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Analysis: Road to the 2016 GOP nomination frontloaded in the South
13 of the 14 Southern states have primaries or caucuses before March 15
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
(CFP) — For the gaggle of candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination, success or failure is likely to hinge on how well they can perform in a primary calendar that is frontloaded with Southern contests.
Between February 20, when South Carolina holds its primary, and March 15, when Florida and North Carolina vote, 13 of the 14 Southern states will hold either primaries or caucuses.
In that three-week stretch, a whopping 824 delegates will be up for grabs in the South, about two-thirds of the 1,237 delegates needed to cinch the nomination. And 471 delegates will be decided on a single day, March 1, when seven Southern states will vote in what is being dubbed the SEC Primary (albeit with a bit of ACC and Big 12 mixed in.)
Having almost all of the Southern states vote early (save West Virginia) is a new wrinkle in this year’s primary calendar that will no doubt add to the region’s clout in the nominating process. So it is perhaps not surprising that nine Southern Republicans decided to run in 2016, with six still in the race (as of this writing.)
While the early states might weed some of them out, the Southern frontloading of the calendar might provide temptation for the also-rans to hang on until they get to more hospitable territory, as there is barely more than a month between New Hampshire and Florida.
However, the last two GOP primary battles argue against the idea that Southerners might be particularly hospitable to Southern candidates. In 2008 and 2010, candidates from outside the South won twice as many Southern contests (16) as candidates from the South (8).
And if the field remains crowded, the rules under which delegates are allocated could leave Southern delegations fractured as the process heads north and west.
Here is how the process generally works: Each state gets a number of delegates who are selected statewide, and it also gets three delegates for each congressional district. The delegates are allocated based on how well a candidate performs across the state and in each congressional district, and the state’s three members of the Republican National Committee are automatically delegates.
In most of the states, there is a threshold percentage that a candidate has to meet before being eligible for statewide or district delegates, ranging from 5 to 20 percent. In a heavily split field, that means that candidates who don’t finish near the top may not get any delegates, but the delegations could be sliced and diced if multiple candidates cross the threshold.
In five states, candidates who win more than 50 percent of the vote statewide or in a district take all of the delegates; in Tennessee, that threshold is 66 percent. But if the field still remains fractured in mid-March, it is unlikely that any candidate will be able to win an outright majority to sweep most, if not all, of a state’s delegates.
Also, two of the larger states–North Carolina, with 72 delegates, and Virginia, with 49–have no threshold, with all delegates allocated proportionally based on the statewide vote. So no one is likely to sweep either of those states.
The two outliers in this process are South Carolina, which votes Feb. 20, and Florida, which votes March 15. In South Carolina, with 50 total delegates, the statewide winner gets all of the statewide delegates, and the winner of each congressional district receives all three. In Florida, with 99 total delegates, the statewide winner takes everything.
So, for instance, if one of Florida’s two favorite sons in the race–U.S. Senator Marco Rubio or former Governor Jeb Bush–lands in first place by even a single vote, he gets all 99 delegates and the other gets nothing. And if neither of them places first, they will have no Sunshine State support at the convention in Cleveland.
The two biggest prizes in the Southern primary calendar are Florida and Texas, where 155 delegates will be up for grabs on March 1.
While Bush and Rubio will be competing in their home state, only one candidate still in the face hails from Texas–U.S. Senator Ted Cruz. And Texas is one of the states where, if a candidate gets more than 50 percent of the statewide or district vote, he or she gets all of the delegates.
So if Cruz, a favorite son with statewide political roots, could win a majority in Texas, he would need to win a majority in just 19 of the state’s 36 congressional districts in order to match the delegate haul that Rubio or Bush might take out of Florida–an uphill climb in a fractured race, but doable.
