Elections California Officially Moves 2020 Presidential Primary to Super Tuesday!

[Arkain2K]

California moves up 2020 presidential primary to Super Tuesday
By Max Greenwood - 09/27/17

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) on Wednesday signed a measure moving the state's 2020 presidential primary to March — a move likely to give the nation's most populous state more sway in the nominating contest.

California has typically held its primary in June, often weeks after the eventual Republican and Democratic presidential nominees have rounded up the delegates to secure their party's nomination.

But under the legislation signed Wednesday, California's primary would fall on Super Tuesday, when several other states hold their primaries, forcing candidates to compete more aggressively in the Golden State.

Brown did not issue a statement with his signature. But California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who backed the move, said that the new date would prompt candidates to focus on issues relevant to his state's voters.

“The Golden State will no longer be relegated to last place in the presidential nominating process,” he said in a statement. “Candidates will not be able to ignore the largest, most diverse state in the nation as they seek our country’s highest office."

The Democratic Party could penalize California for moving up its primary by stripping dozens of delegates from the state's overall count. But according to the Sacramento Bee, California would still make up a sizable share of the delegates available up to that point in the nominating process.

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-w...up-2020-presidential-primary-to-super-tuesday

 

[Arkain2K]

California Primaries Move to Super Tuesday
by Alex Johnson

LOS ANGELES — California is moving up its election primaries to join the Super Tuesday pile in a bid to make the nation's biggest haul of presidential delegates relevant again.

With a handful of exceptions, California has traditionally held its primaries in June — at a time when the major-party presidential nominees have often already been chosen.

That's what happened last year, when Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton had already sewn up the Republican and Democratic nominations before California and its 19.4 million registered voters could allocate the country's biggest chunk of delegates to either party's convention.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed the measure, called the Prime Time Primary Act, into law on Wednesday. The law, which passed largely along party lines in the majority-Democratic Legislature, moves the state's primaries to the Tuesday after the first Monday in March (that's March 3 in 2020), when as many as a dozen states hold their nominating contests in an electoral jamboree that frequently determines the course of the presidential campaign.

"Candidates will not be able to ignore the largest, most diverse state in the nation as they seek our country's highest office," California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said. "The Prime Time Primary Act will help ensure that issues important to Californians are prioritized by presidential candidates from all political parties."

In past election cycles, the Democratic National Committee has awarded the California Democratic Party 70 extra delegates to keep its primary in June, away from Super Tuesday.

The DNC could choose to strip the state party of those delegates in 2020. That would leave California Democrats with about 400 delegates — still the most of any state by far, and coming into play at a critical point in the campaign.

That could be crucial for any California Democrats who join the 2020 race, a group of candidates that is widely believed could include U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.

Even if there is no California candidate to capitalize on the earlier primary, it's still a boon for Democrats, said Eric Bauman, chairman of the state Democratic Party, who called California "the beating heart of the national resistance to Trump."

"When it comes to deciding the Democratic nominee, our voices need to be heard early in the process," Bauman said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/el...e-super-tuesday-stop-being-irrelevant-n805751

 

[Arkain2K]

California Moved Its Primary Up. What Does That Mean For 2020?

Sen. Kamala Harris Democrat of California, during the Women’s March on Washington in January.​

California Gov. Jerry Brown made one of the biggest moves yet in the 2020 Democratic primary last week.

He didn’t declare his candidacy or make a “random” visit to Iowa. He signed a law that moved the state’s 2020 presidential primary from June to March 3 — also known as Super Tuesday, the moniker typically bestowed on the day when the most states are casting ballots after Iowa, New Hampshire and other early contests have ended. The law is aimed at giving Californians more influence over the presidential nomination process (by the time California voted in 2016, the GOP primary was essentially over, and many political observers had seen the writing on the wall for Bernie Sanders’s campaign).

It’s difficult to predict whether the new law will accomplish its goal — so much depends on who runs in each party’s primary and how the vote unfolds. But we can start to tease out some effects that an earlier California primary might have. Here are four questions that seem to come up whenever there’s a shift in the calendar. (We’re focusing on the Democrats in this piece — we don’t yet know if President Trump will draw a primary challenger in 2020.)

