2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: WEST VIRGINIA

This is part forty-six of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable. 

WEST VIRGINIA

Election type: primary
Date: May 10
Number of delegates: 34 [22 at-large, 9 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: loophole primary/winner-take-all
Threshold to qualify for delegates: n/a
2012: loophole primary

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Changes since 2012
The basic structure of the West Virginia Republican method of allocating, selecting and binding delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention is the same as it was in 2012. The real election is still for the delegate candidates -- both at-large and in each of the three congressional districts -- directly elected on the primary ballot. In that way, the Mountain state is like Illinois (congressional district) before it. Delegate candidates file (or are filed by one of the presidential campaigns) to run for one of the 31 vacant delegate slots. Like Illinois, those delegate candidates are listed on the ballot with the presidential candidate's name (or uncommitted) next to theirs, and if elected are bound to that candidate at the convention.

Unlike the system out west in the Land of Lincoln, though, West Virginia Republicans elect both congressional district delegates and delegates at-large. The full allotment of at-large and congressional district delegates, then, is selected through direct election and bound based on any candidate affiliation made when the delegate candidates filed to run.

One other difference the West Virginia delegate selection process has with the one Illinois Republicans use is based on a rules change the WVGOP instituted for the 2016 cycle. The crux of the change is that the at-large delegates are not all that at-large anymore; at least not in the way that they have been in the past. For the 2016 cycle, those at-large delegates have been districtized or rather more appropriately countyized.

Let me explain. At-large delegates are delegates that are intended to be the top however many votegetters statewide in any selection process, whether primary or caucus/convention. Every voter votes on those positions. In a truly at-large system, that can result in an overly homogenized outcome. And that homogeneity tends to benefit some majority faction. In turn, that means that some geographic/regional, racial or political minority is disadvantaged in the process. Those groups end up not being represented in the government positions or delegate slots being filled.

Having a mixed system with both an at-large component and a congressional district element, as West Virginia Republicans have traditionally had, can overcome that problem. Can being the operative word. Those district delegates are supposed to ensure that there is at least some representation on the national convention delegation from all corners of the state. However, in West Virginia, there are only a handful of congressional district delegates -- nine across three districts -- and that does not always serve as a counterweight to the more than twice as many at-large delegates.

If, for instance, there are nine delegates from across the state and then 22 others elected statewide but predominantly from one populous area of the state, then the ultimate delegation is potentially lacking in diversity.¹ This seems to have been the case with West Virginia delegations to past Republican National Conventions. More populous areas were simply overly represented on the delegation. In some respects, that is supposed to be the case, but the needle was pushed more toward a delegation predominantly made up of delegates from only a few concentrated areas.

By adding a new rule for 2016, the West Virginia Republican Party has attempted to better calibrate the representativeness of its delegation. New for this cycle, then, are restrictions on the selection of at-large delegates. There will be a fuller discussion of the exact nature of the effect of these changes below, but suffice it to say, those restrictions are intended to bring about a more regionally balanced West Virginia delegation.


Thresholds
As the delegates are directly elected in West Virginia, there are no thresholds that a candidate must reach in order to qualify for delegates. For the presidential candidates, banking bound delegates is entirely dependent upon whether delegate candidates affiliated with them are elected.


Delegate allocation (at-large delegates)
Contrary to how the process has worked in the past, the selection/election and allocation of at-large delegates in West Virginia for 2016 is not truly at-large. There are a couple of restrictions the WVGOP has newly placed on the selection of at-large delegates:

1. After the top finisher -- the delegate candidate with the most votes statewide -- the top seven at-large finishers from each of the three congressional districts will win slots to the national convention.
2. Additionally, there can be no more than two at-large delegates from any one county with the exception, again, of the top at-large delegate candidate votegetter statewide.  

This has several implications. First, each congressional district will have at least seven delegates; ten if one counts the three congressional district delegates that are also being . One of the three will have eight (or 11) delegates as a bonus for having the top, unrestricted votegetter statewide hail from there. This ends up being far less "at-large" and a lot more districted. It is a move that is somewhat reminiscent of Missouri Republicans shifting a couple of at-large delegates to each of the eight congressional districts in the Show-Me state allocation process. Yet, the West Virginia maneuver more overly districtizes their plan relative to Missouri.

