Welcome to a 2016 Republican presidential primary unlike any other. A crowded field, angry electorate and uncharacteristically divided establishment, not to mention the wild-card role of super PACs, have already made this nominating contest more frenzied and unpredictable than its recent predecessors. It’s become conventional wisdom that, whatever the chaos of the early campaign, a winner is most likely to emerge by mid-March. This cycle, we can’t be so sure. In fact, the better you understand how the 2016 calendar works, the more likely it seems we can face a messy slog that runs into late spring and possibly even into the July convention—an unlikely fate at this point but one that’s no longer impossible.

For starters, the 2016 calendar quite deliberately avoids having a mid-March nominee.


In past cycles—2008, 2000 and 1996—the eventual GOP nominees won quickly by concentrating their attention on the first four or five state contests, leveraging their momentum into a front-loaded Super Tuesday and becoming inevitable by early to mid-March. After the 2008 GOP primary, in which 34 states voted by February 5, Republican Party leaders concluded that the frontloaded calendar had given John McCain a too-early primary win and allowed the Obama-Clinton primary to capture a lopsided share of attention. In response, those GOP leaders pushed through new calendar rules designed to create a longer, more contested race: They encouraged states to push their primaries later, and required states voting during the first two weeks of March to agree to allocate their delegates proportionally according to the voting results, rather than in a winner-take-all fashion, making those contests far less decisive. (The period is two weeks shorter in 2016 than it was in 2012, but about as many delegates will be chosen.)

The 2012 presidential election was the first time the new rules took effect, and they dramatically prolonged the primary season. In every election since 1996, the GOP had settled on a clear nominee in March—as early as March 4, in McCain’s case. Although Mitt Romney did as well as any of his predecessors early on in the 2012 primary—effectively tying Iowa, winning New Hampshire, losing South Carolina, and then winning Florida and Nevada—he didn’t have enough delegates to secure the nomination until April 24, after 41 states had voted. Critics blamed Romney’s long slog on weakness as a candidate, but the changes in the primary calendar certainly played a major role.

The 2016 rules are much the same as the ones that dragged out Romney’s victory, but the circumstances of the race all point to a longer, harder fight. Traditionally, the Republican nominee is known when more than 68 percent of the delegates have been chosen, which won’t happen until April 19 this year. On top of that, the race itself is far more complex than it was in 2012: Romney’s anti-establishment challengers petered out relatively quickly, while the two candidates currently leading the polls this year—Donald Trump and Ted Cruz—are themselves anti-establishment candidates, and are continuing to gain momentum just as the voting season begins.

What can we expect along the winding path ahead? This will be my seventh cycle working in presidential politics, including previously as a lawyer for the Republican National Committee and then on George W. Bush’s, Mitt Romney’s and Scott Walker’s presidential campaigns. More than any of the other primary seasons I’ve seen, this is the year to expect the unexpected.

For the candidates, the primary calendar is like a giant jigsaw puzzle. They’ll need victories in order to gain credibility, and resources in order to pick up the 1,237 delegates that make for a majority (having the most votes doesn’t always mean getting the most delegates). They’ll need to decide whether to run statewide campaigns, mostly through TV ads, or use advanced data techniques to target specific places—whether through ads, old-fashioned door-knocking or other techniques.

For the rest of us who are following along, the solution to that jigsaw puzzle may be just as confounding. Beginning in Iowa on February 1, voters will determine whether GOP officials will get their wish of knowing the nominee by March 22, or whether the Law of Unintended Consequences will create an unusually divisive, long and inconclusive primary season that becomes a gift for Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

As we prepare for 19 weeks of voting, here’s an insider’s look at how major calendar moments could bring the nominating process to an end—or carry the chaos over to yet another contested round.

***

February’s Favored Four

4 states; 133 delegates chosen, 5.4 percent of the total

The 1996, 2000 and 2008 primaries taught campaigns to dump resources into Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, four states whose symbolic value far outweighs their delegate count. Winning them is best. But beating expectations is almost as good—it’s why you see the 2016 establishment candidates, well behind Trump and Cruz in the polls, beating up each other instead of the frontrunners. Early success brings the transfusion of dollars and volunteers essential to amassing delegates in March and beyond. The 2012 calendar changes and Romney’s experience have diminished the February states’ impact, leaving Super Tuesday on March 1 as the more crucial battle. But the four early states are still a determining factor for the rest of the primary.

