A lot of talk over the past week has been about the possibility of the GOP’s pet creation, Trump, pulling out of the race (or being forced out). In some states, it might already be too late to change.
From Ballotpedia, I give you some dates required by some states by which the parties must certify their candidates for office. Here are the ones that have already passed:
STATE |
DEADLINE |
Candidate Certification Deadlines, Aug. 7 or before
MICHIGAN |
JULY 22 |
DELAWARE |
JULY 26 |
NORTH CAROLINA* |
AUGUST 5 |
WEST VIRGINIA |
AUGUST 5 |
* Not a statutory deadline, but North Carolina requests that candidates be submitted by the first Friday in August.
Ponder that list for a moment.
And now for the deadlines that occur in the next two weeks (by Friday, August 19th). In order to meet these deadlines, the RNC would have to come up with a candidate in the next 12 days — a problematic occurrence at best.
state |
deadline |
Candidate Certification Deadlines, Aug. 8-19
SOUTH DAKOTA |
AUGUST 9 |
OHIO |
AUGUST 10 |
missouri |
AUGUST 16 |
iowa |
AUGUST 19 |
LOUISIANA |
AUGUST 19
|
Imagine a path to victory for a candidate that didn’t show up on the ballot in 8 or 9 states, especially a battleground state like Ohio.
Finally, these are the states that require candidates to be submitted by the end of August (Wednesday, August 31 — 24 days left, not counting today, of course):
STATE |
DEADLINE |
CANDIDATE CERTIFICATION DEADLINES, AUG 20-31
MISSISSIPPI |
AUGUST 20 |
NORTH DAKOTA |
AUGUST 20 |
MONTANA |
AUGUST 24 |
VIRGINIA |
AUGUST 26 |
MINNESOTA |
AUGUST 29 |
NEVADA |
AUGUST 30 |
OREGON |
AUGUST 30 |
TEXAS |
AUGUST 30 |
UTAH |
AUGUST 31 |
Finally, just to add to the pressure, I’ll note that Alaska and Idaho have September 1 deadlines. Florida has a September 1 deadline, but the statute only applies to Presidential electors, not to the candidates themselves.
There are many states where the deadlines are unclear, so potential exists for a lot of confusion.
So, 17 states by the end of the month, 19 if you add in September 1st deadlines (I’m not counting North Carolina in my math there, since North Carolina’s isn’t a hard statutory deadline).
Make of this what you will.
EDIT/UPDATE: First of all, thanks for the recs to get this on the Rec List! I’m honored!
Second, the idea has come up repeatedly in the comments that these dates are irrelevant because state legislatures could just change the statutes. True, but consider…
Only a handful of state legislatures are in session right now, so to accomplish that statute change will require calling the legislatures into special session. States with a non-GOP controlled legislatures are unlikely to manage this, nor those with a Democratic governor. Finally, even for those that would decide to do this there is the question of bad optics. So, the GOP has it’s months-long nominating process, 15 or so candidates, and makes it selection. And now weeks later states would have to call special sessions and spend taxpayer money to change deadlines for submission of candidates in order to allow for selection of a new candidate because the selected candidate is so incompetent or distasteful the party leadership can’t allow him to run? I’m sure HRC’s campaign would have a field day with the optics there.