South Carolina Primary Set For January 21st
With Florida’s decision to set its primary for January 31 in place, the other states are following:
South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary will be held on Jan. 21 of next year, two GOP sources tell CNN.
South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Chad Connelly will formally announce the date later this morning.
The move is designed to put space between South Carolina and Florida, which bucked national Republican Party rules last week and decided to hold their primary on Jan. 31.
The updated calendar is likely to push the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary even earlier into January as they seek to protect their role as the two leadoff contests in the presidential nominating process.
This makes it largely inevitable that the 2012 primary schedule will look a lot like 2008 did. Still to be scheduled are Nevada’s caucus, the New Hampshire primary, and the Iowa Caucuses. Most likely, Nevada will take the Saturday before South Carolina like they did last time around, New Hampshire will go the Tuesday before that, and that puts Iowa most likely scheduling caucuses on either the 3rd, 4th, or 5th of January.
New Hampshire law says our primary has to be at least seven days before any other primary — Iowa’s Caucus is excluded. And our Sec of State takes that incredibly seriously.
J.
New Hampshire just announced that it’s 2016 GOP primary will take place Nov. 7th, 2012, in order to be certain to be the first in the nation.
Florida and South Carolina may respond by having the 2016 primary before the 2012 elections, in order to make certain their states’ votes count – ironic, given Florida’s history.
short term self destructive personal gain over long term group stability? I guess you have to give the GOP some credit, they’re willing to live their free capitalism ideas seriously.
Seriously though this is going to significantly hamper fundraising efforts which only helps Romney. All in all a good thing as I see it.