Winning two of the first four states will be a huge boost to any campaign. Winning three of four is the only scenario that could produce a March nominee, and right now, Trump and Cruz are the only candidates who look to have a chance to do that. At minimum, February should clarify the number of GOP primary lanes—whether there’s a “Trump” lane in addition to the traditional “establishment” and “conservative” lanes.

An oddity of the 2016 race is the absence of a consensus establishment candidate this close to voting—especially since that candidate has won every contested primary since 1968. Even rarer is that no establishment candidate is within range of Trump and Cruz in Iowa or New Hampshire. Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich can take some solace in remembering that Newt Gingrich won the 2012 South Carolina primary without first coming close in either Iowa or New Hampshire. But that’s far from guaranteed. The establishment’s weakness could provide a (rare) quick win for a candidate from the conservative or Trump lanes, or allow more candidates to win delegates so that the contest continues for longer than is historically the case. As a matter of simple math, the prospect of viable candidates from three ideological lanes rather than two increases the chances of a contested convention.

***

March 1: Demolition Derby Day

12 states; 624 delegates chosen, 31 percent of the total cumulatively

After February’s primaries—essentially, four statewide races—the nominating contest becomes a national delegate hunt. Only 10 primaries, with 16.2 percent of the delegates, are true winner-take-all states, in which the top vote getter receives all the delegates. The rest of the states allow multiple candidates to win their delegates by choosing them in one of three ways: proportionally (31 states or territories, amounting to 54.5 percent of delegates); by congressional district, with the statewide winner getting at-large delegates (10 states, 24.8 percent of delegates); or in a caucus or convention (five states, 4.5 percent of delegates).

March awards the most delegates of any month, with 12 diverse states—primarily from the South but also Alaska, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Vermont and Wyoming—voting in proportional contests on Super Tuesday. These contests will no doubt winnow the field. The question is whether more than two candidates will survive the primaries’ first Demolition Derby.

To a large extent, that depends how well the campaigns find ways to say they won and their competitors lost, which means March 1-2 will be the cycle’s most competitive spin days. A number of candidates are likely to claim “victory” and viability, based on everything from winning the most states, delegates, congressional districts or delegates in different regions to having the greatest consistent finishes in multiple states to being the leading candidate in the establishment wing. Creativity will know no bounds.

Right now, Trump and Cruz look like a lock to pick up delegates on Super Tuesday. But a decisive factor for the rest primary is whether Rubio, Bush, Christie or Kasich can do well enough for the establishment forces to awaken and coalesce around one candidate.

Meanwhile, the stakes are obviously going to get higher at this point: If no candidate puts the nomination away, every day will bring gut-wrenching choices for the surviving campaigns as money and human resources ebb and flow and become pieces on the primary calendar chessboard.

***

March 5-12: Everyone Gets a Trophy

11 states; 356 delegates chosen, 45 percent of the total cumulatively

This stretch of the nominating process isn’t likely to change much.

Of the eleven states that vote from March 5-12, only Michigan awards more than 50 delegates. So unless one candidate runs the table on March 1, there will not be a presumptive nominee by March 12. Just 45 percent of the delegates will be decided by this point, all of them (except South Carolina) chosen proportionally. That means even a candidate winning 40 percent of the vote across the board will have amassed only 451 delegates, or 34 percent of those needed to win. (For some perspective, Trump is currently polling at about 35 percent.)

In a multi-candidate field, that’s reason for multiple candidates to continue after March 12. The campaigns’ main challenge at this point will be how successfully they claim they’re winning or still in the race. In 2016, the stakes are likely to be higher for the establishment candidates still in the race at this point. The pressure from elected officials and donors will mount on those who have no hope of winning a majority of delegates to agree on a single candidate to challenge Trump and/or Cruz. Yet it’s also possible that the trailing three establishment candidates will see a contested convention on the horizon, and decide to continue trying to win delegates to gain leverage at that convention.

