Happy New Year to all our readers. We expect the coming year to be "interesting," to say the least, and we hope you will stick around for the ride and tell your family and friends about our site. The first nominating contest will be 2 weeks from today, in Iowa. Accordingly, we are going to focus on the primaries now, hence the new map. You can mouseover any state to get more information about it. When delegates have been awarded, they will show in the pop-up boxes. We hope you enjoy our coverage of the primaries and beyond.

Nominating Contest Schedule

Below is the schedule for electing delegates to the Republican National Convention in July 2024. There are primaries, caucuses, and conventions in the list, sometimes with a state having more than one of them. All 50 states, D.C. and five U.S. territories are holding events. Republicans Overseas is a private organization and not part of the Republican Party, so it gets no delegates. However, it can take as much money as it can get from whoever wants to give it money, none of which is reported anywhere. In contrast, Democrats Abroad is part of the Democratic Party, gets to send delegates to the Democratic National Convention, and has to follow the rules that apply to the state parties. Here is the schedule and delegate count according to the Times (The Green Papers, Ballotpedia, and 270toWin have slightly different numbers of delegates):

Date	State	Event	Delegates	Cumulative	Remaining
Jan. 15	Iowa	Caucus	40	40	2389
Jan. 23	New Hampshire	Primary	22	62	2367
Feb. 6	Nevada	Primary	0	62	2367
Feb. 8	Nevada	Caucus	26	88	2341
Feb. 8	Virgin Islands	Caucus	4	92	2337
Feb. 24	South Carolina	Primary	50	142	2287
Feb. 27	Michigan	Primary	16	158	2271
Mar. 2	Idaho	Caucus	32	190	2239
Mar. 2	Michigan	State convention	39	229	2200
Mar. 2	Missouri	Caucus	0	229	2200
Mar. 3	D.C.	Primary	19	248	2181
Mar. 4	North Dakota	Caucus	29	277	2152
Mar. 5	Alabama	Primary	50	327	2102
Mar. 5	Alaska	Primary	29	356	2073
Mar. 5	American Samoa	Caucus	9	365	2064
Mar. 5	Arkansas	Primary	40	405	2024
Mar. 5	California	Primary	169	574	1855
Mar. 5	Colorado	Primary	37	611	1818
Mar. 5	Maine	Primary	20	631	1798
Mar. 5	Massachusetts	Primary	40	671	1758
Mar. 5	Minnesota	Primary	39	710	1719
Mar. 5	North Carolina	Primary	74	784	1645
Mar. 5	Oklahoma	Primary	43	827	1602
Mar. 5	Tennessee	Primary	58	885	1544
Mar. 5	Texas	Primary	161	1046	1383
Mar. 5	Utah	Caucus	40	1086	1343
Mar. 5	Vermont	Primary	17	1103	1326
Mar. 5	Virginia	Primary	48	1151	1278
Mar. 10	Wyoming	County conventions	0	1151	1278
Mar. 12	Georgia	Primary	59	1210	1219
Mar. 12	Hawaii	Caucus	19	1229	1200
Mar. 12	Mississippi	Primary	40	1269	1160
Mar. 12	Washington	Primary	43	1312	1117
Mar. 15	Northern Marianas	Caucus	9	1321	1108
Mar. 16	Guam	Convention	9	1330	1099
Mar. 19	Arizona	Primary	43	1373	1056
Mar. 19	Florida	Primary	125	1498	931
Mar. 19	Illinois	Primary	64	1562	867
Mar. 19	Kansas	Primary	39	1601	828
Mar. 19	Ohio	Primary	79	1680	749
Mar. 23	Louisiana	Primary	47	1727	702
Apr. 2	Connecticut	Primary	28	1755	674
Apr. 2	Delaware	Primary	16	1771	658
Apr. 2	New York	Primary	91	1862	567
Apr. 2	Rhode Island	Primary	19	1881	548
Apr. 2	Wisconsin	Primary	41	1922	507
Apr. 6	Missouri	Convention	0	1922	507
Apr. 20	Wyoming	State convention	29	1951	478
Apr. 21	Puerto Rico	Primary	23	1974	455
Apr. 23	Pennsylvania	Primary	67	2041	388
May 4	Missouri	Convention	54	2095	334
May 7	Indiana	Primary	58	2153	276
May 14	Maryland	Primary	37	2190	239
May 14	Nebraska	Primary	36	2226	203
May 14	West Virginia	Primary	32	2258	171
May 21	Kentucky	Primary	46	2304	125
May 21	Oregon	Primary	0	2304	125
May 21	Oregon	Convention	31	2335	94
Jun. 4	Montana	Primary	31	2366	63
Jun. 4	New Jersey	Primary	12	2378	51
Jun. 4	New Mexico	Primary	22	2400	29
Jun. 4	South Dakota	Primary	29	2429	0
Total			2429

