As the presidential primary schedule rumbles to life, Republican candidates are looking to the South to give themselves a leg up. In recent memory, the South has been taken for granted as a particularly dark shade of red, prone to being overlooked by candidates seeking juicier and more attractive states like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. This oversight, while lacking malice, has led to less conservative candidates receiving the GOP’s nomination as the more conservative South has less of a voice in the media and in the polls. But Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brian Kemp, has other objectives. Kemp has been making plans with Southern states to collectively move their primaries to dates before March 15, a date after which delegates are awarded in a winner-take-all fashion. In moving the greater Southern region to an early date (dubbed the “SEC Primary” after the beloved NCAA Southeastern Conference), Kemp can potentially reestablish the South as a place of importance and coerce candidates to make Southern states larger stopping points. He argues that the SEC Primary has “[…] helped put Georgia and the South on the national map, and my belief is that we are the new heartland of America and we should have a say-so in the presidential race.” But the real question to ask would be: Is this truly beneficial for the GOP? In establishing the South as a force in the primary, Kemp may exacerbate separation within the Republican Party, irreparably damaging any nominee’s chance of uniting both bases, unless some candidate can magically toe the line between Establishment and Tea Party.
Kemp’s efforts have definitely been impressive. In 2012, Super Tuesday only featured four Southern states: Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Virginia, with Alabama and Mississippi coming up a week later. In this upcoming year, 11 Southern states have scheduled their primaries within an eight-day period, and eight of them are all on Super Tuesday. This extreme display of Southern solidarity has worked to attract more presidential candidates to the South. In early August, Erick Erickson, a conservative radio host and blogger for redstate.com, hosted the RedState Gathering, a cattle call in Atlanta for all of the top Republican candidates (sans Donald Trump), which constituted the first of many visits from candidates to the South. Ted Cruz, easily the most active in the Southern states because of his belief that this primary will be a slog for delegates, had a successful “Cruz Country” tour, a 20-stop, week long road trip from South Carolina to Oklahoma. Additionally, Trump had a 30,000 large rally in Alabama, Bush has made frequent stops in Georgia, Huckabee has tried to rally his base in the South, and Rubio has stopped in the South as well. Since the start of Kemp’s efforts to create the “SEC Primary”, the South has received more attention from the nation and GOP presidential campaigns.
But at what cost? There are three paths that this new primary schedule initiative can take. First, the Southern primaries, being held in Deep Red states, could bolster struggling and more conservative candidates, like Ted Cruz, by propelling them into a more competitive light following Super Tuesday. By doing well on Super Tuesday, Cruz would garner more media presence, champion Tea Party supporters, and thereby dethrone less-experienced and Tea-Party favorites like Trump, Carson, and Fiorina. This increased attention and smaller field of candidates would forge a path for Cruz to win the nomination. But can someone like Cruz actually win the nomination? For presidential candidates, the key tactic for the general election is to forge their way to the middle, grab wavering independents, and set up a wall for their opponent. But as the hypothetical GOP nominee, Cruz would have very little sway over the middle, and his extremity could very easily cost the GOP the election.
Another option is that the SEC primary backfires and hands the nomination to the Establishment wing of the GOP, instead of someone more right-wing like Cruz. Each Southern state could give its support to a different candidate, splitting the more conservative vote, or the support could slide to a more moderate candidate like Jeb Bush by default. Without any serious Tea Party competition, Jeb Bush could cruise into a lackluster nomination. He wouldn’t engender any serious support from the more conservative Southern states, a key voting block for the GOP if they want to win the general election. With a poor showing from the South, like a low turnout or more purple states like Virginia and North Carolina swinging blue, the election and the White House could easily be handed to the Democrats.
This seems like a lose-lose for the GOP. A very conservative nominee would alienate himself or herself against the Establishment base, and an Establishment nominee would not inspire the Tea Party wing of the GOP. The only path that would yield a decent chance for success for the GOP would be for the eventual nominee to curry favor with both sides of the Party, and the only candidate capable of doing that would be Marco Rubio. Rubio was the original Tea Party candidate but gained favor and experience with the Republican elite by not being too extreme in the Senate. He has the political acumen and the intra-partisan support to pull off a win. This SEC Primary could very much boost Rubio’s profile, propelling him over the mire of Trump and lifting him in the polls and in media coverage. The only question that remains is: How could Rubio manage to pull enough support in the South? With Walker dropping out of the race, Rubio has a whole new base to draw support from, and the increased media attention on Rubio because of Walker’s withdrawal will easily have him gaining quickly in the polls, as indicated by this new CNN poll, which shows Rubio already gaining massively.
The SEC Primary has so far been held in fairly high esteem with Brian Kemp successfully trying to paint a picture of Southern unity and strength. However, if Kemp truly wants this SEC Primary to succeed, he should hope, for the sake of his own career and for that of the Republican 2016 chances, that he does not shoot his own Party in the foot by using this unity to inadvertently cement divides within the GOP. The only realistic escape for Kemp is for Rubio to unite the bases of the Republican Party in the same way Kemp is uniting the South.
Photo: Gage Skidmore