New Goal! Super Tuesday Primary!
At first, moving Oregon’s primary election date to the second Tuesday in March felt like it was early enough in the primary process to make a difference. After more thoroughly researching the nations primary process and timeline, I realized this still places us after Super Tuesday — the primary election date where the greatest number of states hold their primary elections and about a third of delegates are awarded. Each candidate needs a majority, or just over 50% of the delegates to win their party’s nomination.
Presidential candidates largely determine their feasibility for success by how well they fare during Super Tuesday. After Super Tuesday, our choices are already significantly narrowed as candidates exit the race.
For example:
In 2024, GOP candidate Nikki Haley ended her campaign after her Super Tuesday losses. The other three major GOP contenders had already dropped out by January, leaving later primary states without a meaningful opportunity to support an alternative candidate.
Similarly, in 2020, four Democratic candidates exited the race in January, followed by five more in February. Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar withdrew just before Super Tuesday. Joe Biden’s strong performance on Super Tuesday forced Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bloomberg to halt their campaigns shortly after their defeats on Super Tuesday, leaving Bernie Sanders as Biden’s only challenger until early April when he dropped out of the race.
So what if we could become an early primary state? Well, I looked into that and it turns out that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Republican National Committee (RNC) control when states can hold their primaries. If a state doesn’t comply with party rules, its delegates can be reduced or even discounted altogether at the nominating conventions. Based on my research, it appears that the DNC and RNC generally restrict primaries from being held before March with some exceptions for early states. The DNC appears to have flexibility to adjust the primary calendar each election cycle which adds a layer of confusion and complexity (President Biden for example proposed a reorder of the early primary states in 2024 to push up states that had supported him in 2020 thereby reducing the risk of any opposition from another DNC candidate). There may be a way for us to apply to become an early primary state, but that would require national party leadership to approve the early-state status and since I don’t have the resources, influence, connections etc, I will not be pursuing that route.
Instead my new goal is to move Oregon’s primary election date to the first Tuesday in March via Oregon’s ballot initiative process. This date typically aligns with Super Tuesday and would make us an influential primary state without seemingly violating party rules.
Some interesting statistics:
Since 1984 , there was only one candidate in the Democratic party who won the Super Tuesday races but lost the nomination (Senator Gary Hart of Colorado). That was because he dropped after it was revealed to have extramarital affair. All other winners of Super Tuesday have won the Democratic Party nomination.
Since 1988, the Republican candidate who won a majority of the states on Super Tuesday has gone on to secure the nomination.
Stay tuned for my next update and don’t forget to reach out if you want to help Make Oregon Matter~