The way the number of delegates is computed is complicated and may yet change a bit. Most states get at-large delegates, district-level delegates, party delegates, bonus delegates, and unpledged delegates. The Green Papers link above gives the breakdown if you want to get into the weeds. If you want the schedule in .csv format, here it is.

The "Cumulative" and "Remaining" columns can be used to answer questions like: "After Super Tuesday, how many delegates will have already been allocated and how many are left?" Answers: 1151 and 1278, respectively. Or "What is the earliest date a candidate could formally have locked down a majority of the delegates?" Answer: March 12.

In Nevada, state law requires a primary, but the RNC decided to hold a caucus 2 days later where the delegates will actually be elected. The primary is then just a "beauty contest" with no delegates allocated. Michigan law requires a primary on Feb. 27, but this violates the RNC rules. A compromise to avoid penalties has resulted in 16 delegates being chosen in the primary but 39 delegates being chosen at the state convention on March 2. Wyoming holds county conventions on March 10, but the delegates will be finalized at the state convention April 18-20. Missouri holds a caucus on Mar. 2 and has district conventions on April 6 but the delegates won't actually be chosen until the state convention on May 4. Oregon has a primary on May 21, but the delegates won't be chosen until the state convention on May 25. Finally, New Jersey is being punished by having its delegate count reduced from 49 to 12 because a former governor is going around saying bad things about Donald Trump. (Well, not really. The reduction is real but due to New Jersey violating some party rules.) (V)

The Rules for Primary Elections May Change in Some States

Different states have different rules about who can participate in primary elections. Eight states have closed primaries, where only registered Democrats can vote in Democratic primaries and only registered Republicans can vote in Republican primaries. Sixteen states have open primaries, in which each voter can ask the poll worker for either a Democratic or a Republican ballot. Some other states are semi-open, meaning that independents can vote in either primary. California and Alaska each have an all-party primary for non-presidential elections, with the top two or four candidates, respectively, advancing to the general election. However, people in a number of states are working on changing the rules, as follows:

• Arizona: Arizona currently has closed primaries. This means that the 1.5 million independents can't vote in the primaries unless they request a partisan ballot in advance. A ballot initiative would create an all-party primary with the top candidates advancing to a ranked-choice general election. The number of candidates, n, advancing would be set by the legislature unless it delegated that power to the secretary of state. The only restriction is that it can't be more than five. This is basically the Alaska system; there n = 4. If it passes, then the coldest state and the hottest state would use the same primary system.
  
  
• Idaho: Idaho has 270,000 independents who can't vote in the state's primaries. A group called Idahoans for Open Primaries wants to clone the Alaska system exactly: an all-party primary in which everyone can vote followed by a top-four general election using ranked-choice voting. The system will not apply to presidential elections, however, nor to nonpartisan offices like city councils and school boards. Write-in votes will be allowed in both the primaries and general election. The group already has 50,000 of the 63,000 signatures needed to get it on the ballot and has until May 1 to get the rest. There is an excellent chance they will make it. Even in a red state like Idaho this matters. If the amendment passes, it may be possible for a moderate Republican to get elected to the Senate with the help of second-choice Democratic votes.
  
