The Journal. - A Messy Start to the 2024 Presidential Election

Episode Date: January 8, 2024

Primaries that don’t count. An incumbent President’s write-in campaign. The 2024 election is off to a weird start. WSJ’s Eliza Collins explains why. Further Reading: -The Way Nevada Will Pick the GOP Presidential Nominee Is a Mess  -These Voters Will Decide the 2024 Election. They Don’t Like What They See.  Further Listening: -Does Nikki Haley Have a Chance at Beating Trump?  -The Prosecutor Bringing a Racketeering Case Against Trump  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thalia Flores lives in New Hampshire. And during every presidential election, she's gotten to enjoy the perks of being a New Hampshire voter. For the last century, the state has always had the country's first primary. So voters like her get unique access to presidential hopefuls. You actually get to know them, and they get to know you. You can meet up with a candidate in a diner, in a grocery store, in a park. They do events all over.

They do their town halls. Do you have any memories? Like if you had any close encounters with any politicians over the years? Oh my goodness. I've had close encounters with everyone. I remember meeting Senator Barack Obama and

that was a great experience. Introduced him to my niece who was going to be voting in her first election that year and he won her over right there, right on the spot. election that year, and he won her over right there, right on the spot. But this year, things look a lot different for Democratic voters in New Hampshire.

The Democratic Party decided it wanted South Carolina to vote first. New Hampshire is defying that decision. And as a result, New Hampshire's primary isn't going to count towards the nomination. I was, you know, just disappointed in how they handled New Hampshire and saying, OK, well, you know, your delegates are not all your delegates are going to count. And, you know, kind of putting their thumb on the scale. And New Hampshire is just one example. This year, there are several states with equally confusing primaries in both the Democratic and Republican races. All of which is to say,

2024 is off to a messy start. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knudson. It's Monday, January 8th. Coming up on the show, the weirdness in this year's presidential primaries. With Uber Reserve, you can book your Uber ride in advance. 90 days in advance. Perfect for all you forward thinkers and planning gurus. Reserve your Uber ride up to 90 days in advance. Uber Reserve. See Uber app for details.

In a handful of states, both Democrats and Republicans are doing strange things with their primaries this year. We'll start with the Democrats. As an incumbent, President Joe Biden is heavily favored to win. But the Democratic Party still holds an election. Normally, the first two states to vote in both the Republican and Democratic primaries are Iowa and New Hampshire. Iowa has had the first caucus, and New Hampshire had the first primary. But this year, the Democratic National Committee wanted South Carolina to go first.

Here's our colleague Eliza Collins, who covers politics. There's two major reasons for this. Iowa and New Hampshire are small, rural, white, older states. There's two major reasons for this. to give minority voters, younger voters, urban voters more of a say. They feel like that's an important part of their base, their right, that has been an important part of the Democratic coalition. The other part of this is that Joe Biden, in 2020, won South Carolina and the support of Black voters by wide margins, and the rest of the moderates in the field dropped out and endorsed him. And so Biden owes South Carolina. He had a

memo to the Democratic National Committee, which basically made the decision for the calendar, that said, put South Carolina first. But putting South Carolina first has created problems for the calendar that said, put South Carolina first. But putting South Carolina first has created problems for the states that previously went first, Iowa and New Hampshire. In Iowa, Democrats will still be able to start casting their votes this month, but... Then they will seal it up and their votes will be counted in March when they are actually on the Democratic-approved calendar. So, Iowans are going to vote in January, but their votes won't be counted until March.

Mm-hmm. What's the logic there? The logic there is that they'll show up the same day the rest of the state shows up, but they were not approved to have a January 15th caucus. And so their votes won't be counted until March. So they're basically participating with what the DNC says, but it's created a very strange situation. In New Hampshire, things get even weirder.

