clair017

Nebraska Democrats voted on December 8 during their quarterly State Central Committee meeting to conduct the state party's 2020 national delegate allocation process through a presidential primary. This is a reversion to the mode of delegate selection Cornhusker state Democrats used prior to 2008. For that cycle and the succeeding two cycles , the party held caucuses. And the primary motivation for the switch from primary to caucus ahead of 2008 was to move to an earlier date on the presidential primary calendar. That allowed for (Saturday after Super Tuesday) February caucuses as opposed to the traditional May primary. But that move never got rid of the primary. By Nebraska law, caucus or not, a party's candidates appear on the presidential primary ballot. And in both of the competitive Democratic presidential cycles of 2008 and 2016 the later primary added two turnout data points for comparison to the caucuses. Despite the later date of the non-binding primary contests, the t...

Nebraska Democrats will convene this weekend to conduct their quarterly State Central Committee meeting. And on the agenda is the caucus or primary question as the group continues to consider the state party's draft delegate selection plan for 2020. Yet, the party is not newly coming into this discussion. In fact, at its 2018 state convention this past June, Democratic delegates considered the matter as well . The state convention platform committee at the time ultimately  passed a resolution calling for a switch to a primary from the caucus system the party has used to select and allocate national convention delegates from the Cornhusker state for each of the last three cycles (since 2008). But news of the inner workings within the party on the caucus-to-primary question went quiet after that point. The convention resolution on the matter did not ( and does not now ) appear among the listed resolutions that were passed  on the floor of the convention at the time. However, i...

In the end, the price tag associated with creating an all-new and separate presidential primary election was too much for Wisconsin legislators. The Joint Finance Committee balked : The plan to move the presidential primary was aimed at making sure conservative state Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly is not up for election on the same day as the presidential primary in April 2020, when Republicans fear Democratic turnout will be high.   Moving the primary to March would cost taxpayers nearly $7 million and municipal clerks warned it would be hard to conduct so many elections so close together.   The committee didn't approve the legislation and leaders said they doubted it would come up on the floor of the Senate or Assembly. SB 885 did not come up on the floor, and will end up a casualty of this brief legislative lame duck session. The idea of a March presidential primary likely ends there. First, Republicans in the legislature pushing the measure would face resistance from ...

Legislation has been introduced during the lame duck session of the Wisconsin legislature to create a separate presidential preference primary election. SB 885  would not only split the presidential primary off from the spring election -- typically tethered to judicial elections -- but would schedule the presidential contest for the second Tuesday in March. Given the 2020 calendar layout, that would mean a shift up by four weeks for the Wisconsin primary, pushing it up in line with previously scheduled contests in Michigan and Ohio. Conceivably, the new Minnesota presidential primary could end up on that date as well. Parties there can decide on a date other than the first Tuesday in March. With Minnesota and Wisconsin on board, the second Tuesday in March would look like a Great Lakes/Big Ten primary on the heels of Super Tuesday. -- UPDATE (12/4/18): The potential primary move continues to draw the ire of elections administrators on both sides of the aisle in Wisconsin: The bip...