On March 5, Kentucky State Senate President David Williams introduced SB 7. The bill moves the primary, including the presidential primary, from May to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in August. A similar bill passed the State Senate last year, but died in the House.
There is no rational reason why presidential primaries should not be in July and August. The national conventions this year for the two major parties are in late August and early September. A massive move by many states to move presidential primaries to the summer months would shorten the too-long presidential primary season, which now runs from January through late June. Thanks to Frontloading HQ for the news.
Since when are ANY robot party hacks *rational* — esp. since 1929 ???
P.R. and App.V.
NO primaries, NO caucuses, NO conventions — all now very dangerous EVIL stunt events.
Most states are not going to want to move their presidential primaries so late into the primary season, since the later a state vote, the less likely it is that its voters will still have any influence over the result.
If this bill passes, I wouldn’t be surprised if the result was just to extend the primary season to run from January to August.
If states would adopt Top 2 for their presidential primary, it would make sense to have it in August.
Years ago, of course, the conventions often were in early July. If you look at my book of diary entries, MIAMI BEACH CONVENTION: A 21-YEAR-OLD LOOKS AT THE DEMOCRATS, 1972, http://www.amazon.com/MIAMI-BEACH-CONVENTION-21-Year-Old-ebook/dp/B004HB1VU6, you’ll see it begins in early July of that year.
Back in the day, usually the party that had an incumbent nominee — or thought they did, as with the Democrats in the tumultuous 1968 convention — held it in late August, and the challenger party held it in early July, though they sometimes were both in July. In 1952, both conventions were over by July 26, for example.