Former President Donald J. Trump has driven all of his major primary rivals out of the race. And yet, the voting will go on. Why?
For the most part, the answer is a simple one: It’s just too late for state parties to cancel elections that are already on the books.
“It would be unusual for states to come out and say, ‘Yeah, we’re not going to have a primary after all,’ at this point,” said Josh Putnam, a former political strategist who studies delegate allocation processes. “I would be shocked.”
The deadline for the state parties to submit their plan for the 2024 cycle was back in October, and the Republican National Committee’s rules prohibit states from making any major changes after the deadline.
Strictly speaking, the Republican Party is not bound by law to adhere to its current primary calendar. Could the R.N.C. choose to modify its own rules? Sure. It’s unlikely, though.
Changing things now would be a major shake-up involving a lot of stakeholders: the national party, state parties and state governments, which administer and pay for primary elections, according to Daniel Schlozman, a political scientist who studies parties and electoral rules.
“This is not an authoritarian country in which we just cancel and nothing happens,” Dr. Schlozman said. “That is changing the system.”
It’s not uncommon for state parties to skip holding primary contests, though this usually happens when an incumbent president is running for a second term. In 2020, when Mr. Trump faced only minor primary opposition, the G.O.P. officials in six states chose to cancel their primaries and caucuses. Ten Democratic state parties did the same in 2012 when President Obama was running for his second term.
This year, Democratic parties in two states, Delaware and Florida, canceled their primaries because President Biden was the only candidate on the ballots.
Back in January, David Bossie, a Trump ally and R.N.C. committeeman, floated but withdrew a resolution to declare Mr. Trump the party’s presumptive nominee. It would have been merely symbolic even if it had been voted on and adopted. And the former president didn’t support the resolution, writing that he preferred to win the “old-fashioned” way.
Since the 1850s, that old-fashioned way has involved Republicans picking their presidential nominee at a national convention, even if there is one candidate who is nearly certain to emerge victorious. State parties, working within voting laws set by state governments, could decide how to choose the delegates they will send to the convention, but R.N.C. rules say that the national party must approve their plans well before the nominating contests are underway.
With Mr. Trump’s major challengers having suspended their campaigns, there’s little reason to believe he will encounter any opposition on the path to winning the remaining delegates he needs to secure the nomination. That leaves him and his allies without reason to challenge existing norms and party guidelines, Dr. Schlozman noted.
“I think it is highly unlikely that you will see any of that,” Dr. Schlozman said. “What incentive do they have, other than saving a couple of bucks, to do this?”
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