Campaign staff for the fleet of presidential candidates seeking to succeed George Bush in 2009 must be scrambling to rethink the roadmap for winning their party's nomination after California passed a bill on Tuesday to move the presidential primary to February 5, 2008, joining a handful of states that are already slated for the 5th. Governor Schwarzenegger is expected to sign the bill in short order.
NCSL is tracking pending legislation in at least 18 other states that would move 2008 presidential primary dates. Several of those states are also considering February 5th or even earlier dates. Bills pending in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Texas would also move 2008 presidential primary elections to February 5th--or earlier in the case of Florida. A proposal in Pennsylvania would move the Keystone state's primary to the second Tuesday in February of 2008.
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Missouri, Oklahoma and Utah are already scheduled for February 5th, 2008. And caucuses or primaries in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina are booked for January with New Hampshire kicking it all off on January 22nd. But New Hampshire's date is far from set in stone. New Hampshire law allows the Secretary of State to sit back and wait until all other states have picked a date before setting the date of the fabled "First in the Nation" New Hampshire Primary. The Nashua Telegraph reports that current Secretary of State Bill Gardner will move the 2008 NH primary to the EIGHTH DAY OF JANUARY--a full 10 months before the actual election to choose the electors who will choose the President. So where do you think Brownback, Gilmore, Giuliani, Huckabee, Hunter, McCain, Paul, Romney, Tancredo, Thompson, Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Gravel, Kucinich, Obama, and Richardson will be spending New Years Eve this year?
By the way, please comment on this post if you know of other states that have legislation pending to move the presidential primary date to February 5th or before in 2008.
**Mid-day update 1:30pm MST 3-8-07
I have received some feedback on the post above concerning presidential primary dates, and it solves a couple of mysteries about states that were rumored to be moving.
New Mexico--New Mexico Democrats will have a party-run, preference primary on Feb. 5, 2008, and the New Mexico Republican primary will be in June.
Michigan--Thanks to some sleuthing by a contact in the MI legislature, They are very much in flux, but appear to be locking in on February 5th as well. Michigan Ds are looking at February 9th but maybe moving up to the 5th, and MI Rs are almost certain to do caucuses on the 5th. See this story in the Lansing State Journal.
Idaho-- State Dem central committee selected Feb. 5, 2008, as the party’s new presidential caucus date.
***March 15, 2007 Update***
A previous version of this post listed Colorado as having pending legislation to move the presidential primary to February 5th. After searching CO bills and checking with legislative staff, that turned out to be an erroneous report based on an incorrect newspaper story. There may be talk in Colorado of moving the primary, but it is very unlikely to be done by the legislature. It is possible that the parties will hold their own Colorado presidential caucuses early in 2008.
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