The biggest wildcard heading into the Southern primaries is what the region’s all-important block of religious conservatives will do. In 2008, when they coalesced around Mike Huckabee, he won six Southern states; in 2012, when they got behind Rick Santorum, he won four. The South was the best region for both, although it did not work for either of them in the end.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal ends campaign for GOP presidential nomination
Jindal’s decision comes after he was unable to gain traction in the polls or a place in the top-tier debates
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
WASHINGTON (CFP) — Saying it was “not my time,” Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has ended his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal
“We spend a lot of time developing detailed policy papers, and given this crazy, unpredictable election season, clearly there just wasn’t a lot of interest in those policy papers,” Jindal said in a November 17 appearance on Fox News, where he announced he was suspending his campaign.
“Certainly, we thought it would end differently, but the reality is, this is not my time.”
Jindal, 44, whose term as Louisiana’s chief executive ends in January, said he will return to the think tank he founded, America Next, after he leaves office.
When he was elected in 2007, Jindal, a former congressman and official in the George W. Bush administration, was one of America’s youngest governors and was considered to be a rising star in the GOP.
But amid a budget crisis in Baton Rouge, Jindal saw his approval ratings back home plunge, and he was unable to get out of the low single digits in polling of the crowded Republican presidential field.
Jindal had been relegated to the second tier in the first three GOP debates.
Jindal becomes the second Southern Republican to exit the race, joining former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who left in September.
The remaining candidates are U.S. Senators Ted Cruz of Texas, Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and former governors Jeb Bush of Florida, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Jim Gilmore of Virginia.
On The Trail: Candidates troop to Concord to file for New Hampshire primary
Southerners Graham, Rubio and Cruz among the candidates filing for February 9 ballot
♦By Patrick Scanlan, Chickenfriedpolitics.com contributor
CONCORD, New Hampshire (CFP) — Presidential candidates have been spending important time in New Hampshire over the past two weeks, passing through the Secretary of State’s office to file for candidacy and secure a spot on the New Hampshire first-in-the-nation primary ballot. The filing period attracts unknown underdogs and current poll leaders alike, who will all share equal space on the New Hampshire ballot.
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham in New Hampshire
The majority of candidates filing, including U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Ted Cruz of Texas, and Marco Rubio of Florida, expressed support for keeping the New Hampshire primary first in the national nominating calendar, allowing any U.S. citizen the ability to run for president and set the tone for the rest of the election.
Graham called the retail politics of the Granite State “an antidote to big money.”
“This is the last place where you can break through without being rich,” Graham said. He said that increasingly, the modern political process, with an emphasis on national polls and use of social media, is changing the way candidates run for president.
“The way you become heard now is not going to house parties and town halls, it’s whatever you need to say or do to get your national polling up,” he said.
Cruz said that “if our first elections were decided by large states, they would all be decided by slick Hollywood TV ads” and the winners “would just be whoever spends the most money.”
Cruz also took time to talk about larger issues. He stressed the importance of uniting conservatives with “common sense conservative values” and cited his previous record of standing up to Washington and big government, especially dealing with complex current issues such as immigration.
“If the Republican nominee and Hillary Clinton are both advocates of amnesty, millions of working men and women will say, ‘To heck with all of you, you’re a bunch of corrupt Washington cronies, and I ain’t showing up,” Cruz said.
During his tour through the State House in Concord, Rubio defended himself over recent headlines related to the controversy of his use of a Florida GOP credit card for personal expenses, which he said was being drummed up by his political opponents.
“Those aren’t public documents, guys. Those are documents that were leaked by the chairman of the Republican Party, who was supporting my opponents,” Rubio said.
“The main issue in this election is moving forward and understanding the challenges before American and the challenges before our people,” he said.
The New Hampshire primary is February 9.
On The Trail: U.S. Senator Rand Paul barnstorms key early presidential caucus state of Nevada
Kentucky senator makes pitch to Latino libertarian group in Las Vegas
♦By Andy Donahue, Chickenfriedpolitics.com contributor
LAS VEGAS (CFP) – Just hours after CNN’s Republican presidential debate, U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky barnstormed Nevada, taking his presidential campaign on a four-city sweep of the key early caucus state.
Paul began his Nevada tour in Carson City before attending events in Reno and Ely and wrapping up with an appearance at a Latino public policy forum at the College of Southern Nevada near Las Vegas on September 17.
Rand Paul addresses Latino group in Las Vegas.
