It's not just Nevada

A look at a quiet movement among Republican state parties and some penalties from the RNC

In the months leading up to and in those since Nevada Republicans eschewed the newly established state-run presidential primary, story after story has been written about the intent of the move and the impact it may have on Republican delegate selection in the Silver state in 2024.

Often it is a story told against the backdrop of the way in which the Nevada Republican Party has bungled its way through caucuses in competitive cycles of the recent past. Nearly as frequently, those same stories have tended to gloss over the fact that it is not uncommon for states to have a both caucuses and a state-run (beauty contest) primary in the same cycle. Nevertheless, the Nevada situation is unique. But the whole discourse around the foibles of the Nevada Republican process for 2024 has obscured a broader pattern in Republican delegate rules making at the state level that has not gotten a lot of attention to this point.

Even leading up to the October 1 deadline from the Republican National Committee for state parties to have submitted delegate selection plans for 2024, it was clear that there was a movement away from state-run primaries. Divided Republican majorities in state legislatures in Idaho and Missouri could never reach consensus about how to move and/or bring back state-run presidential primary options. Unlike Nevada, however, neither of those states will have a presidential primary in 2024, beauty contest or otherwise. And similarly, Utah Republicans opted out of the presidential primary in the state, choosing instead to conduct caucuses on the same Super Tuesday date on which Beehive state Democrats will vote in that same state-run primary.

But October 1 revealed that the movement away from primaries was not confined to that small group.