PRIMARIES FOR DUMMIES

How the primary schedule affects candidates and their chances at the nomination.

Everyone who has ever played a board game or a sport of some kind knows how important the rules of the game are. Without a clear understanding of them, the game cannot function properly. I remember playing wiffle ball games in my backyard with friends after school where the rules were not particularly clear, which often led to arguments.

The nomination process for each party works in a similar way. There are certain rules and structures that give shape to how the candidates run their campaigns. One very important and often overlooked portion of this is the schedule of primaries and caucuses. Specifically, this year’s Republican primary schedule can help certain candidates, such as Sen. Marco Rubio, and hurt other candidates, such as Sen. Ted Cruz.

The Republican National Convention (RNC) opted to model its nomination schedule after the one used by the Democrats in 2008. In that year, the Democratic National Convention (DNC) “back loaded” its schedule, meaning it pushed many of its delegate-heavy, winner-take-all states to be held later in the nomination process. This extended the time it took for one candidate to gain the number of delegates needed to win the nomination and created a thrilling, drawn out showdown between then-Sen. Hillary Clinton and then-Sen. Barack Obama. The Democrats stole the attention away from the Republicans because their process was more drawn out and therefore garnered more media attention.

Learning from this, the RNC back loaded its primary schedule in the same way the DNC had in 2008. The majority of the winner-take-all states in the nomination process come after Super Tuesday (March 1) instead of before it. Also, these states are overwhelmingly moderate, establishment-friendly states, known as “Blue States.”

Data collected by the Cook Political Report states that the delegate benchmark for an insurgent candidate before March 15 is 627 while the establishment benchmark is 486.

“The GOP’s primary calendar is surprisingly front-loaded with states friendly to insurgents like Trump and Cruz,” David Wasserman of fivethirtyeight.com writes. “But because of the Republican National Committee rules, all but one of these states will award their delegates on a proportional basis, intentionally making it difficult for any candidate to build a durable or commanding lead.”

The candidate who is most likely to be affected by this is Cruz. Despite winning Iowa, Cruz had a very concerning third place finish in South Carolina, which is home to evangelicals and tea party members, the voters he appeals to the most. Yet the big picture problem for his campaign is that his delegate sources may begin to run dry after the early burst of insurgent-friendly states.

“An examination of the GOP delegate landscape shows that in states where evangelical Protestants are at least 30 percent of the population, just 22 percent of delegates will be awarded on a winner-take-all basis, compared to 47 percent of delegates in other states,” Wasserman wrote.

While Cruz is hurt by the calendar setup, Rubio is the candidate who stands to benefit the most from how it has been laid out. To put it plainly, the states Rubio should do the best in are the ones that award the most delegates and give none to his competitors. States such as Rubio’s home state of Florida fit this model.

In light of this, there are a few important things to watch for as the Super Tuesday results come in. First, will Rubio perform well enough in these states to siphon off delegates from Cruz and Donald Trump? Second, will Cruz fall far enough in these states that he will not be able to keep up with Trump and Rubio in the delegate count? Third, will Gov. John Kasich drop out of the race? This last point may seem odd, but Kasich dropping out is very important for Rubio, who needs to win Kasich’s home state of Ohio (March 15) to keep pace with Trump.

Sutherland is the opinion editor.