Does this move give any candidate an advantage?

If you’ve read the reporting on this story, you might have seen speculation that California’s move might help home-state Democrats who are being floated as potential presidential candidates, such as Sen. Kamala Harris or Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.

But it’s way too early to know if either Harris or Garcetti would benefit from an early California primary.

Neither candidate has declared their candidacy, and it’s not a given that either or both will. It’s not uncommon for politicians who generated a lot of presidential buzz to eventually decide not to run. In fact, in a typical election cycle, half the potential candidates included in early polls never enter the race.

Additionally, a home-state advantage doesn’t guarantee success. There are plenty of examples of candidates running away with their native state — say, Bernie Sanders in Vermont in 2016. But there are also cases when a home-state status wasn’t enough, or never came into play. In 2016, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio lost his home state’s primary to Donald Trump. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush didn’t even make it to the Sunshine State, and he polled poorly there regardless. Rick Santorum quit the 2012 Republican primary before the state he represented in the Senate, Pennsylvania, voted, perhaps partly because polls showed a tight race there that could have gone to Mitt Romney. Jerry Brown lost California to Bill Clinton in 1992.

In other words, politicians can’t always take their home states for granted, and there’s no reason to assume Harris (who a quarter of Californians didn’t have a strong enough opinion about to rate favorably or unfavorably earlier this year) or Garcetti (polling on him is sparser, but he’s never been elected to statewide office) will be popular or even well-known enough in California to ensure to a decent performance.

Put simply, it’s too early to tell who, if anyone, gains an advantage from this move.

How different is this calendar than past calendars?

We don’t really know the answer to that question yet. States still have time to move primaries around, and according to political scientist Josh Putnam’s tracker, a number of states haven’t yet decided when they’re going to hold their contest.

California’s new home on the calendar, March 3, looks set to have a ton of delegates up for grabs, as the Texas, Virginia and Massachusetts primaries are also on that date. But Democrats have had some pretty big Super Tuesdays in past contests. The chart below shows the distribution of available delegates over time for the 1992, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2016 Democratic primaries.We’re excluding races with an incumbent Democratic president on the ballot, 1996 and 2012.
In some contests, there’s one huge day of voting after the first few states go (e.g. 2008), and in other years the voting is more spread out (e.g. 2016, 1992). But in basically every case, there’s a spike in available delegates after the first few states, forcing candidates to transition into a more expensive, national campaign sometime around Super Tuesday.

In that way, California’s new place in the calendar may not end up producing a primary that’s that much different than others we’ve seen before. Super Tuesday is always an expensive day for campaigns, and, as Putnam has pointed out, important states like Texas and Virginia might have made the day costly and consequential regardless of when California voted. And even if other states decide to move their primary to Super Tuesday in an effort to get a say before one candidate becomes the presumptive nominee, we may not be in new territory at all. In 2008, Super Tuesday featured a huge proportion of the overall delegate haul.

Will an earlier California primary mean an earlier end to the national primary?

Probably not — and to see why not, we need to quickly run through some features of the Democratic primary rules

For decades, the Democrats have used a proportional system to allocate delegates to any presidential primary candidate who gets a high enough percentage of the vote. Put more simply, that means that candidates who reach a certain level of support (usually 15 percent) divide up the available delegates based on their performance in the state — so if one candidate gets 60 percent of the vote and another gets 40 percent, they’ll get roughly 60 and 40 percent of the delegate haul. Unlike the Republican primary system (which gives a disproportionate share of delegates to state-level winners), the Democratic system makes it difficult for frontrunners to rack up delegates quickly.

That’s part of why moving California earlier in the calendar probably won’t accelerate the process much. If California is seriously contested by two or more candidates, the winner likely won’t rack up the sort of delegate haul that drives his or her opponents out of the race. And if one candidate is dominant enough to end the contest by mid-March (see Al Gore in 2000), then they probably would’ve been able to sew up the nomination without an early California primary.

Does this increase the odds of a contested convention?

Yes, but only marginally.

