The nascent 2024 presidential campaign seemed to hit a different gear this week with Nikki Haley entering the Republican primary. The former South Carolina governor and onetime United Nations ambassador joins former President Donald Trump as the only major competitors to declare bids for the presidency.
Haley’s announcement, and the lack of one so far from President Joe Biden and a slew of Republicans, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, got me thinking: Do primary winners tend to be early or late entrants to the presidential race?
The answer depends on who else is running. If you’re in a primary without an incumbent, then it’s better to be early, while it matters far less with an incumbent running.
The modern primary era began in 1972 on the Democratic side and in 1976 on the Republican side. Since then, hundreds of major candidates have decided to run for president or at least formed exploratory committees with the Federal Election Commission. For each of them, I jotted down whichever date was first, to see if there was a pattern.
It turns out that the median date for candidates to enter a presidential primary without an incumbent has been March 16 the year before the general election. There has been a wide variation on that from year to year. Some years, the median candidate gets in really early (January 2007 for the 2008 cycle on both the Democratic and Republican side), while other years it’s much later (August 1991 for the 1992 cycle on the Democratic side).
There is no real correlation between how late or how early a field forms and the eventual nominee’s success in the general election. Democrats, for example, won the presidency in both 1992 and 2008, even with a much later start in 1992.
What does seem to matter for winning a primary is when candidates get into the race compared with their competitors. In the 17…
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