***

March 15: Primary Groundhog Day

5 states; 357 delegates chosen, 60 percent of the total cumulatively

Not enough delegates are chosen between March 16 and April 19 to alter the dynamics of a race. So either a presumptive nominee emerges from the voting on March 15, or the long, cold primary season is destined to continue for at least five more weeks.

Five big states hold contests on this day, providing campaigns with divergent paths to win delegates. March 15 features the first true winner-take-all statewide primaries (Florida and Ohio); the direct election of individual delegates in congressional districts (Illinois); a winner-take-all contest by congressional district (Missouri); and a proportional statewide primary with no minimum threshold to win delegates (North Carolina).

In Florida, Bush last year convinced the legislature to make the state a true winner-take-all before Rubio appeared to be a threat. Now it’s hard see either Bush or Rubio going on to win the nomination if he loses his home state, making Florida a death cage competition between the two—or a huge opportunity for a third candidate to knock out both and run away with 99 delegates. Florida will also be the most expensive state; California and Texas are not statewide winner-take-alls, so candidates can target their resources to pick up delegates. But while Bush and Rubio will have to spend what it takes to win here, the other candidates—if they operate on the assumption that Bush and Rubio have home court advantage—don’t have to spend time or money competing in Florida.

Similar to Bush, Kasich last year made his state of Ohio true winner-take-all contest. If Kasich is still in the race at this point, no other candidate needs to spend a dime in his state, unless they see an opportunity to knock out the governor. Even if he fares poorly earlier in the primaries, Kasich could stay in the race just to win Ohio’s 66 delegates; since he controls the state mechanisms enough to be able to control a block of delegates, he could become one of the convention’s only real “brokers.”

Meanwhile, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina award a total of 193 delegates, more than Florida and Ohio’s combined 165. So campaigns that don’t want to spend in Florida and Ohio will be able to pick off a respectable number of delegates in these states with smart targeting.

There’s a potential quick-win scenario on March 15: A single candidate who wins both Florida and Ohio would pick up a trove of delegates, which would make it almost mathematically impossible to catch that candidate, thus effectively ending the contest here and now. How will we know if there’s a presumptive nominee? Expect the leading campaign to argue that the second place candidate will have to win an impossibly high percentage of the remaining delegates in order to deny the leader a majority of the total delegates at the convention.

If no single candidate wins Florida and Ohio, the campaigns will see their shadows and go back into the political hole for at least five more weeks, making March 15 Primary Groundhog Day.

March 15 also marks an important transition day in the 2016 calendar. It is the last day that any of the Southern state votes. From here forward, the contests shift to the larger and more moderate states. The establishment candidates know that if they can hang on until here, the terrain gets much friendlier.

***

March 22: Question Week

3 states; 107 delegates chosen, 65 percent of the total cumulatively

This is the date by which the GOP hopes to have a candidate, but if March 15 fails to produce a presumptive nominee, March 22 won’t. That said, it should be clear by this point whether 2016 is a traditional cycle, with an establishment candidate leading a movement conservative candidate; a disruption cycle, with either a movement conservative or Trump headed for victory; or a once-in-a-lifetime cycle, with at least three candidates still in the hunt.

In the run-up to March 22, we should also look for articles about the impact of super PACs on the election. After the previous three weeks, it’s unlikely any campaign without a Trump-sized fortune will have sufficient resources for Arizona’s true winner-take-all primary for 58 delegates on March 22.

***

March 23-April 18: Spring Break

3 states; 107 delegates chosen, 68 percent of the total cumulatively

March 23 is a natural break point in the calendar. After eight weeks of heavy voting, there are 10 weeks of not so heavy voting left. March 23 also marks the start of what could be called “spring break”—a four-week stretch when very few delegates are chosen.

We’re likely to know by this point whether two or more candidates are still viable. That makes March 23 a day to gauge possible convention scenarios—a settled convention with a presumptive nominee or a deadlocked convention in which no candidate arrives with a majority of delegates.

Historically, this is the stage where enough delegates have been chosen that a nominee is known. But these four weeks have only 65 unbound delegates up for grabs, at Colorado’s and North Dakota’s conventions, and 42 in Wisconsin’s primary, which awards delegates based on congressional districts, with 15 delegates given to the statewide winner. If it’s still being contested, this long stretch without a big event will challenge the remaining campaigns’ ability to raise money and garner enough attention to sustain momentum.