  
• Nevada: Nevada's Constitution requires amendments to be approved twice, in different elections. An amendment to open primaries was approved in 2022. If it is approved again in 2024, the Nevada's 627,000 independents will be allowed to vote in all-party primaries, again with ranked-choice voting in the general election.
  
  
• Ohio: Ohio is going in the opposite direction. It is trying to make voting in primaries more difficult. Not only will the bill the legislature is working on keep the closed primaries, but it would require voters to register with a party a year in advance. This would, for example, prevent Democrats who now know that the Democratic presidential primary will be boring from suddenly switching parties and voting in the Republican primary with the intent of voting for the weakest candidate, a technique technically known as ratf**king.
  
  
• Oregon: The idea here, like in Arizona and Idaho, is to have an all-party open primary for all offices other than president. The group behind this, the All Oregon Votes Committee, has only a few thousand signatures so far. It needs 160,000 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, so it has a ways to go.
  
  
• Pennsylvania: Legislators are working on two bills that would keep the current partisan primaries, but allow independents to vote in them. There are over 1 million independents in Pennsylvania. The bills would enfranchise them in primary elections.
  

There are several different directions represented here, but the Alaska system seems to be catching on. Who knew that Alaska was a trendsetter? If half a dozen states adopt it and it works well, there is likely to be a mass movement in many states in the same direction. (V)

Republicans Are Getting More Confident about Exploiting Racism

As all marketing people know, sex sells. And as all Republican politicians know, racism sells. We are now witnessing the top three Republican candidates engaging in a show of racism far more explicit than we have seen in a very long time. It's enough to make George W. Bush's hair stand on end. Bush was many things, but racist wasn't one of them. His first cabinet appointment was Colin Powell as secretary of state and his closest adviser was Condi Rice.

A couple of weeks ago, Donald Trump let his inner racist come out when he talked about "vermin" and how immigrants were "poisoning the blood" of America. Not subtle at all. Not a dog whistle in sight. In the past, Trump opposed immigration and promised to build a wall (with Mexico paying for it) in 2016, but he didn't quote Hitler while doing so. Now the mask has dropped and he is going full-bore racist.

Then there is Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who thoughtfully reminded people that some slaves learned skilled trades (e.g., carpentry) that were of personal benefit to them. Now remember, he was talking about people who had been kidnapped from their own country, brought to America against their will, and sold into slavery, all without their permission. He was not talking about indentured servants who voluntarily made a deal with someone who agreed to pay for their passage to America in return for working for them for 4-6 years, after which time they were free to do whatever they wanted.

Last week at a town hall, Nikki Haley was asked about the cause of the Civil War, something she surely knew about since she was governor of the state where it started and the first state to secede from the Union. She gave an incoherent answer about the war was caused by a disagreement on how government should be run. That kind of downplayed what every 12-year-old in America knows: it was because the North wanted to stop the spread of slavery and eventually eradicate it and the South wanted to keep the peculiar institution. She took a lot of incoming fire on that and eventually admitted that she did, in fact, successfully graduate from 6th grade and knew the real cause.

Stuart Stevens, the top strategist for G.W. Bush, said about these developments: "I think Republicans are still litigating a lot of these issues internally that the rest of the world long ago moved on from." He added that they are catering to voters who "see the world changing and find it unsettling." He knows what he is talking about. Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy was done with dog whistles. Trump, DeSantis, and Haley are using bullhorns.

In the Washington Post article linked to above, the reporters talked to conservative voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. They discovered that some of them thought Haley was right about slavery not being such a big deal and thought the resulting media firestorm was way overblown. One of them said the war was caused by an economic battle between the industrial North and the agricultural South, sort of like you might describe the difference between Michigan and Nebraska now. His sister said: "The Democrats always want to play the victim card."