New Hampshire has a state law that requires both parties to have their first primary there. The Republican Party will stick with that. But the law now clashes with what the Democratic Party wants. So we're seeing this year something that is unprecedented, where the Democratic National Committee said, New Hampshire, you are not the first in the nation primary anymore. We've redone our calendar. New Hampshire's primary wouldn't count. And that meant the party's frontrunner wouldn't be participating in the race. So Joe Biden's name will not be on the ballot. And then whoever wins will not get any delegates towards

the nomination. So it's a completely pointless vote. Well, what's the point then of even holding it? If you ask New Hampshire Democrats, they say they have no choice. They say they're following their state law. But there's a lot of New Hampshire voters that are very frustrated about this. One of those frustrated voters is Thalia Flores, who you heard from at the start of the episode. After years of voting with the Democrats, this year, Thalia says she's switching things up. I decided several months ago that I thought, you know what, if my vote as a Democrat isn't really going to change things, as a Democrat isn't really going to change things, then I'm going to vote in the Republican primary and at least try to get a candidate that I can respect and that I can live with, as opposed to Donald Trump. Fascinatingly, after going to all the Republican candidates' town halls

and meeting all of them, I actually came to like Nikki Haley and Chris Christie. Now, I don't agree with them on every policy, but I actually admire the both of them. So you changed your party affiliation? I did. I was a Democrat for many, many years, and I changed my affiliation to undeclared. I've switched and quite honestly, I'm not going to switch back. I may vote Democratic in the general, and I certainly will probably vote Democratic for our congressional delegations and our governor. But I don't see myself switching my party back to Democrat permanently. I'm going to always stay and then declare it again now.

Well, how come? Because quite honestly, Ryan, the two parties both have been, again, putting their thumb on the scale of these elections and kind of telling us who our nominees are going to be. I mean, they're not even they're not even letting the process play out. As a result of all this, there's a chance Biden might not win in New Hampshire. Remember, his name won't be on the ballot, which could create another problem. Biden right now is suffering from an enthusiasm gap with his own party. So there is this sort of scramble within the New Hampshire Democratic establishment, so elected officials, longtime party activists,

to try to get people to write in Joe Biden's name because now they're worried that some long-shot lesser-known candidate could win the New Hampshire primary. And even though it won't mean anything for the actual nomination, to have a vote that will show up on TV and in the papers and on podcasts that he lost, they feel like that would be a very bad message right out the gate for Biden to lose an early state. But it just seems so weird. Like, the Democratic Party is saying, we're not going to participate in New Hampshire. We're not going

to put our frontrunner candidate on the ballot. And yet there are like other Democrats in the state that are running a campaign to say, actually write his name in because we still kind of want him to win. Like, yeah, it's so weird. There's like, There's no other way to say it. Coming up, the weirdness on the Republican side. Travel better with Air Canada. You can enjoy free beer, wine, and premium snacks in economy class. Now extended to flights within Canada and the U.S. Cheers to taking off this summer. More details at AirCanada.com. Picture this.

You finally get to the party. And it's the usual drinks and small talk. Suddenly, you spot something different. The Bold Seagram 13. A 13% cosmopolitan cocktail. You grab a can and take a sip. Suddenly you're on a fresh adventure, becoming the hero of your own night. Unapologetically full-flavored cocktails with a 13% punch.

Seagram 13, dare to make your own luck. Must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Available at the LCBO. Available at the LCBO. Republican voters are also facing a few odd primaries this year. For starters, the frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, might not even appear on the ballot in some states.

Colorado and Maine have both banned Trump from running in those states, saying his actions on January 6th violated the Constitution. Trump is appealing the bans. I don't think either of these are done deals, but there's a chance that he's not on the ballot in those two states and potentially others. There are challenges in other states as well. And then there's Nevada. Historically, Nevada has always held a caucus. But a few years ago, state lawmakers decided to introduce a primary. Can I ask like a really dumb question, which is like, what's the difference between a primary and a caucus? That's not a dumb question because most of America doesn't know. So primary is like a traditional voting. You go in, you cast your paper ballot. In some states, it's electronic. And you leave. A caucus is an

