New York? On Super Tuesday?

It has happened before and history may repeat itself in 2028. What are the implications?

At FHQ: New York lawmakers aim to move 2028 primaries up to Super Tuesday

---

Let’s talk about New York.

…because CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere is reporting state Senator James Skoufis is set to introduce legislation to move the presidential primary in the Empire state to Super Tuesday for 2028. That is potentially a lot of delegates shifting to a much earlier allocation point on the presidential primary calendar for the next cycle. But more on that below the fold. First, a couple of other New York primary-related items…

Moving on up?

For starters, where is the New York primary moving? Well, possibly to Super Tuesday, right? That is the reporting, sure. But FHQ does not mean the destination, but the starting point, pre-move. Dovere suggests “up” and, heck, FHQ even hinted at that same thing by saying delegate allocation would move “much earlier” above.

However, the answer hinges on the point of reference: 2024 or now. Relative to the position of the New York presidential primary in 2024, a Super Tuesday position for 2028 would be four weeks earlier. That is up.

But the New York presidential primary is not currently scheduled by law to fall on the first Tuesday in April like it was during primary season a year ago. No, that date lapsed at the end of 2024 and the New York primary reverted to the same spot it has after every cycle since 2012: the first Tuesday in February.

Asterisks abound, but based on that reality, technically, the New York primary would be moving back to get to Super Tuesday if Skoufis’ legislation successfully navigates the New York Assembly and is signed into law by Governor Hochul.

Well, does that not mean that the New York primary is currently too early and thus runs afoul of the delegate selection rules of both major national parties? It does! Yet, the protocol that has been established in the Empire state since 2012 has seen the legislature, in coordination with the state parties, set both the date of the presidential nomination contest and the parameters around delegate allocation for both sides.

It turns out that it is handy to have that default noncompliant February date. Not to place any undue calendar pressure on the national parties, but, rather, to force the legislature to revisit the date and delegate allocation rules each cycle in order to adapt to any rules changes made at the national level. Indeed, it is the fact that New York legislators have followed this same pattern every cycle since 2012 that does not raise red flags every time the primary there restarts at February each cycle.

But again, to move up, all New York legislators would really have to do is nothing. The primary is already in February. The Assembly could leave it there and roll the dice, but that is unlikely to happen. The penalties are too steep.

A change of heart for Skoufis?

Well actuallys aside on the scheduling of the presidential primary, that Senator Skoufis is bringing forth this legislation raised an eyebrow or two over at FHQ.

Why?

This is not his first rodeo. In fact, this would be at least the fourth bill the senator has introduced to move the New York presidential primary. Only, the previous three efforts sought to move the election in the opposite direction, later in the process. In 2021, 2023 and earlier this year, Skoufis authored bills to permanently move — not temporarily divert from the February spot — the New York presidential primary to the fourth Tuesday in June, consolidating the presidential contest with those primaries for federal office in the state.

Yes, the fourth Tuesday in June.

It is a date so late on the presidential primary calendar that it would draw timing penalties from both national parties for being too late. Essentially a late June contest would be too close to the national conventions to get the results certified and delegates credentialed in time for the opening gavel at either national party confab.

But this proposed Super Tuesday bill not only reverses course on where to move the primary, but also abandons the idea of consolidating the primaries, a change intended to save costs, avoiding the hit to the state budget an additional election creates. Potential presidential nomination clout for New York apparently outweighs those savings with a competitive cycle on the horizon.

That is one hypothesis anyway. But it would be nice to know why Skoufis shifted gears from going later to going earlier.

Of course, he and Assemblyman Landon Dais, the sponsor of similar legislation in the lower chamber Assembly — do not address that. No, they fall into the same traps that legislators often fall into on this matter. Basically, “if we move up, we’ll matter.”

Eh, maybe?

Here is how Skoufis and Dais open their op-ed argument for New York moving to Super Tuesday:

“Outside of being an automated teller machine for candidates, New York has next to no say in choosing our presidential nominees. Every four years, the states that vote between early January when caucuses and primaries kick off, and early March when, in one day, over one third of delegates are awarded — are the deciders. New York’s presidential primaries have been all over the calendar since 2016, in mid-April, late June, and early April respectively — after the race was completely or effectively decided without our input.”

So here’s the thing: Legislators, especially some from larger states, tend to lean on this “presidential candidates use our state as an ATM, but we’re an afterthought otherwise” argument a lot. And it is not wrong. But those legislators often fail to reckon with two fundamental things.

First, such a primary move is almost always treated in a given state as if it is made in isolation. It is not. It never is. When states like California and Texas (or New York even) move, it often triggers similar moves in other states, states where legislators similarly do not want their voters left behind, voiceless in the presidential nomination process. Large states, as it happens, have a certain gravity to them in the area of primary movement.

To compound matters, this latest proposed legislation would plop the New York presidential primary into an already-crowded area on the calendar. And since that election would coincide with primaries in California and Texas, three of the four most populous states in the country would all have delegate selection events on the same early March date. That would potentially be an even bigger draw for legislators in other states not wanting to be left behind.

And that raises the other issue legislators often fail to wrestle with in considering these types of moves: history. Every half generation or so, a new crop of legislators has to relearn the lessons of the past when it comes to frontloading. Skoufis and Dais are a prime example. They highlight the positioning of the New York primary in the last three cycles, but fail to acknowledge that the presidential primary in the Empire state has been on Super Tuesday before. In fact, for the first three cycles of the 21st century, the New York primary was scheduled on Super Tuesday. And that included moving even earlier to keep up with the new and even earlier (February) Super Tuesday in 2008.

However, the lesson learned from 2008 was similar to that learned by some southern states after the Souther Super Tuesday in 1988: It was not worth it. The event was too crowded, offered shallow tarmac-based campaigning, did not have the desired influence on the nomination race and/or was not the financial boon advocates thought it would be.

Moreover, New York post-2008 is a great example of that. State-level actors were not making a decision in 2011 to get less attention by moving the primary to April. No, the thinking at the time was that by going later on a unique date and holding the primary alongside neighboring states would be more effective in grabbing the attention — both candidate presence and spending — than to conduct a primary on a crowded earlier date.

Neither of those factors are being considered in this latest push by Skoufis in New York. The New York primary’s past on Super Tuesday is not being considered, nor is the question of why past legislators opted to draw back from that early date in the process.

But that, my friends, is what the legislative process is for: to raise those issues. As Skoufis and Dais go on to argue…

“There is no downside to our legislation mandating New York votes for presidential nominees on Super Tuesday. There is no additional taxpayer burden. There are no onerous complexities.”

All of that may be true, but advocates of these sorts of primary moves, especially in large states, rarely get the upside returns they envision (or promise) up front. Allow FHQ to play a GenX card and cite WarGames:

Moving presidential primaries is a strange game and often the only winning move is not to play.

…if one is talking about large states. As states like California — and New York! — have learned, they are damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

—

But let’s get back to the delegates and some other potential implications of a Super Tuesday move for New York.