I can already hear the groans from some readers. Every four years, someone predicts a contested convention, even though it hasn’t happened recently. And I’m not making that prediction, I’m just pointing out that the way the Democratic primary is structured could push the Democrats towards a convention fight if circumstances were right, and moving California’s primary up slightly increases the chance that the right conditions will arise.

I’ve written more fully on this in the past, but the basic idea is that if the Democratic field has more than two candidates that perform reasonably well, proportional rules may make it difficult for any of them to get more than half of the pledged delegates. For example, suppose three candidates (we’ll pick three totally random names — Kamala Harris, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren) got 40 percent, 35 percent and 25 percent of the national vote. If their coalitions were structured so that none of them fell below the minimum threshold too often, proportional delegate rules would probably keep all of them from getting half of the pledged delegates. In that case, a candidate who didn’t come close to getting the majority of the popular vote would likely have to secure the nomination through some combination of winning support from superdelegates (party leaders and elected officials who serve as unbound delegates) and engaging in some serious dealmaking with other candidates.

Moving California up in the calendar might slightly increase the risk of that sort of scenario. If the early states fail to winnow the field to two main candidates, then California’s large delegate haul could be divided between multiple candidates. That was less likely when California held its primary in June — when the contest is typically either over or down to just two candidates.

Again, I’m not predicting a contested convention. I’m not sure how to gauge the likelihood of an event like that while we’re still more than two years out, and when the only noteworthy candidate to announce plans for a presidential run is a random Maryland congressman. But it’s important to think about the way that rules can create weird or unexpected outcomes, because sometimes those strange outlier scenarios actually materialize.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/california-moved-its-primary-up-what-does-that-mean-for-2020/

 

[Farmer Br0wn]

It's a pretty transparent move to try and secure the nomination for Harris.

The south and Midwest simply won't support her (her support for gun control is a non-starter for the liberty loving folks of God's Country, U.S.A.), so California is moving up it's primary in an attempt to get a west coast elite the nomination.

 

[ShadowRun]

Interesting dictating how a federal election process should carry out and " they must release income tax records to be a candidate." I wonder how ethical this is

 

[ShoelessRye]

California had it's Presidential primary on Super Tuesday in 2008. They moved it back IIRC to have it on the same day as their Congressional/State Lege primaries because California is a top-two state - meaning there is a non-partisan primary where the top two vote getters then face off in the General Election. Moving the Presidential Primary back to be on the same date as their Congressional/State Primaries was done in the hopes of the increased Dem Turnout would impact down ballot primary races and lead to more top two Dem vs Dem match-ups.

But they felt that trade off wasn't worth being so late in the process to not matter. Now they're on Super Tuesday, but it's not likely to be a major difference given it's a proportional state and there should still be 6-7-8 active candidates still competing. It will come after Iowa, NH, NV, SC, and Florida still.

A Cali liberal isn't going to play well in Iowa, NH, SC or Florida - might do decently in LV caucuses because CA Dems go to NV to organize. But the narrative will already have been written before Cali primary happens.

 

[ShoelessRye]

It's a pretty transparent move to try and secure the nomination for Harris.

The south and Midwest simply won't support her (her support for gun control is a non-starter for the liberty loving folks of God's Country, U.S.A.), so California is moving up it's primary in an attempt to get a west coast elite the nomination.

What West Coast Elite were they trying to secure the nomination for in 2008 when their Primary was on Super Tuesday then? NY'er Clinton? Chicago's Obama? NC's John Edwards? NM's Bill Richardson? Ohio's Dennis Kucinich? Delaware's Joe Biden? CT's Chris Dodd? Alaska's Mike Gravel?

 

[Fawlty]

Brown's got some moxie.

 

[Farmer Br0wn]

What West Coast Elite were they trying to secure the nomination for in 2008 when their Primary was on Super Tuesday then? NY'er Clinton? Chicago's Obama? NC's John Edwards? NM's Bill Richardson? Ohio's Dennis Kucinich? Delaware's Joe Biden? CT's Chris Dodd? Alaska's Mike Gravel?

They already had their big city elitist in Obama. That's almost as good as a west coastal elite as far a California Democratic party leadership is concerned.

