Washington Republican leaders wanted to ensure their state would be relevant in the presidential primary process.
As it was, their contest would be relegated to the dregs of the election season, an afterthought. So last August they proposed moving the vote from May 24 to March 8, one week after Super Tuesday. The Seattle Times endorsed the idea, reasoning that a primary at the end of May would be "a reasonable date for planting a second round of peas in the garden, but ... far too late to be influential in picking candidates."
But four Democrats on a nine-person panel voted to block the change. State GOP Chairman Susan Hutchison fumed to a local news outlet at the time: "There is an energy that we have not known for years because we are ignored in the presidential process."
Hutchison and other state Republicans are suddenly feeling deeply satisfied, however. The GOP presidential primary has carried on far longer than anyone could have predicted, and the stakes are only growing with each fresh contest. Every delegate is pivotal if Donald Trump is to lock up his party's nomination before the convention in Cleveland, or if his rivals hope to stop him.
Now, on May 24, Washington won't be ignored. It will be at the center of the nation's attention.
"We get the last laugh," Hutchison told RealClearPolitics, "because now it's so much more exciting."
Whereas states such as Iowa or New Hampshire traditionally play an outsized role in picking presidential nominees, this never-ending Republican primary has flipped tradition on its face. Although those states at the start of the calendar winnowed the field, the forgotten states at the end will, for the first time in recent memory, have the final say--and, like a political Groundhog Day, decide whether the race extends six more weeks to Cleveland.
The turn of fortune is a surprise and a joy for Republican Party officials in states like Delaware, New Jersey and Indiana, who had resigned themselves to irrelevance in the race for president.
"I became chairman over a year ago, and who knew? Holy cow," said Brandon Bell, chairman of the Republican Party in Rhode Island, which holds its primary Tuesday. "It's been wild."
"Are you asking if we're basking in the sunlight?" said Oregon Republican Party chairman Bill Currier, whose state votes May 17. "Of course. Obviously we relish the opportunity to have issues in Oregon be addressed."
Indeed, the states that hold sway in the primary process often receive significant national attention for local issues, driven by the candidates. In Iowa, it was ethanol. In New Hampshire, locals raised concerns about widespread opioid addiction. As the race moved to Florida, candidates addressed U.S. relations with Cuba.
Voters in these states are also able every four years to take measure of presidential candidates up close, in intimate town halls or at larger rallies. In a normal primary, however, most candidates might not make it to Montana, which votes June 7 with just 27 delegates at stake, or Maryland, where voters will cast ballots Tuesday to award 38 delegates.
But recently Ohio Gov. John Kasich popped up in Savage, Md., at a town hall meeting attended by roughly 400 people. This was unfamiliar territory for Loretta Shields, chairwoman of the Howard County GOP, which includes Savage. In her roughly 25 years actively involved in her local Republican Party, Maryland has never mattered in a presidential primary.
A few weeks ago, however, Shields realized what was happening. As a Kasich supporter and a Maryland Republican, she was elated.
"As soon as the governor won Ohio, it was like, 'Oh my gosh, here we go,'" Shields said. "As soon as we won Ohio, we knew Maryland was going to be a target."
For some states, the unexpected spotlight has proved searing. After Trump attacked the proceedings in Colorado where Sen. Ted Cruz swept the delegates at a convention, Colorado GOP Chairman Steve House reported receiving death threats.
"Shame on the people who think somehow that it is right to threaten me and my family over not liking the outcome of an election," he wrote in a Facebook post, according to The Hill.
There might be no greater stakes than in California, the crown jewel for Republicans on June 7, with 172 delegates up for grabs. The primary process there will be more standard than Colorado's, but not necessarily less labor-intensive: most of those delegates will be awarded by congressional district, which means the candidates will likely hopscotch the state during the final stretch of the primary.
"We don't know what the heck to do--we've never seen this before," said Tony Krvaric, chairman of the San Diego GOP and a California state party board member.
Editorial on 04/24/2016