Amy Stanley, a professor of history at the University of Chicago said: "The stock in trade of the GOP is evasion—Haley's silence on slavery—and falsification—the Florida curriculum's pretense that slavery had positive aspects. This false history plays into conspiracy theory."

Playing the race card is nothing new for Republican politicians going back to Nixon, but it really took off with Trump. Remember, he said Barack Obama wasn't born in America and wasn't an American, even after Obama produced his birth certificate. Then Trump rode a wave of white grievance to the White House in 2016. It has gotten only worse since then. Prof. Jennifer Hochschild of Harvard said: "Nixon said this stuff in private—we know from his tapes—and [George] Wallace said this stuff, and [Pat] Buchanan said this stuff. But I don't think any presumptive presidential nominee has been so overt for a long time, at least some decades."

Will it work? This kind of racist talk warms the cockles of the hearts of Trump's base, but many moderates and independents find it disgusting. The base will vote for any Republican, racist or not, but independents can go either way. The Republicans' base-only strategy may work in the primaries but may work much less well in the general election. (V)

There Was Good News in 2023, Not Just Bad News

There was plenty of bad news in 2023, although people may disagree on whether Donald Trump racking up 91 counts in four indictments qualifies or not. Nevertheless, The Washington Post has compiled a list of things that most people will see as good. Some of them relate to sports- or entertainment-figures (e.g., Taylor Swift) or health issues (e.g., Guinea worm disease is almost eradicated), but some relate to politics or are politics-adjacent. Here is the list of good things that happened and that are related to politics in a broad sense.

• Egg prices are back to $2 a dozen.
• The gender pay gap hit an all-time low.
• The hole in the ozone layer is shrinking.
• The U.S. government did not shut down.
• The pandemic officially ended on May 5.
• The Supreme Court rejected the "independent state legislature" theory.
• President Biden and Xi Jinping met face to face.
• Climate-conscious eating took off.
• Ukraine is an independent country; Finland joined NATO.
• The United States experienced an economic soft landing.
• A banking crisis was avoided.

Some of them relate to bad things that were predicted but didn't happen (e.g., a government shutdown), but some were positive in their own right, like Biden and Xi meeting and talking about the U.S.-China relationship. That's better than saber rattling. (V)

Some of the Worst Political Predictions of 2023

Political pundits are always making predictions. It's part of the job description. Some of them are pretty good and some of them are not so good. Other famous people also make predictions from time to time. Now that 2023 has come to an end, Politico has collected some of the worst ones, in the sense that they were very far off the mark. Here is a partial list of them.

Date	Speaker	Statement
Jan. 2	Tyrus Murdoch	Elon Musk will buy Disney.
Jan. 4	Karl Rove	Joe Biden will face a serious primary challenger.
Jan. 4	Donna Edwards	Kevin McCarthy won't be elected speaker; he'll drop out.
Jan. 5	Michael Moore	Dems will somehow regain control of the House ahead of 2024.
Jan. 7	Kevin McCarthy	My speakership will last a full 2-year term.
Feb. 6	Fox "News"	There will be a recession in 2023.
Feb. 15	Ross Douthat	Nikki Haley's presidential candidacy will be less viable than Mike Pence's.
March 1	Joe Biden	Housing and rental prices are going to come down.
March 30	Larry Kudlow	Trump will not be indicted in Manhattan.
April 24	Tomi Lahren	Prompted by DeSantis' surge, Dems will dump Biden for Newsom.
April 24	Glenn Beck	Firing Tucker Carlson will be the end of Fox News.
May 23	Mick Mulvaney	DeSantis' campaign launch on Twitter Spaces is genius.
June 12	Kari Lake	300 Million Americans will rise up in protest if Trump is indicted.
June 12	Anthony Scaramucci	Trump will run... but drop out.
July 23	Ben Shapiro	Barbie will flop because it's too woke.
July 24	Darrell Issa	A Biden impeachment inquiry will launch by the end of Sept. with Dem support.
Aug. 24	Pedro Gonzalez	Trump made a huge mistake by skipping the first GOP debate.
Oct. 4	Adam Kinzinger	Jim Jordan will be elected speaker of the House.
Oct. 5	Alyssa Griffin	The next speaker of the House will be Steve Scalise.