 

[ShoelessRye]

They already had their big city elitist in Obama. That's almost as good as a west coastal elite as far a California Democratic party leadership is concerned.

Obama was a total non-entity when the 2008 primary schedule was finalized - 2008 was supposed to be Clinton vs Edwards Battle Royale.

 

[Farmer Br0wn]

Obama was a total non-entity when the 2008 primary schedule was finalized - 2008 was supposed to be Clinton vs Edwards Battle Royale.

Then why was he being groomed for the presidency all the way back in 2004?


Total non-entity.........

 

[ShoelessRye]

Then why was he being groomed for the presidency all the way back in 2004?


Total non-entity.........

He was a state senator running for the Senate. Nobody expected him to run in 2008, he was advised not to run by many advisers as it was too soon given he only had two years in the Senate at the time. Sure he was seen as a rising star, but to claim he was seen as a real contender and a factor in the Cali decision to have their primary on Super Tuesday that cycle is a huge stretch.

 

[Farmer Br0wn]

He was a state senator running for the Senate. Nobody expected him to run in 2008, he was advised not to run by many advisers as it was too soon given he only had two years in the Senate at the time. Sure he was seen as a rising star, but to claim he was seen as a real contender and a factor in the Cali decision to have their primary on Super Tuesday that cycle is a huge stretch.

I post one video, and you concede "non-entity", and have fallen all the way back to "huge stretch".

Let's not forget, the country is a vastly different place now than it was back in 2008, Californians simply didn't have the same concerns they do today. In 2017, it appears many Californians are upset with the fact that they don't get to dictate who becomes the President. An obvious reaction to this, would be attempting to give a Californian a better chance at winning the nomination in 2020.

 

[Diamond Jim]

I agree with move. I fact, wish it was earlier. It’s strange that Iowa and NH play this big of a role in deciding who a nominee is. California and Texas should take that lead. Just my opinion.

 

[ShoelessRye]

I agree with move. I fact, wish it was earlier. It’s strange that Iowa and NH play this big of a role in deciding who a nominee is. California and Texas should take that lead. Just my opinion.

Too expensive to start. You'd need millions and millions to get on the air in these states and need a huge network of ready vlounteers to canvass and knock on doors across geographically huge States.

 

[Fluffernutter]

He was a state senator running for the Senate. Nobody expected him to run in 2008, he was advised not to run by many advisers as it was too soon given he only had two years in the Senate at the time. Sure he was seen as a rising star, but to claim he was seen as a real contender and a factor in the Cali decision to have their primary on Super Tuesday that cycle is a huge stretch.

I thought I read somewhere that Harry Reid basically told him to run for POTUS soon after starting his job in the Senate.

 

[Fluffernutter]

Too expensive to start. You'd need millions and millions to get on the air in these states and need a huge network of ready vlounteers to canvass and knock on doors across geographically huge States.

This.

In NH, you only need to buy ad space on ONE TV station (Channel 9, Manchester) and you get every household in the state (plus the bulk of households in MA north of Boston)

A cheap ad spurge on a handful of radio stations in NH will hit all cars and homes in MA, NH, ME, and VT.

You can have breakfast and photo ops in Keene in the morning, lunch in Concord/Manchester/Nashua, and dinner in Portsmouth.

For a large state to go before IA or NH would mean that a candidate would need a HUGE war chest very early in the campaign.

Keeping NH first is simply cheaper for the candidates.

 

[Sidecontrol87]

If I'm a democrat, I wouldn't really care what CA thinks. They will vote for a liberal no matter what.

 

[Arkain2K]

If I'm a democrat, I wouldn't really care what CA thinks. They will vote for a liberal no matter what.

The point of a Primary to choose WHICH person to represents the party, and there are more than one candidates in a liberal horse race, thus the move to Super Tuesday when the timing is more relevant.

But congratulation, you are now the front-runner for the most useless post in this discussion.

 

[Sidecontrol87]

Congrats on being a douche for no reason

my point was it ends up being pointless in the long run. Democratic Party would be better served with a swing state liberal as CA