the heart of the Haugland argument: if there's chaos, don't give up your delegates/leverage. That is why his comments are often peppered with statements like his intention to educate delegates on their responsibilities.

But there are a couple of reasons why candidates might and, in fact, very often do give up that leverage and release their delegates. First, like Scott Walker, they reason that there is no utility to be gained by continuing the fight. There is nothing to be won and plenty to be lost. Now, not all of the candidates fit that category. In fact, one could easily foresee candidates like Donald Trump or, say, Ted Cruz completely ignoring that Walkerian rationale and fighting on if they have delegates.4 The rest of the field is likely more pragmatic; willing to play the Boehner role and drop out for the good of the party and its chances of winning the general election.5

And that brings us to the second reason Republican candidates may feel compelled to bow out in favor of another better positioned (in primary season) candidate: Hillary Clinton. Well, not Hillary Clinton, per se, but how the Democratic presidential nomination process is going by comparison. If the advantages Clinton has in polling, fundraising and in party endorsements collectively translate into votes throughout presidential primary season, then the Democratic process will reach its natural conclusion more quickly. That comparison is important. If Republican voters, super PACs, donors and/or the campaigns feel like that gives any advantage (real or imagined) to the Democratic candidate, then some herding toward a resolution -- a candidate -- is the likely result. There would at the very least be some pressure to hasten the ultimate resolution. That pressure is exerted formally and informally on the candidates; for them to drop out and release their delegates in order for the party to focus on the general election task at hand.

Chaos theory proponents will point toward 1976 and the contested nomination battle that cycle. Of course, that was a nomination race shaped by a much different set of conditions. It was the first Republican nomination race under the new-to-them, Democratic Party-triggered nomination system where winning primaries affected who attended the conventions and thus who won the nomination. In other words, the Republican Party was new to the process and had not adapted to it in the way that it has in the intervening 40 years. 1976 was also a year in which Republicans only ever had two options: status quo (Ford) or outsider (Reagan). A bigger field in 2016 means more instability, but it also means that there will be a winnowing process that, in combination with the delegate allocation rules, may give an advantage to one candidate that is difficult for any other candidate to overcome, if there is significant competition to become the alternative to that frontrunner. Any delay in that secondary jockeying is a win for a front-running candidate.

Out of chaos may come order, but the type of chaos that the adherents of this theory describe is not likely to produce any of the order they desire until after 2016. And when there are presidential elections only once every four years, that means putting it off until 2020. And actually, that may be the goal of this: to hope for chaos that will yield if not a candidate that is acceptable to the chaos theory proponents, then enough mayhem to force some changes to the rules of the game.

Hey, it worked for Democrats in 1968. Chaos gave way to a new system of nominating presidential candidates. FHQ is not sure how much order they got out of that, though. At best it had a delayed impact.


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1 And to be clear, these members are not stooges installed by the national party to do their bidding. These are the state party chair and the Republican National Committeeman and National Committeewoman from each of the 50 states, Washington, DC, Puerto Rico and the territories. Each of the three members that form the state delegation to the Republican National Committee are elected at the state level by the members of the state party. That leaves a diversity of different voices to form the core of the national party.

2 This is less manufacturing than it is carrying over the rules from previous cycles and augmenting them in ways to prevent the problems of the past. To build consensus, the path of least resistance is to take what already exists and tweak it. That often leads to the type of contradictions that North Dakota Republican National Committeeman, Curly Haugland, mentions later in Rosenfeld's piece.

3 Party-in-state-government is not necessarily the same as the state party. The goals of the individuals involved in each are institutionally different and even absent those differences, the groups can be completely different in make up.

4 Both are in a similar space and are unlikely to continue going on together against, for example, one alternative "establishment" candidate.

5 Some of the candidates in the 2016 field have already had experience dropping out in the past. See Huckabee and Santorum.