Making predictions is tough. Especially about the future. And looking at the composition of this list, it would seem Republicans have a particularly difficult time.

We made a bit of a mess of the predictions at the start of 2023, so we're going to push "reset" and get it right this time. If you have some daring political predictions for 2024, send them to comments@electoral-vote.com with the subject: "Prediction." (V)

The Numbers that Will Shape 2024

Politico is not only looking backwards, at last year's bloopers, but also looking forward. Here is their list of numbers that will shape politics in 2024.

• Donald Trump's share of the white evangelical Christian votes in Iowa
• Nikki Haley's vote share among women in New Hampshire
• Number of write-in votes for Joe Biden in New Hampshire
• How many times Donald Trump is convicted before Election Day
• The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index
• Number of states where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is on the ballot
• How many general-election debates there are
• Number of states Biden visits in the final 2 months of the campaign
• General-election turnout rate
• The enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans
• How the double haters split
• The Biden-Trump split among women without college degrees
• Biden's vote share among voters under 30
• Biden ad spending in Florida
• Republican ad spending on abortion
• Number of states with ballot measures on abortion
• Number of competitive Republican Senate primaries
• Number of Senate candidates in Arizona
• Number of Democrats on the general-election ballot for the Senate in California
• How many House districts the New York state legislature can flip by gerrymandering the state
• Number of House retirements

Numbers, numbers, and more numbers. (V)

California Will Allow Trump to Be on the Ballot

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber (D) has announced that Donald Trump's name will appear on the state's primary ballot. The California primary is on March 5 (Super Tuesday). The Maine secretary of state and the Colorado Supreme Court have scratched Trump from the ballot, but in California, he will be there.

This decision is actually very important because California awards 169 delegates to the Republican National Convention. This is the largest number from any state. If those delegates were to go to one or more other candidates, that could strongly impact the chance that Trump gets the 1215 delegates needed for the nomination.

Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis (D-CA) was one of several state officials who urged Weber to scratch Trump, but Weber ignored all their advice and made her own decision. It is worth noting, however, that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) was more cautious than many of the other state officials. He wants to wait until the Supreme Court tells us what the Fourteenth Amendment actually means. He called Trump a threat to our liberties but said the way to get rid of him is to defeat him at the polls.

Interestingly enough, Weber did ban someone from getting on the ballot: Assemblyman Vince Fong (R), who wants to run for the now-vacant seat of Kevin McCarthy, whose resignation became official yesterday. Her basis for saying "no" to Fong is that he had already filed to run for reelection to the Assembly and California law prohibits anyone from (1) running for two offices at the same time and (2) dropping out after the filing deadline passed, which is what Fong wanted to do. But Fong got some good news from Judge Shelleyanne Chang, who ruled that Fong's switcheroo does not violate state law.

Fong isn't the only one happy with this ruling. So is McCarthy, since he wants Fong to be his successor in CA-20. The district is R+16, so some Republican will surely win it and with McCarthy's help, the winner will probably be Fong. However, Fong will probably have to wait a bit to start his new job. Newsom is very likely to schedule the special election to fill the vacant seat for Nov. 5, 2024, the same day as the election for the next Congress. That would mean that voters in CA-20 will get to vote in two House elections on Nov. 5, one for the remainder of a term that will end on Jan. 3, 2025 and one for a term that will run from Jan. 3, 2025 until Jan. 2, 2027. By not scheduling the election before Nov. 5, Newsom is keeping a Republican seat open for 10 months. Observers say that it is unlikely Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will send Newsom a thank you card for his decision. (V)

