While it has taken some time to get plans from all of the states and territories, it appears that all of the delegate selection plans for 2020 have now been sent to the Rules and By-laws Committee (you may remember them from 2008) for review. One of the key issues for this current set of plans has been how many caucus states there will be for 2020.
Caucuses have been a catch 22 for both sides of the establishment vs. activist debate. On the one hand, the caucus system rewards organization which — at least in the past — gave an edge to the establishment. On the other hand, in recent cycles, caucuses reward the candidates with the most enthusiastic supporters — which has tended to be the candidates supported by grass roots progressive activists. On the third hand, the advantage for the activists come from a system that puts obstacles in the place of broad participation — so, while that system, benefits progressive activists, the basic structure is contrary to some basic principles that progressives hold. As a result, the rules changes after the 2016 cycle were definitely designed to promote movement away from caucuses and to encourage those that remained to take steps to increase participation, and those changes have had an effect.
In 2016, thirty-seven states and two territories (D.C. and Puerto Rico) had government-run primaries. Democrats Abroad had a party-run primary. Finally, thirteen states and four territories held a variation on a caucus — some more open than others.
With the encouragement for state parties to use a government-run primary and a push to establish presidential primary in several states, there is a definite shift for 2020. For 2020, forty-three states and two territories will be using a government-run primary. Meanwhile, besides Democrat Abroad, four states (Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, and North Dakota) will use a party-run primary. While the four territories will continue to use a caucus, only three states (Iowa, Nevada, and Wyoming) remain as caucus states.
The other major change is that — even in caucus states — the vote at the local caucus is used to allocate presidential delegates. This change is different from past cycles in which states could allocate presidential delegates based on the vote at the congressional district and state conventions. But given how caucuses operate, it did raise the question of how to count the vote at the local caucuses. This question is not an issue in the territories which only have one level (a territory-wide caucus or, for the Virgin Islands, two caucuses for different islands). But for the states, it is an issue. However, only the Iowa plan clearly addresses this issue opting to use “state delegate equivalents” — a feature of the fact that Iowa has four levels — precinct, county, congressional district, and state — and, due to rounding and some other issues, the number of delegates to the county conventions per state convention delegates are not equal in all of the counties. Nevada’s rules are ambiguous as to whether they will be looking at raw vote totals or state convention delegates. Wyoming’s plan — which is not in conformity to the national rules — uses the votes at the state convention to bind delegates rather than the results of the county caucuses.
Another issue that has played out with the party-run primaries and caucuses are mechanisms to increase participation. Several of the states include some form of electronic voting and most include a vote-by-mail option similar to no-excuse absentee voting. One thing that has flowed from these early voting options, especially in the caucus states, has been the adoption of ranked choice voting. Both Iowa and Nevada are using ranked choice voting for the “virtual” early caucuses — with Iowa awarding a set number of delegates to the results and Nevada adding the virtual caucus votes to the in-person votes in the individual precinct. In both cases, ranked choice is used to mimic the typical caucus process in which supporters of non-viable candidates get to switch to a viable candidate. Alaska and Kansas — which used caucuses in 2016 — will use ranked-choice in their party-run primary. Finally, Maine (which uses ranked choice for other federal elections) still has pending legislation to adopt ranked-choice voting for presidential primaries.
The Rules and By-laws Committee has another several weeks (until mid-September) to get back to the states. If past is any guidance, several states will be requested to make some revisions to better comply with the national rules. My expectation is that we will see some revision to Nevada’s plan to more clearly state how delegates are being allocated. major changes to Wyoming’s plan to address absentee voting and to bring the delegate allocations into compliance, and potentially some changes to the plans from the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam. For both the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam, the plans appear to call for one level of caucusing, but to have voters attend the caucus at separate locations. I would expect the RBC to ask for additional details on the process by which the votes will be combined in a prompt fashion to keep the meetings as short as possible.
One thing to note is that for all of the changes at the state level, some things have stayed the same at the national level. There is still the 15% threshold to win delegates at the congressional district and state-wide level. And, as the folks at 538 have recently noted, it is possible to a candidate who gets just over 15% state-wide to miss out in some congressional districts and for a candidate who just misses 15% state-wide to get some congressional district delegates (especially in large states with a large number of congressional districts).
As we get closer to Iowa, we will probably start hearing about the possibility of a brokered or hung convention. Especially in the early states, with multiple candidates running, it is very hard for any candidate to get a majority of the delegates. And once again, the delegate selection process is weighted to the front of the schedule with about one-third of the delegates due to be selected on Super Tuesday (March 3) and a cumulative total of just under 70% of the pledged delegates by the end of March. However, unless we have three or four candidates locked in a close race by the end of March, it is likely that one candidate will be close enough to 50% by the end of the process to avoid a truly contested convention. In past cycles, the automatic unpledged party leader delegates have mostly supported the candidate with the plurality of pledged delegates, thereby putting that candidate over the top. With party leader delegates not allowed to vote on the first ballot, there is a slight possibility that there will be a second ballot if the front runner falls just short of 50%,
In all of the states, a complicating issue is the gap between when delegates are allocated and when they are selected. Some states provide that, if a candidate withdraws before delegate selection, such a candidate will not receive any delegates (either moving those delegates to uncommitted or recalculating the delegates for the other candidate as if that candidate had not reached 15%). Of course, many candidates — wanting to keep their delegates (and more importantly standing committee — read platform committee — members which are allocated using the same formula as delegate allocation) to have some influence at the convention — tend to find a way to cease active campaigning while technically still meeting the state requirements to keep their delegates.
Putting the rules to the side, there are several more rounds of debate, and it is likely that the shape of the field will change dramatically between now and Iowa. And we will have to see what changes the RBC makes to the current plans and how the plans play out in practice before we know what difference these changes will mean. Will we see preference deals in the states with ranked-choice voting? When the results of the precinct caucus determine the delegate allocation, how will that change the ability to offer “deals” in which the non-viable candidate supporters get a delegate to the next level that is only officially pledged to the viable candidate (and what will that mean for how they choose which candidate to support when they have to switch)? And will certain states that used to regular vote for “outsider” candidates in caucuses end up supporting establishment candidates in primaries? The answers to these questions might go a long way to determining who wins the race if it is close.