in-person event. And the idea is sort of a community. You go in, you talk about who you want to vote for. People try to convince one another to vote for someone else. And ultimately they count up how many voters each candidate gets and they report those numbers to who's ever doing the tallying. Nevada Republicans didn't want to do a primary because it would allow for voting by mail. They preferred to keep the in-person caucus. So the result is that Nevada is holding two Republican elections, but only votes made in the caucus,

which is sanctioned by the Republican Party, will count toward picking the Republican nominee. Republican candidates had to choose which race to participate in, and a lot of them won't be on the primary ballot. Trump will not be on it. Ron DeSantis will not be on it ballot. Trump will not be on it. Ron DeSantis will not be on it. Chris Christie will not be on it. Vivek Ramaswamy won't be on it. And then you can vote on that, but then if you want your vote to count for the nomination, you have to show up in person on

February 8th and participate in their caucus for the remaining candidates. Nikki Haley is the only competitive candidate on the Nevada primary ballot, and she's not participating in the Nevada caucus. Well, why did any of the candidates choose the primary, then, if the national committee said that the primary wouldn't count? Several reasons. One, the primary's free to participate in. Two, the Nevada Republican electorate is seen as a pretty Trump-friendly electorate. The state party is seen as Trump-friendly.

If you're one of these candidates and you don't feel like Nevada is your state, why pay, I think it was more, $50,000 plus to appear on that ballot when you can just participate in the primary. For Nikki Haley, she'll get a headline on February 6th that will say Nikki Haley wins Nevada primary because she's really the only competitive candidate on it. And then she can move on. She's not going to get any delegates. But her team basically just made the decision to count Nevada out and

not spend the money there. One state with both a caucus and a primary, it's confusing the heck out of voters there. And many of them feel frustrated. Let me close the door so the doggies don't come in. I got three little wild dogs. Hold on. Yeah, good thing. Oh, we did. Yeah. That's Connie Kling, a Republican voter from Reno. I actually thought, I thought it was strange. I was hoping they would just have one or the other. We had last month, some of the speakers come discussing the difference between the caucus and the primary. So it's still confusing to voters. I don't think they have the word out to really totally understand. I even asked my mother,

you know, she's going like, what's the caucus? You know, why are they having the caucus and the primary? And it's kind of frustrating because I think that when people don't know the difference, perhaps they may not participate in the caucus or vote in the primary. Yeah, well, I mean, it does seem rather strange to have two different votes with a different set of candidates on the ballots on each, and only one of them will ultimately count for the delegates. Correct. Yeah, I know.

Connie says she can't decide whether to support Donald Trump or Nikki Haley. But in a way, the choice has already been made for her. She's planning to vote for Haley in the primary and Trump in the caucus, but only her vote for Trump will count. How does it make you feel about democracy, that something like this can happen?

Oh, I get frustrated. I find that it just seems to me that they're not being democratic about it because not every vote's counting. So how could they hold the primary and the caucus and allow that to happen? Because it's really not a democratic process, in my opinion, of course. Because you were sort of saying that you're 50-50 between Nikki Haley and Donald Trump. Yes. But on the only ballot that will matter essentially Donald Trump is your only choice

but you can't really choose to vote for Nikki Haley even if you did decide when it came down to it that she was the one you wanted to support correct and that just doesn't make sense when they're going through all that it's just very concerning like I said I don't know

how they let that happen but it is that's what's going on. I asked her colleague Eliza how situations like these are even possible in a democracy. Well, unlike a general election, which is run by states and by elected officials, primaries are run ultimately by the parties. And so they make the final decisions. The national Republicans approve the Republican calendar and changes, and the national Democrats do the same.

And so people cannot be happy with it or feel frustrated, but parties run the primary process. And parties are organizations that are focused on their own survival, essentially. They're not necessarily always just purely democratic, small d operations. Right. At the end of the day, they want to win elections. And so they're not giving someone a crown and saying you're it. They are holding elections. But there's all sorts of confusion to get to the ultimate nomination. That's all for today. Monday, January 8th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal.

Additional reporting in this episode by John McCormick. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.