The Reallocation of Rubio's Five Alaska Delegates

On Tuesday evening Marco Rubio suspended his campaign in the wake of a loss in the primary in his home state of Florida. That set off a firestorm of reactions concerning what would happen to the approximately 170 delegates allocated to Senator Rubio through the contests that have occurred to this point on the presidential primary calendar. The short answer is that the process for the release of delegates varies by state and is complex.

The longer answer, as FHQ has explained elsewhere, is that the variation across states tends to fall into three main categories:

1. The delegates are unbound if released (assuming a more formal withdrawal).
2. The delegates are locked in regardless. The bond is indefinite.
3. The delegates are reallocated to the still-active candidates (assuming they met any qualifying threshold if one exists).

This last category is perhaps the most interesting. It closes the unbound loophole, but does not force a delegate to continue being bound to a candidate who very likely will not win the nomination or contest it in a contested/open convention environment. It is a middle ground option.

Kentucky has this option. The Republican delegation from the Bluegrass state will vote at the convention on reallocating the seven delegates bound to Rubio. Nevada also has this option, but it is a candidate option. Rubio could choose to have his seven delegates in the Silver state reallocated or opt to release those delegates. In both cases, it is not entirely clear where those 14 delegates will end up in terms of their preferences, much less the candidate to whom they are (newly) bound (if newly bound).

There is more immediate clarity on what happens in Alaska with regard to the reallocation of the five delegates Rubio was allocated based on the March 1 caucuses in the Last Frontier.

Well, at least there seemed to be.

The Alaska Republican Party rules, first of all, have a low bar for the release of delegates. To be deemed released, a candidate merely has to have stopped actively campaigning. Rubio meets that qualification. The next step is the reallocation.

According to those same Alaska Republican Party rules, there are different contingencies for the reallocation based on when the release of the delegates occurs.

1. If a candidate drops out before the state convention (when the delegates are selected to fill those slots allocated in the March 1 caucuses) then any delegates that candidate was allocated are reallocated to any qualifying candidate (those who met the 13% threshold) still in the race. 
2. If a candidate drops out after the state convention and thus, after the delegates have been chosen, any delegates won by the withdrawing candidate are reallocated to the remaining qualified candidates using the proportional formula in the original post-caucus allocation. 
3. If a candidate drops out at the national convention, the delegates are bound to the candidate through the first two ballots. After a hypothetical inconclusive couple of ballots, the delegates become unbound. 

Rubio clearly falls into contingency #1. The Alaska state convention is not until the end of April.

But take a moment to go back and carefully read the conditions of contingency #1 and contingency #2. Yes, there is the before and after the state convention difference, but there is also an operational difference with respect to the specificity of the reallocation. Note that the provisions in contingency #1 are ambiguous. There is no explicit guidance as to how the reallocation is to be done. However, in contingency #2, there is. The drop out-aligned delegates are reallocated proportionally to the remaining qualifying candidates.

Under that type of reallocation -- the one described in contingency #2 -- Rubio's five delegates would have been split 3-2. Cruz beat out Trump in the Alaska caucuses and would claim three delegates to Trump's two. That would give Cruz more than half of the Alaska delegation with 15 total delegates and give the Texas senator one more state toward the eight necessary to be placed in nomination under the current Rule 40.

But the reallocation process in contingency #1 is not as clearly specified as it is in contingency #2. Instead of the reallocation leading to a new 15-13 split that favors Cruz, the Alaska Republican Party has reallocated three of the Rubio delegates to Trump and two to Cruz. The state party interprets the rules in a way that leads to an even 14-14 delegate distribution of the Alaska delegates.

Now sure, this is one delegate. This Alaska situation also echoes in some ways the Romney-Santorum argument over one delegate in Michigan four years ago. But 2016 is not 2012. With increasing talk of a contested convention, even one delegate matters.

Keep this one in mind should primary season end in an inconclusive result. It will come back up again then.

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2016 Republican Delegate Allocation: ALASKA

Updated 2.29.16

This is part 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. 

