Over the next week, we will have four/five primary contests for the two parties. (Four if you only count the binding contests, five if you count the beauty contests.) This list includes the first two sanctioned contests on the Democratic side.
First up is today’s Democratic primary in South Carolina. South Carolina is a little bit different from the rest of the country. While South Carolina has a state-run primary, it allows the parties to choose the date of its own presidential primary. As a result, it is not unusual for the two parties to choose different days. (That flexibility allowed the Democratic National Committee to place South Carolina at the start of the primary schedule.) The Democrats will hold their primary today, but the Republicans will not hold their primary for another three weeks.
As with most other states, the Democratic primary is essentially multiple primaries at the same time. There are, effectively, two state-wide primaries — one for at-large delegates and one for “pledged party leader and elected officials” (PLEO) delegates. Meanwhile, there is a primary in each congressional district. Voters will cast only one vote, but it will be counted in each of the relevant contests. For each of these races, the key number is 15%. Any candidate who gets 15% will get at least one delegate from that pool of delegate.
Barring something shocking happening, President Joe Biden will win South Carolina in a landslide. The real question is whether any other candidate will win delegates. In both this contest (and the one below in Nevada), there are only two other candidates with any change at getting to 15%, (In fact, while there are other candidates on the ballot in Nevada, these are the only two who made the South Carolina ballot.) The one “most likely” to get to that threshold is Representative Dean Phillips. It is hard to figure out why Dean Phillips thinks he is a serious contender. I can’t think of anything notable that Representative Phillips has done in his three terms in office. Even if something were to happen to force President Biden to withdraw, leaving Representative Phillips as the sole “viable” candidate on the ballots, other who wanted to get the nomination would simply encourage their supporters to vote for President Biden or uncommitted to get a brokered convention. But Representative Phillips did get almost 20% in New Hampshire. The other candidate is Marianne Wiliamson. Ms. Williamson finished third in New Hampshire but received less than 5% of the vote. She will struggle to do better in the remaining states.
Turning to the delegate numbers, South Carolina has twelve at-large delegates. So if somebody were to get 15%, they would get two at-large delegates. It would take 20.5% of the “qualified” votes (eliminating any candidate who did not get to 15% to get to three delegates and 29.16% to get to four delegates). There are also 7 PLEO delegates. Any candidate who gets 15% will get 1 vote, but it will take approximately 21.5% of the qualified vote to get two delegates. Turning to the respective congressional districts, the Sixth District has eight delegates; the First District has six delegates; the Second District, Fifth District, and Seventh District have five delegates each; the Fourth District has four delegates; and the Third District has three delegates. Realistically, Representative Phillips will probably not match his totals from New Hampshire. In New Hampshire, Representative Phillips had three advantages: 1) some New Hampshire Democrats were upset that President Biden would not recognize the self-proclaimed right of New Hampshire to go first; and 2) voters who supported the President had to write-in President Biden; and 3) President Biden did not campaign. Even with those advantages, if the New Hampshire Primary had counted, Representative Phillips would have received 23.*% of the qualified vote. In South Carolina, that would give Representative Phillips, three at-large delegates, two PLEO delegates, two delegates from the Sixth District, and one delegates from each of the other six delegates for a grand total of thirteen delegates (compared to 42 delegates for President Biden).
On Tuesday, there will be primaries in Nevada. Since 2020, Nevada opted to have a state-run primary. The Democrats supported this decision. As discussed below, the Republicans did not.
On the Democratic side, Nevada has eight at-large and five PLEO delegates. The First District, the Third District, and the Fourth District have six delegates each. The Second District has five delegates. Again using New Hampshire as a measuring stick, Representative Phillips would get two at-large delegates, one PLEO delegate, and one delegate in each of the districts for a total of seven delegates (compared to 29 for President Biden).
Turning to the Republicans, as noted above the Republicans do not like the idea of having a primary. After all that involves ordinary people voting. They would rather limit the vote to rabid activists who can take the time to attend a caucus. So there will be two contests in Nevada — a nonbinding primary and a binding caucus. And like the Democrats did with New Hampshire, Republicans are penalizing any candidate who opted to participate in the primary by barring them from the caucus. So there will be two winners in Nevada this week.
On Tuesday, the contest is between former Governor Nikki Haley and “none of the above.” There are some minor candidates on the ballot and some candidates who have dropped out who might get some votes, but they are unlikely to get double digits. Governor Haley needs the win and needs to get significantly more than 50%. However, it is pretty much guaranteed that Governor Haley will get more votes in the primary than any candidate will get from the caucus.
The caucus will take place on Thursday. None of the above is not an option at the caucus. As such, the only major candidate on the caucus ballot who has not withdrawn from the race is insurrectionist Donald Trump. He will win and probably take most of the delegates (23, 25, or 26 depending upon how you read the delegate selection plan). Since Nevada is a proportional state, it takes around 4% to win a delegate. Looking at Thursday’s result, the issue is what potential Haley supporters might do. If I were the Haley campaign, I would be encouraging Haley supporters to attend and support Chris Christie. Again, the key number is going to be what percentage of the vote goes to the winner. Both the caucus and primary are essentially referendums on the two remaining candidates, and the percentage that Nikki Haley and Donald Trump get in their respective contests is the only thing that might matter for future contests.
Also on Thursday, Republicans in the Virgin Islands are holding their caucus. Apparently, they are using ranked choice voting to create a winner-take-all system. By holding their caucus in the pre-primary window, the Virgin Islands are in violation of the Republican rules and have been penalized by having their total delegation to four. While the 50% threshold for winner-take-all is valid under Republican rules, the way that they are getting to winner-take-all is not allowed (as Republicans hate ranked-choice voting since it usually hurts them). The big question in the Virgin Islands is whether Trump gets to 50% on first preferences or if it takes several rounds of elimination to get there. There is a handful of withdrawn candidates who are still on the ballot for this caucus, and they might pull in just enough votes to keep Trump under 50% on first preferences. But there will be little attention on this contest.
After this week’s contests, there will be a break until the South Carolina Republicans vote on February 24 and the Michigan Primary on February 27 (which again will be a nonbinding beauty contest on the Republican side). Also of note, on Thursday, the most important event of the primary season is taking place in Washington, when the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether Donald Trump is even eligible to run. So there will probably be a post next weekend looking at how that argument went.