The Case of the 700 Missing Terabytes

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) has been indicted for being an all-around crook and unregistered foreign agent. This is the second time he has been indicted. The first time he got off due to a hung jury. He didn't learn anything from that episode and continued his wicked ways. Back in October, the judge in the current case, Sidney Stein, set the trial date as May 6, 2024. A few weeks ago, Menendez asked for a 2-month delay because he said that he was expecting to get 735 terabytes of data as a result of the discovery process. A terabyte is 1024 gigabytes. If you want all the gory details, a terabyte is 1,099,511,627,776 bytes. Today's blog is about 49,000 bytes. If we continued to post blogs of this size every day, it would take 61,476 years to reach 1 TB. And 735 TB would take us to 45.2 million years. Now imagine you are Menendez' lawyer and have to read all that stuff.

What difference does 2 months make? Well, the New Jersey primary is June 4. Menendez hasn't said yet whether he will run for reelection but he already has two strong challengers: Tammy Murphy, wife of the sitting New Jersey governor, Phil Murphy, and Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ). If the trial is held as scheduled on May 6, all the evidence against Menendez will be presented just before the primary and he might even be a convicted felon by Primary Day. He would thus prefer the trial to start after the primary.

However, when the data came in, it was only 3 terabytes, not 735 terabytes. Last week, the judge ruled that a mere 3 terabytes (6.7 million documents) did not justify changing the trial date, especially since it is 245x less than Menendez was expecting.

The judge's decision now puts Menendez on the spot. Does he really want to run in the primary against two solid opponents when he will be on trial the month before the election? The voters might then just conclude that something is rotten in the state of Egypt (whose government Menendez is charged with working for as an unregistered foreign agent). We expect with the trial now definitely set before the primary, Menendez won't file and will spend all his time trying to stay out of prison. This will probably turn the Senate primary into a two-way contest between Murphy and Kim. (V)

The Michigan Republican Party Is in Meltdown Mode

When fiery, election-denying, Trump-supporting Kristina Karamo was elected chair of the Michigan Republican Party, right-wingers in the state were ecstatic. Now they are furious and want to give her the boot. The annual gathering on Mackinac Island was a failure. Attendance was way down, top presidential candidates passed on it, some scheduled speakers didn't show up, and it came out that the state party took out a $110,000 loan to get Jim Caviezel, who has an ardent right-wing following, to show up. Oh, and the state party is $620,000 in debt, major donors are fleeing, and the RNC won't give it money to help candidates because it is afraid Karamo will just spend it to pay down the debt. Or maybe to hire some other celebrity speaker. Kid Rock is local. So is Ted Nugent. Of course, neither of them ever played Jesus on screen.

This is no way to start an election year in a key swing state. Forty of the 120 members of the state committee are working to force Karamo out. So are eight of the 13 Republican congressional district chairs. But Karamo is not budging. With all the infighting, no money, and volunteers disappearing, the party is in no condition to help Republican candidates for president, the Senate, the House, or state offices.

The problems have not gone unnoticed. State Rep. Mark Tisdel (R) said: "The Michigan Republican Party is on the verge of imploding; I have more money in my campaign account than the state party has in its. Sooner or later, the creditors are going to come calling." Karamo also tried to pressure small businesses into ponying up $10 to $50 a month to the party. The plan failed miserably. Karamo's response to her critics is to denounce infighting. She also fired dissident party officials, while others resigned. Then she dissolved the party's conflict-resolution committee. And she tried to sell the party's former headquarters to raise cash. One catch: The party doesn't actually own it.

What really grated some members was Karamo's scheme of rating members from 1 (solid Republican) to 4 (RINO). A former congressman, Pete Hoekstra, said: "We're supposed to be building a party, not dividing a party into four categories." (V)

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