Here’s How The 2016 GOP Presidential Race Is Shaping Up

By Don Rasmussen

This week I look at the dynamics of the Republican presidential nominating process. Hopefully it will be insightful and informative, helping TLR readers to contextualize important facets of this process. If you want to be a super-supporter for your candidate, understanding campaign dynamics is a huge value-add. At the end I have included links to a few of the resources that I like for information and data about campaigns. Next week I will look at the challenges and opportunities that the calendar represents to Rand Paul’s campaign specifically.

Over the last few days many of the structural dynamics of the 2015-2016 primary season have come into focus. We now know the dates of the first debates, the criteria for participation and the number of participants that will be permitted. The dates of the first primaries and caucuses are also hitting the calendar, giving us a sense of how the election will flow and where the game changing moments may occur.

Between now and July 15 we will see the field take its initial form. That is the date for filing quarterly fundraising numbers with the FEC, representing fundraising from April-June. These figures will be released on August 1, just days before the first debate. This is important because it will be a test of the viability of each candidate and could impact the polling that determines which candidates will be included in that debate. As of now, only the top ten polling candidates will be invited.

We are already hearing sour grapes from some campaigns about this method of selecting candidates, but it gives them nine more weeks to do what campaigns are suppose to do – raise money and influence voters. The campaigns that succeed will benefit from the debate exposure. Those that don’t should blame themselves, not the news networks or the Republican National Committee. They have had plenty of time to get into the race and have an impact on their own polling and press. As the saying goes, “Politics ain’t beanbags.”

As for the debates themselves, there are far fewer than in the past and the debate schedule is backloaded. There will be only five debates in 2015, roughly one per month. Fox News is up first in Cleveland on August 6. The narratives that come out of that debate will stand for almost six weeks until September 16 when CNN hosts the second debate at the Reagan Library in California.

The Iowa Straw Poll will take place on August 8. While the value of this event is in dispute and several candidates have either announced or are considering skipping it, it may have some value in determining who benefited from the first debate and has historically pushed some low performing candidates out of the race.

Dates have not been set for the rest of the early debates, but we know that CNBC will host the October debate in Colorado, Fox Business holds November’s melee in Wisconsin and CNN goes again in Nevada in December.

There will be one more Fox debate in January ahead of the Iowa caucuses on February 1. Somewhere in the first week of February there will be an ABC debate in New Hampshire before the primary on February 8. The next debate is CBS in South Carolina which votes on the 20th ahead of Nevada on the 23rd. Late February brings us the Telemundo/NBC debate in Texas which prefaces the emerging “SEC primary” on March 1.

As it stands today (and much remains in flux), Virginia, Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina are all likely to vote on March 1 along with Massachusetts and Colorado. Other states including Alabama and Arkansas are also considering this date. Alaska, North Dakota, New York, Idaho and Minnesota could also choose to make March 1 even more consequential. That is the earliest date a state can schedule a vote without being sanctioned by the RNC. It is likely that at least half of the 1235 delegates needed to win the nomination will be counted by this time*.

More important than the actual delegate numbers will be race dynamics and public perception about the remaining candidates. It is entirely possible that we will know the nominee by this point. It is also possible that the race will remain in flux due to super-PAC money keeping some corpses afloat (See Newt Gingrich 2012). That would be very bad for Rand Paul who needs to score wins and momentum in three of the four early states or risk running into a buzz saw on March 1. Next week, I’ll look at why this is.

*Actual delegate allocation is a far more complex and diluted process than this, but perception trumps reality in politics. Most people perceive the primaries and caucuses to be delegate allocation mechanisms. The system is too diverse and complex to try to educate them otherwise so rightly or wrongly the media and the pols roll with it. I wish we had ESPN-style standings with highly accurate and specific delegate counts for each candidate informing the media narrative in real time, but that would require massive reform of delegate allocation processes on a state by state basis or news organizations investing in highly detailed delegate tracking processes for 56 states and territories. The first to do this would be an innovator, but the investment would be huge.

Campaign Analysis Resources

The Green Papers

Frontloading Blog

Real Clear Politics Republican Primary National Polling

2016 Election Central

FEC Campaign Finance Disclosures

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