Current North Carolina law says the presidential primary should be the Tuesday following South Carolina’s presidential primary. However, in 2016, the South Carolina Republican primary will be February 20, and the Democratic presidential primary will be February 27. The North Carolina law is therefore ambiguous. If it means the Tuesday after the South Carolina Republican primary, then the 2016 North Carolina presidential primary is February 23. If it means the South Carolina Democratic primary, then it means March 1.
Adding to the uncertainty is the existenced of a North Carolina bill, HB 457, which would move the North Carolina primary to the second Tuesday in March, which would be March 8. No one knows if the bill will pass. It was introduced April 1 and hasn’t moved yet.
This National Journal article says that HB 457 is likely to pass the House, but that it faces severe obstacles in the Senate because Senator Bob Rucho is chair of the committee that handles election law bills (the Senate State and Local Government Committee) and he is the author of the existing law. He doesn’t want the existing law changed. Thanks to Josh Putnam for the link.
I don’t think it is ambiguous.
“except that if South Carolina holds its presidential primary before the 15th day of March, the North Carolina presidential preference primary shall be held on the Tuesday after the first South Carolina presidential preference primary of that year.”
Clearly the legislature anticipated that there might be more than one presidential preference primary in South Carolina. It would be nonsensical to interpret this as meaning South Carolina might hold two presidential preference primaries for all voters. February 20 is before February 27, therefore North Carolina’s primary will be February 23.