ALASKA

Election type: caucuses
Date: March 1 
Number of delegates: 28 [22 at-large, 3 congressional district, 3 automatic]
Allocation method: proportional
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 13%
2012: proportional caucuses (with no official threshold)

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The method the Alaska Republican Party is using in 2016 to allocate its 28 delegates to the national convention in Cleveland looks a lot like it did four years ago. The party is still holding caucuses. Those caucuses will be continue to be scheduled for the earliest date allowed by national party rules (March 1). And the delegates will be proportionally allocated to candidates based on the results in the presidential preference poll conducted at those caucuses.

Unlike 2012, however, the Republican Party in the Last Frontier will include a threshold that candidates must meet to qualify for any delegates. And it is a somewhat odd threshold: 13% of the statewide vote in the caucuses. Why 13%? FHQ does not have a really good answer to that question. Yet, if one looks back to the results of the last two competitive Republican caucuses -- caucuses in which there was more than just an incumbent president seeking reelection -- 13% is roughly the point that separated those candidates who received delegates and those who did not.

One could look at those results in 2008 and 2012 and come to the conclusion that that sort of threshold would limit the number of candidates qualifying for delegates, specifically limiting to four that group of candidates. That may or may not be the case in 2016. That four candidates were allocated delegates speaks more toward the impact of winnowing in those cycles than anything else. And yes, Alaska is similarly positioned on the 2016 calendar compared to both 2008 and 2012; the earliest allowed date.

But think of that limit of four as something of a floor when considering delegate allocation in Alaska. Mathematically, up to seven candidates could receive delegates in the caucuses based on how the allocation rules are worded. A candidate has to receive at least 13% of the vote to qualify for delegates. It is, then, a hard threshold. One could not get 12.5% of the vote, for example, and be able to round up to 13%.¹

What the new threshold, combined with past results, tells us is that there are likely to be anywhere from four to seven candidates who will take delegates away from the Alaska caucuses. Whether the allocation ends up closer to the floor or ceiling there, depends on how the field winnows between now or Iowa and March 1.

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Interestingly, if a candidate who has won delegates drops out of the presidential race, those delegates/delegate slots do not become free agents as is the case in other states. Instead, the allocation will be recalculated as if the remaining qualified candidates had been the only candidates to initially qualify following the preference vote in the caucuses.

Let's use the 2012 results as an example.

After the caucuses:
Romney (32.4%) -- 8 delegates
Santorum (29.2%) -- 7 delegates
Paul (24.0%) -- 6 delegates
Gingrich (14.1%) -- 3 delegates 

But now, let's assume that Gingrich drops out:
Romney (37.85%) -- 9 delegates
Santorum (34.10%) -- 8 delegates
Paul (28.05%) -- 7 delegates

The recalculation drops the Gingrich votes from consideration and allocates the delegates to the remaining three candidates as if they had been the only three to qualify (using on the votes that those three received). Basically, the three Gingrich delegates end up even distributed among the remaining candidates.

This is all fine if the candidate withdrawals occur prior to the Alaska Republican state convention in late April next year. The recalculation would be done and delegates would be elected at the state convention and bound to candidates to which they are already pledged.

However, if the withdrawal happens after the delegates have been elected, the delegates aligned with the withdrawing candidate are given the option of switching allegiance to one of the remaining candidates. If they opt not to align with another active candidate or to not align with candidates based on who has available slots, then the party will select delegate candidates who will align with that candidate.

For example, let's assume that Gingrich in the above allocation example dropped out after the state convention and the selection of delegates to fill his three delegate slots has occurred. Those three delegates would not have the option to all go to Romney, for example. The three delegates would have to go -- one each -- to the remaining active candidates as called for in the recalculation. If they opt not to or cannot agree to who they will each re-pledge, then the party has the power to select replacements.

Is this likely to occur? Probably not. By the time the Alaska state convention rolls around, the point on the calendar at which 75% of the delegates will have been allocated will have passed. That has been -- over the last few cycles anyway -- the point at which a presumptive nominee has emerged. If that is again clear by late April 2016, then the delegates will all likely end up allocated to that presumptive nominee anyway. If not, then they are very likely to be allocated to a significantly winnowed field of candidates. At that point in a sequential process, that is likely to be two candidates.


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State allocation rules are archived here.



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¹ Under that rounding scenario, eight candidates could tie at 12.5% of the vote and all qualify for three delegates.

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