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Who exactly are these bosses?

The checks on the national parties doing "virtually anything" with the presidential primary calendar

Josh Putnam's avatar
Josh Putnam
Feb 20, 2026
∙ Paid

At FHQ this week:

  • Senate companion bill would also see Rhode Island presidential primary shifted to Super Tuesday

  • Idaho legislators again try to resurrect presidential primary in the Gem state


A view of the stage at the republican convention
Photo by Nils Huenerfuerst on Unsplash

I had initially planned on a big “rest of the calendar” update today — actually that was planned for last week — but it has gotten bogged down by research and data gathering issues. Never fear, I will have that one soon.

Instead, today I have one that started out as the opening to a piece most of which ended up here. But I did not want that front half to lay fallow any longer, so let’s talk about the limits of calendar crafting power…

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