Category Archives: Rules


California splitting electoral votes too?

This would be an earthquake. Huffington Post has the story:
A Republican-backed ballot proposal could split left-leaning California between the Democratic and GOP nominees, tilting the 2008 presidential election in favor of the Republicans.
California awards its cache of 55 electoral votes to the statewide winner in presidential elections _ the largest single prize in the nation. […]

North Carolina changes electoral college allocation

This is a huge deal. North Carolina is changing the way that it allocates its electors in the electoral college.
So why does this matter? Because instead of the GOP almost certainly getting 15 electors, it will only get 9, with the other 6 going to the Dem, working off the congressional delegation allocation.
The Dems could […]

West Virginia moves up

I don’t know how I missed this last week, but I thought it interesting. West Virginia wants to move up. According to The Hill, they will be picking most of their delegates at a Feb. 5th convention. And the timing during the day matters:
The West Virginia GOP could announce its pick for president by 2:30 […]

Washinston State sets delegate selection rules

Over the weekend, the Washington GOP set the process for delegate selection. This is interesting for its substance, but also because it is an example of how convoluted this process could get if we get to a contested convention. The summary of the rule is that the 37 delegates are allocated by:

10 Delegates Statewide based […]

Early voting impact on the calendar

The WSJ’s Chris Cooper makes a good point about early voting and its impact on the calendar:

But even before the official votes kick off in Iowa on Jan. 14, large numbers of voters around the country already will have cast their ballots, as major states encourage voting far in advance of election day.
Florida’s primary is […]

Rudy and winner-take-all primaries

Marc Ambinder has a great article on the New Jersey delegate selection process. The idea is pretty simple. There is a push to make New Jersey’s primary "winner-take-all," meaning that the candidate with the plurality gets all 52 delegates.
The point is that other states may go this route. Utah good assign its 19 delegetes overnight […]

Will independents vote in California?

Rules fights are fun, obscure, and usually well behind the scenes. Not the fight over whether independents (normal speak for California’s "Decline to State" or DTS) can vote in the GOP primary. They can in the Democrat’s primary.
For the most part, this fight is breaking down along ideological lines. Moderates want DTSers to vote. Conservatives […]

Possibility of a brokered convention?

I agree that this is a real possibility on the GOP side. Mike Tomasky discusses how it might arise on the Democratic side.

Tags: Democrats, Republicans, Rules, Strategy

NY moves to Feb. 5th

I almost wasn’t even going to mention this because I had before. But there is one interesting little note. The New York GOP primary is winner-take-all. Did Spitzer just assign a bunch of delegates to Rudy with a pen?

Tags: Calendar, Giuliani, Rules

More on primary dates

Regular readers will know that one of my favorite topics is the primary calendar. Fascinating things are afoot.
First, on Straight Talk Express, an experienced party hack told me that smart New Hampshire money is now on a December primary. As I have discussed before, New Hampshire and Bill Gardner are committed to preserving New Hampshire’s […]