There are also campaign strategic ramifications from this change. Rather than having the freedom to quickly go into a state and assemble an unrestricted slate of delegates as campaigns have done in the past, 2016 campaigns have to be an order of magnitude more savvy about the process. There are additional hoops to jump through in terms of cobbling together a slate of delegate candidates who reside in areas more uniformly distributed across districts and without too many from one county. Without wide support across a state, then, a campaign has to rely on a deeper level of connection and organization within the state of West Virginia in order to put together a winning and ultimately eligible delegation.

Those campaigns that do not pay attention to detail run the risk of having delegate candidates win more votes than other candidates, but losing out to popular losers because of potential regional clustering. The slate is too concentrated in one area, in other words, and thus does not qualify even if individual candidates from it receive more votes. If one presidential candidate has nine delegate candidates from one county, for example, then only two (or three if one of them is the top statewide finisher) would be able to sit in the final delegation.²


Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Unlike the selection and allocation of the at-large delegates, the choosing of the congressional district delegates is more simplistic. There are no restrictions placed on the selection of those delegates. The top three finishers in each district -- among the congressional district delegate candidates³ -- are the three delegates who will represent the district at the national convention.


Delegate allocation (automatic delegates)
Finally, as opposed to past years, the West Virginia presidential preference vote in the primary will actually mean something. However, the upgrade is a minor one at best. As has been the case in a number of other states, the historical pattern has been to leave the three automatic delegates each state has unbound. A change in the binding rules and a further interpretation of them by the RNC general counsel's office has required states will ambiguous rules (with respect to the allocation of those party delegates) to allocate and bind them based on the statewide results. In most cases, that means treating those automatic delegates as if they are at-large delegates.

In West Virginia's case, though, that is impossible. The at-large delegates are directly elected on the primary ballot. Those automatic delegates are not. In such a scenario -- and it is a unique on to West Virginia -- those delegates are to be allocated to the statewide winner.

The winner of the preference vote -- typically a beauty contest vote -- will be allocated all three party delegates to add on to however many other aligned delegates have been elected.


Binding
There is some dispute over this between the RNC and the WVGOP, but the delegates are bound to the winning candidate (automatic delegates) or to the presidential candidate with whom they affiliated when filing to run as a delegate candidate. That bond, according to the RNC holds until the delegate is released. This is not a new interpretation on the part of the RNC. West Virginia delegates were similarly treated in 2012 as well: bound until released. The state party may be trying to toe the line in terms of talking up their unbound delegation, but the RNC will be treating them as bound at the Cleveland convention (unless the rules, particularly Rule 16, are changed).


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State allocation rules are archived here.


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¹ Lacking and diversity are, of course, in the eye of the beholder in this case. One person's perception of diversity is another's conception of unfairness.

² Most of these problems have been rectified by the Trump campaign dipping into some uncommitted delegate reserves aligned with the campaign.

³ Bear in mind that there are still distinct pools of delegate candidates here. There remain at-large and congressional district delegate candidates despite the restrictions placed on the election of the at-large delegates.


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Recent Posts:
2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: NEBRASKA

2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: INDIANA

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2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: NEBRASKA

This is part forty-five of a series of posts that will examine the Republican delegate allocation rules by state. The main goal of this exercise is to assess the rules for 2016 -- especially relative to 2012 -- in order to gauge the potential impact the changes to the rules along the winner-take-all/proportionality spectrum may have on the race for the Republican nomination. For this cycle the RNC recalibrated its rules, cutting the proportionality window in half (March 1-14), but tightening its definition of proportionality as well. While those alterations will trigger subtle changes in reaction at the state level, other rules changes -- particularly the new binding requirement placed on state parties -- will be more noticeable. 

NEBRASKA

Election type: primary
Date: May 10
Number of delegates: 36 [24 at-large, 9 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: winner-take-all
Threshold to qualify for delegates: n/a
2012: caucus/convention/beauty contest primary

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Changes since 2012
There have been a number of changes since 2012 to the method by which Nebraska Republicans will select, allocate and bind delegates for 2016. Changes in national party rules and in state law prompted most of the alterations that been made over the last four years.

First, the custom in Nebraska has been to hold a primary as called for by state law, but to make its results only advisory to the selection of Republican national convention delegates. In other words, the sequence was to hold a May primary and then a July state convention. At the latter event, the national convention delegates were chosen (with the early primary election having no direct influence).

However, that practice, or rather that sequence, is not consistent with the delegate selection rules that came out of the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa. Under the revised Rule 16(a)(1), delegates are to be allocated and bound based on any statewide vote. Nebraska Republicans were sending bound delegates to past national conventions, but selecting those delegates at an event -- the state convention -- that essentially ignored the primary results. The change made in Tampa was intended to tie the allocation and binding to the most participatory election in a state.

