If there's one thing politically minded New Hampshirites are proud of, it's their "first in the nation" status when it comes to presidential primaries. "It's a state that is small enough yet diverse enough that it can have a very useful conversation with presidential candidates," says Bill O'Brien, speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. "I think we do a real service for the country by having this setting to vet the candidates."
For the 2012 Republican primaries, however, that status might be in jeopardy. Today, Florida officials are expected to scramble next year's GOP nominating calendar by moving their primary to January 31, two weeks before New Hampshire's. Their rationale isn't hard to understand. Not only is Florida larger than the states that have traditionally inaugurated the primary season; it's far more diverse and representative of the country as a whole. New Hampshire and Iowa, the first two, are 94 percent and 91 percent white, respectively; in Florida, that number drops to 75 percent, much closer to the national figure of 72 percent. The candidate that commands the support of Florida Republicans stands a good chance of winning the GOP nomination, and the state provides a better litmus test for whether a candidate is viable in a general election.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) opposes Florida's decision to move its primary given that it breaks the rules it established for its primaries in September. According to the rules change, only Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada are allowed to select delegates (i.e., hold a primary) in February. The earliest date other states are allowed to hold their primaries is the first Tuesday in March. By violating RNC rules, Florida risks losing half of its delegates to the convention, and some have speculated that the move will propel other states to move up their primaries as well.
In addition, the new GOP rules also require states that hold their primaries in March to divvy up their delegates to the Republican National Convention on a proportional basis -- a change from the last presidential cycle, when the method of distribution was up to the states entirely. This system mirrors the one Democrats use for their nomination process and has been seen as a way to give states with later primaries more of an influence. Because the RNC doesn't define what "proportional" means exactly, states are free to choose from several different forms. One possibility is the pure proportionality seen in the 2008 Democratic nomination contest, in which delegates are allocated according to candidate vote share. So, for example, if Rick Perry won 40 percent of the vote in the Georgia primary, then he would get 40 percent of the delegates.
On the other end, states could go the route favored by the Texas Republican Party, in which delegates are awarded based on vote share if no one gains a majority in the statewide popular vote or wins in a majority of its congressional districts. If a candidate wins more than 50 percent of either, however, he or she receives all the delegates. In 2008, the Michigan GOP used a variation on this method: At-large delegates -- delegates chosen by official GOP state committee members who do not represent a district -- were awarded proportionally, but delegates representing congressional districts were awarded on a winner-take-all basis, regardless of the candidate's vote share.
How the March primary states allocate their delegates could have a serious effect on the direction of the Republican contest. If more states opt for the pure proportional approach and if front-runners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney fight to a tie in the early states, Romney can count on a large burst in momentum if he wins large, moderate states like New York and California in April, potentially receiving all of their delegates given that states holding their primaries then are free to allocate their delegates on a winner-takes-all basis. Perry is at a distinct disadvantage in this scenario. The large states that favor the governor -- Georgia, Virginia, and his home state, Texas -- are subject to the proportionality rules. With Democratic-style proportionality, Perry only walks away with a portion of the delegates in each state, even if he wins a large victory.
If states take the other route, then the landscape becomes a little more difficult for Romney. Regardless of what happens with the January and February contests, the Southern primaries are concentrated in March. You can imagine a scenario where Perry wins majorities in each of the congressional districts -- and thus all of their delegates -- but doesn't break the popular-vote threshold statewide. Even under the Michigan scenario, because there are only ten at-large delegates per state, Perry still walks away with the bulk of all delegates.
With all of this, it's important to remember that the rules of the primary are not determinative -- they matter primarily if there is no clear front-runner. If Perry regains his spot as the most popular Republican in the race, then it won't matter if the allocation scheme favors Romney. Likewise, delegate allocation could favor Perry, but if Romney sweeps through the early states with big wins, he'll likely cruise to victory with "inevitability" on his side. And if Florida can move its primary to the beginning of the schedule without a backlash from the other states, then it might not matter how the delegates are distributed anyway. Given Florida's large influence, the whole game might be over within a single day.
