Dixie

Dixie rising

How the Deep South is trying to game the GOP primary.

By James Hohmann

The Deep South has elected Republicans to every top office in the region. Now it wants to be sure that clout extends to the choice of the GOP’s 2016 presidential nominee.

Officials in five Southern states — Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas — are coordinating to hold their primary on March 1, 2016. Texas and Florida are considering also holding a primary the same day but may wait until later in the month. Either way, March 1 would be a Southern Super Tuesday, voting en masse on the heels of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

The joint primary, which appears increasingly likely to happen, would present a crucial early test for Republican White House hopefuls among the party’s most conservative voters. It could, in theory, boost a conservative alternative to a Republican who has emerged as the establishment favorite from the four states that kick off the nominating process. But one risk is that the deep-red complexion of the Southern states’ primary electorates would empower a candidate who can’t win in general election battlegrounds like Ohio and Colorado.

Republicans from the South say their states make up the heart of the GOP and that it’s only fitting the region should have commensurate say over whom the party puts forward to compete for the White House. Proponents are already dubbing March 1 the “SEC primary,” after the NCAA’s powerhouse Southeastern Conference.

“We think it’s important that the next president of the United States — he or she, Democrat or Republican — come through our states and speak with our citizens about our issues,” said Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann. “My gut feeling is this will happen, and you’ll see candidates start to spend a lot more time in the South in the next six months.”

The Republican National Committee changed its rules this year to try pushing back the Iowa caucuses from January in 2012 to February in 2016. New penalties also make it virtually impossible for any state other than New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada to vote before the end of that month.

The Southern states, which are preparing to lock in March 1 through a combination of legislative and executive actions, want to be first out of the gate afterward.

“It gives them a real power punch right after the early states get out of the way,” said former Tennessee Republican chairman Chip Saltsman, who managed Mike Huckabee’s 2008 presidential campaign. “Someone who can come out of February having won two of the four early states and then run the table in the South would be set up with huge momentum.”

Mitt Romney struggled in the Deep South in 2012. Newt Gingrich won South Carolina and his home state of Georgia, while Rick Santorum carried Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. The Southern states planning to hold the March 1 primary could pose similar problems for a candidate seen as insufficiently conservative or too close to the party’s establishment wing.

“This is a conservative area, and conservative candidates would probably do quite well,” said Alabama Secretary of State Jim Bennett.

Florida and Texas are much bigger states with a lot more delegates at stake, but each is very expensive to advertise in. More importantly, both are home to favorite sons who could scare others from competing against them: Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio hail from Florida, while Ted Cruz and Rick Perry are from Texas.

Some GOP insiders believe that Florida and Texas will opt to push back their primaries until later in March. Under the new RNC rules, states that wait until March 15 can have “winner take all” primaries, with the candidate receiving the most votes collecting all of a state’s delegates. The potential presidential candidates from Florida and Texas are likely to prefer that. In 2012, Florida lost half its delegates by voting before it was allowed to.

It will be very difficult for a candidate who does not win in one of the first four states to survive until March as a viable contender. Money dries up, endorsements go elsewhere and volunteers lose their enthusiasm. So the test in the South will likely pit the winners of the first states against one another.
It might also have unintended effects.

In 1988, Democrats, who then controlled the region, decided their states should vote as a bloc on the second Tuesday in March. They hoped to boost a moderate or centrist candidate who would be more competitive in the general election than a candidate from the Northeast like Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis. Tennessee Sen. Al Gore wound up winning five Southern states that day, but Jesse Jackson — helped by large numbers of African-American voters — also won five. Vice President George H.W. Bush, meanwhile, won all the states in the region and soon after secured the Republican nomination.

“It kind of backfired on them,” said Josh Putnam, who teaches political science at Appalachian State University and closely tracks the primary calendar on his Frontloading blog.

The RNC rule requiring that states voting on March 1 award their delegates proportionally increases the likelihood of a similar situation in 2016, with different states choosing different candidates and no decisive statement out of the region.

The primary calendars that are set by the GOP secretaries of state will apply to both Democrats and Republicans. In the marathon 2008 fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Southern states wound up playing important roles, but at least at the moment, Clinton appears to have a much clearer path to the nomination.

An open question is whether the Southern states will have March 1 to themselves. There’s little to prevent other states from scheduling primaries the same day.

Bennett, the Alabama secretary of state, worries that Southern states’ power will be diluted if the day is too crowded. He pointed to Super Tuesday in 2008, when 24 states voted on Feb. 5. In 2012, parties successfully discouraged such front-loading. The most states to vote on any one day that year was 10, on March 6.

“If it’s limited to six or eight states, I think it would bring candidates to the Southern part of the United States,” said Bennett. “The problem with the old Super Tuesday is … that it really didn’t accomplish the goal of bringing candidates before our voters. It was too spread out.”

He said he fears that including Florida and Texas in the March 1 primary would “dilute” the sway of the smaller Southern states. “I favor a limited number,” he said.

Putnam does not expect a March 1 cluster. More likely, he says, is a series of semiregional primaries. Michigan, Illinois and Missouri might all vote on March 15, creating a Midwest primary. A few Western states may team up to vote on another Tuesday later in March.

“They won’t be alone, but as March 1 is shaping up now, it’s taking a decidedly Southern flavor,” said Putnam.

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who dreamed up the “SEC primary” branding, said he doesn’t care who the nominee ends up being. He just wants his state to be relevant in presidential politics.

“Hopefully, from a selfish perspective, it makes Georgia’s voice count, whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat,” Kemp said. “I don’t want to vote after the nominee is chosen. Other folks in the South feel the same way.”