True enough, babies will be born to people who haven’t yet met before the next Presidential election on Nov. 5, 2024.
But the campaign is already in full swing, especially the race to pick a Republican presidential nominee to challenge President Joe Biden, something that will be determined in the primaries.
Michigan should be a crucial part of that — but will it be?
Nobody knows — even though the legislature has passed and the governor signed a bill setting Feb. 27, 2024 as the primary date. That’s just fine with Democrats, who, as it stands, won’t have much of a contest to worry about: President Biden is running for reelection, and unless he changes his mind or his health suddenly falters, he’s unlikely to face a serious challenge.
Republicans, though, have a crowded race with more candidates than you can easily count. You would think they’d welcome an early primary here for a number of reasons. Though these days it tends to lean Democratic, Michigan is still seen as a swing state. It gave Donald Trump a narrow upset victory when he was elected President in 2016; it then switched and gave President Biden a larger, but still relatively close win four years later.
But there are two big problems:
- Republican Party rules say that most states may not hold primaries before March 1. If Michigan does stick with a Feb. 27 primary, it would be penalized by losing 39 of its 55 delegates.
A)Kristina Karamo, the Michigan GOP chair, says in that case, she plans to hold caucuses March 2 to award the remainder of those delegates. If that happens, most are apt to go to Trump, since they will be picked by precinct delegates known to be loyal to the former President. But while the state will pay the costs of a primary, the GOP, which is broke and in debt, would be on its own to fund any caucuses. Where would that money come from?
B) There’s also a second problem that could prevent any Feb. 27 primary at all. In Michigan, a law has to have the support of two-thirds of the legislature to take immediate effect. Otherwise, it only becomes effective 90 days after the legislature adjourns for the year.
The bill setting the primary on that date didn’t have two-thirds support. That means that in order for Michigan to be able to have a primary on Feb. 27, the legislature this year would have to recess for good in November, much earlier than usual.
There is, however a sensible solution, one Republicans have quietly indicated they could agree to: Move the primary to Saturday, March 2. Then they would be in compliance with party rules, and could forget the caucuses, and Michigan would still be in the national spotlight. Why not move to the next Tuesday, March 5?
Because that will be “Super Tuesday,” when, as of now, 15 states will hold primary or caucus elections, and Michigan wouldn’t get much attention or have nearly as much significance. (Ohio, by the way, will have its primary March 19, a week after Super Tuesday.)
For lots of reasons, it would seem to make sense for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to encourage her fellow Democrats to draft new legislation changing the primary date to March 2. Her party now controls both houses of the legislature, and such a bill would pass easily with bipartisan support – and be given immediate effect.
But for whatever reason, Democrats seem unwilling to do so.
However this plays out, it’s worth noting that Michigan has had a long, complex and sometimes just plain bizarre history with presidential primary elections since 1972, when the state reinstated them after pausing for four decades.
Both parties have sometimes used and sometimes ignored them. Some have been of great significance, some meaningless, and some just plain embarrassing. And since Michigan has no party registration, Republicans and Democrats are free to cross over and vote in each other’s primaries – and sometimes do.
Here are a few of the more memorable moments.
1972: Michigan’s first Democratic presidential primary since the Great Depression was seen as a battle between George McGovern and Hubert Humphrey. But the day before, George Wallace was shot and badly wounded, and won the primary by a landslide.
1980: Ronald Reagan was well on his way to the GOP nomination, but George H.W. Bush won the Michigan primary by a landslide, helping secure the vice-presidential nomination.
1988: Democrats abandoned the primary for a caucus system, but were embarrassed when Jesse Jackson supporters bussed in senior citizens to give him a solid win over the eventual nominee, Michael Dukakis.
2000: George W. Bush was on his way to winning the GOP nomination, but was badly beaten in Michigan by John McCain because of Democratic crossover votes.
2016: Bernie Sanders won an upset victory over Hillary Clinton in the Michigan Democratic primary, signaling that Clinton was in trouble with blue-collar voters.
2020: Joe Biden’s landslide victory over Bernie Sanders in a mostly-by-mail primary during the pandemic signaled that Biden would be the Democratic nominee.