The event was hosted by the LIBRE Initiative, a non-partisan group that advocates limited government and free enterprise, providing a congenial and receptive audience for Paul, who hails from the libertarian wing of the GOP
Paul made frequent, poignant allusions to Spanish literature throughout his address while telling his own narrative of learning small amounts of Spanish from immigrant children his own age while growing up in Texas. He said the vast wealth and income discrepancies between him and these children were instrumental in his dedication to immigration and border security solutions.
To address these inequalities, Paul is campaigning on an immigration plan built on the economics of supply and demand, advocating for job specific visas that are “proportional” to the number of openings for each job.
Paul saluted the Latino community’s shared commitment to hard work, telling the audience that he “never sees a Hispanic pan-handler.”
Paul also quoted Colombian writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez as a source of “advice Republicans might consider,” reciting a line from “Love in the Time of Cholera” to call on his country and his party to seek renewal:
“Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them … Life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”
Nevada will hold its presidential caucuses on February 23, 2016, with 30 delegates at stake. It is the fourth event in the 2016 primary calendar–after Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina–and the first test of strength in the West.
Paul is one of eight Southern candidates in the GOP race. The others are U.S. Senators Ted Cruz of Texas, Marco Rubio of Florida and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina; former governors Jeb Bush of Florida, Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Jim Gilmore of Virginia; and Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana.
The lone Southern seeking the Democratic nomination is former U.S. Senator Jim Webb of Virginia.
Kentucky GOP switches from presidential primary to caucus to help Rand Paul
Decision means Paul will be able to pursue the White House and re-election to the Senate simultaneously
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
FRANKFORT, Kentucky (CFP) — With U.S. Senator Rand Paul looking on, Kentucky’s Republican central committee voted to switch the presidential contest in the Bluegrass State from a May primary to a March caucus, clearing the way for Paul to run for the Senate and the White House at the same time.
U.S. Senator Rand Paul
However, the central committee made the switch contingent on Paul contributing at least $250,000 to defray expenses associated with the caucus, something Paul has promised to do. The committee set a deadline of Sept. 18 for the payment to be made.
The vote, held by secret ballot, was 111-36, more than the two-thirds majority necessary to make the change. After the vote was announced, Paul’s supporters stood and cheered.
Paul release a statement saying “holding a caucus will ensure that Kentucky is relevant and participates early in the process.”
“I am also grateful for the Republican Party’s trust in me, allowing me to run for re-election to the U.S. Senate and seek the nomination for the presidency of the United States,” he said.
The change was necessary because Kentucky law does not allow the same candidate to appear on the ballot twice in the same election. If the Kentucky GOP held a primary, Paul would have faced a choice of whether to seek a second term in the Senate or opt out of a presidential primary contest he is likely to win. The caucus is also earlier in the presidential nominating calendar, which could boost his White House prospects.
Kentucky Democrats, who control the state House and the governorship, have blocked efforts by Paul’s allies to change the state law against political double-dipping. While the change fixes Paul’s problem for the primary, he could still face the same issue in November 2016 if he wins the GOP presidential nomination.
Paul maintains the law is unconstitutional because of a 1995 Supreme Court ruling that a state can’t impose its own restrictions in races for federal offices. He had hinted that he would a federal lawsuit if any attempt is made to keep him from seeking both offices at the same time.
The switch to a caucus was criticized by the Bluegrass State’s top elections official, Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who issued a statement saying “it is unfortunate that today a few insiders were able to disenfranchise over 1.2 million Republican voters.”
“One candidate should not be able to buy an election. Democracy demands that all eligible Kentuckians be a part of the election process. That didn’t happen today and won’t happen with a caucus.
There is historical precedent for running for both the presidency or vice presidency and Congress at the same time, most recently in 2012 when U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, the GOP’s vice presidential nominee, was re-elected to his House seat in Wisconsin.
Vice President Joe Biden also won Senate re-election in 2008 on the same day he was elected vice president, as did Lyndon Johnson in 1960.
The only other senator up for re-election in 2016 running for president, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, is giving up his Senate seat.
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