Jonathan Bernstein, Columnist

Does Changing 2016 Primary Calendar Change the Game?

Republicans want to change their presidential primary calendar. Should they?

January 24, 2014 at 5:32 PM UTC

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics. A former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio, he wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

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Republicans are meeting this week to make changes to their 2016 nomination process. The goal? To compress the calendar of primaries and caucuses, based on the conclusion that a long, drawn-out process was bad for Mitt Romney in 2012.

At least, a compressed calendar seems to be what they'll wind up with if the changes work as intended. Compression is actually coming from two different impulses. One is a long-standing effort by both parties to bring order to the front end of the nomination process by postponing action until February; the other is a finance-driven decision Republicans have made to move up their convention. If all goes according to plan, the result will be votes in the first four ("carve-out") states -- Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina -- in February, followed by votes in rapid succession in March and April, with the primary season finishing up in May. That's a lot more compressed than the January-to-June schedule of the past few cycles.