That change served as a catalyst to state parties like those in Colorado, North Dakota and Wyoming, each of which opted to skip presidential preference votes at the beginning stages of their caucus/convention processes. Those moves were made in an attempt to preserve a tradition of sending unbound delegations to the national convention. Nebraska, though, does not fit into that category. The local practice among Republicans in the Cornhusker state has always been to send a bound delegation to the national convention, but select, allocate and bind those delegates in one fell swoop at the state convention.

The problem for NEGOP in the lead up to 2016 was that to comply with the newly tweaked national party rules, the state party either had to completely opt out of the statewide primary in May or to tie the results of the preference vote in that election into the delegate allocation and binding process. As it turned out, state government basically forced the hand of the state party by changing state law to require state parties to have the delegate allocation reflect the vote in the primary.

It was those changes -- to national party rules and state law -- that pushed the Nebraska Republican Party transition from a beauty contest primary to a winner-take-all primary election. The delegates to the national convention will still be selected at the state convention, but will be allocated based on the May 10 primary.

It should additionally be noted that in order to complete the delegate selection process in time for the July national convention, the state convention in Nebraska had to be shifted from July to the weekend after the primary in May. The primary/state convention sequence is still in place, but the meaning of the two contests has transformed and the window between them has significantly shrunk since 2012.


Thresholds
The move to a winner-take-all primary means that there is no threshold either for qualifying for delegates to trigger a winner-take-all allocation. Very simply, the plurality winner statewide is entitled to an allocation of all 36 Nebraska delegates.


Delegate allocation (at-large, congressional district and automatic delegates)
Win the most votes statewide and win all of the delegates. The statewide winner takes them all.


Binding
Nebraska delegates by state party rule are bound for two ballots at the national convention. The only exception to that is if the winning candidate to whom the Nebraska delegation has been bound receives less than 35 percent of the vote on the first ballot. They would become unbound early if those conditions were met.

The selection process is different in 2016 than it has been in the past. Though not a part of the section of the state party constitution pertaining to the selection of national convention delegates (Article VII, Section 3), the new winner-take-all provision the Nebraska GOP is utilizing this cycle is an extension of the broad powers granted to the Nebraska Republican Party State Central Committee in that section. Article VII, Section 3(f) allows the NEGOP SCC to adopt any rules to implement Section 3 so long as they are consistent with the national party rules and state law.

FHQ mentions that because the addendum to the constitution that lays out the winner-take-all allocation method also has a bearing on the selection process. The last sentence of the lone paragraph of guidance on the 2016 allocation method reads:

Only candidates for National Convention Delegate and Alternate Delegate who have been pledged to the Presidential candidate who won the Nebraska Primary may be elected to the National Convention.

All other descriptions of the selection process included in the Rule 16(f) filing the Nebraska Republican Party submitted to the Republican National Committee are silent on this matter. However, the above clause is restrictive, limiting the pool of delegates to those pledged to the primary winner.

Of course, there is something of an out buried in all of this. Before 2016, national convention delegate candidates had the option of filing as pledged to a candidate or simply uncommitted.¹ That uncommitted option is gone for 2016. Instead, the form delegate candidates have to complete and submit to the state party require that candidate to either pledge to a particular candidate or to pledge to the winner of the primary. The latter is a kind of TBD -- to be determined -- option.

But what that means is that the winning candidate may or may not have delegates sympathetic to him or her at the national convention. A winning candidate having sincere delegates behind them long term at the convention is dependent upon how many of those delegates selected are specifically pledged to the winner. If they filed as Cruz or Kasich or Trump delegates, then yes, but if they filed as pledged to a winner to be determined later (via the primary), then they may not be as loyal.

The practical implication here is that if, say, Cruz wins the Nebraska primary, then the Trump and Kasich delegate candidates are sidelined. Only the Cruz and "pledged to the winner" delegate candidates would be eligible to be elected to one of the national convention delegate slots.

Again, regardless of that distinction, those 36 delegates are bound through at least one ballot and perhaps two if the Nebraska primary winner receives more than 35 percent on the the first vote.

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State allocation rules are archived here.


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¹ An uncommitted delegate elected at the state convention would attend the national convention unbound.


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Recent Posts:
2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: INDIANA

Colorado Bill to Restore Presidential Primary Introduced

2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: RHODE ISLAND

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