***

April 19 and 26: Days of Irony?

6 states; 267 delegates chosen, 80 percent of the total cumulatively

Ironically, in today’s southern and conservative GOP, the six states where the delegate count goes over the 68 percent benchmark are in the moderate mid-Atlantic and Northeast. New York’s April 19 primary selects three delegates from each of 27 congressional districts, with only 11 delegates awarded to the statewide winner, giving multiple candidates a chance to win delegates. The other five states vote on April 26, just 12 weeks before the July 19 convention. Only Delaware is winner-take-all.

In a two-way race, this is the first date the leading candidate could plausibly reach the 1,237 delegates needed to lock down the nomination. That said, with 267 delegates at stake, this stretch provides enough delegates to change the dynamics of a still-contested race if those delegates all go to a single candidate. If there is an establishment candidate still in contention at this point, he will have to run the tables in these two consecutive weeks to stay viable against a Trump or a Cruz.

***

May: A Light Month

5 states; 199 delegates chosen, 88 percent of the total cumulatively

A total of 199 delegates are chosen in five states over the next five weeks. Only Nebraska is winner-take-all, making May unlikely to change the contours of any race that remains.

This month will still present a challenge to any remaining Republican candidates as they find themselves fighting a two-front war: Candidates will need to continue winning delegates from the Republican base while knowing that what they say will have greater impact on the general election. The Democratic nominee is likely to be obvious by this point, and will certainly be drawing distinctions with the remaining Republican candidates. Democratic super PACs will also be weighing in to try to tip the contest toward the weakest GOP candidate.

Resources will also be crucial in this period. This year’s convention is scheduled for mid-July—a full five weeks earlier than the past three conventions—on the presumption that there would be an early nominee who could raise lots of money for both the primary and general, and then tap into general election funds and rolled-over primary funds immediately after the earlier convention. But if there’s still a contested primary in May, candidates will have to raise money for the remaining primary contests and the general election campaign at the same time. Compared to previous years, the eventual nominee will also have less time to consolidate support from the vanquished candidates.

***

June 7: The Final 303

5 states; 303 delegates chosen, 100 percent of the total cumulatively

History suggests that these final five states will be anti-climatic. But if the outcome remains unsettled, the survivors will have to navigate California’s massive 172-delegate haul, which awards three for each of the 53 congressional districts, with only 13 for the statewide winner. Like Bush’s Florida and Kasich’s Ohio, Christie’s New Jersey is a true statewide primary, awarding its winner all 51 delegates.

At this point, the remaining candidates will also need to step up their efforts to win over the Republican version of super-delegates—the 168 members of the Republican National Committee, three each from the 56 states and territories. They are the convention’s only guaranteed delegates. While some states bind their RNC members to vote for their statewide winner, no delegates are bound to a candidate for votes on the convention rules, credentials and platform committees. Since RNC members tend to disproportionally end up on these committees, look for the candidates to court them.

By June 8, it will be clear if the leading candidate will have a majority on the first ballot of the convention. If that’s the case, that candidate will spend the next six weeks intensely planning the convention program. If no candidate comes to the convention with a majority of delegates bound to him or her, things will get really wild. The campaigns will have to plan for cutthroat rules fights and credential challenges, and will have to keep close track of the 2,472 delegates in ways no one in living memory has ever had to. The historical uniqueness of the event will draw intense scrutiny in its own right, requiring many sleepless nights as campaigns pivot from a very public primary season to the behind-the-scenes tests of a contested convention.

Money challenges and attacks from the Democratic general election opponent will both continue at the same time. That’s a lot for a candidate to handle at once.

***

There are countless theories out there about the outcome of the primary contests. But consider how much those kinds of theories have evolved already in this primary season. Trump has not faded. He, Cruz and Bernie Sanders are all viable candidates as the voting begins. Bush is hardly inevitable. Neither is Hillary Clinton. Super PACs have yet to play a major role. The Republican establishment has not coalesced around a candidate.

The only theory that has held true is that the electorate is really angry. Which means when actual voting finally starts, the only truly sound theory is to have your seatbelt buckled.