PARTY LINES: Who’s running in ‘24? Check Nevada visitors in ‘22

There are plenty of questions still swirling about 2024.

Will former President Donald Trump run again? If so, will he draw a Republican challenger?

Will President Joe Biden decide to run again? If so, will he keep Vice President Kamala Harris on the ticket with him? If not, who else might he pick?

And the most enticing question of all: If Biden decides not to run again, leaving Harris as the heir apparent, will she be challenged for the nomination?

That last one is easy: For sure she will!

And who might those challengers be? Well, we can draw some clues about that from some recent visits to Nevada from once and future contenders for the presidency, all of whom know Nevada is going to be fairly high on the 2024 nominating calendar if not (dare to dream!) first on the list.

That may explain why Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., made a couple visits to help with get-out-the-vote efforts, or why Sen. Elizabeth Warren came to visit, too. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker made an appearance, although his mother lives in Las Vegas, so his visits can combine the personal and the political.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg dropped by this summer, although that was for official business, not a political pit stop.

And let’s not forget Nevada’s favorite adopted grumpy grandpa, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who still fires up a crowd. Sanders handily won the 2020 Nevada caucus, and has enough energy left to mount another bid for the White House.

Not on the list? Biden himself, given that his approval ratings aren’t likely to help candidates such as Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. (Although some clever strategists did put Biden and Gov. Steve Sisolak on a campaign-like sign as if they were running as a ticket.)

Also missing? Harris, although she did make a last-minute endorsement on Friday of state Sen. Pat Spearman in the latter’s bid to become mayor of North Las Vegas.

And it’s not just Democrats making those early visits, either.

Trump has come a couple of times, standing with his endorsed candidates Joe Lombardo (governor) and Adam Laxalt (U.S. Senate). Trump knows Nevada’s value not just politically, but personally. (He’s got a Trump hotel here, and is close with fellow hotelier Phil Ruffin.)

But Trump’s not alone. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin came to support Lombardo, too, one stop of what appears to be a nationwide tour. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another 2024 hopeful, visited here, too, in support of Laxalt, who was his roommate when both were attending legal training for the U.S. Navy.

Oh, and let’s not forget Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii who announced recently she’s leaving the Democratic Party. She rallied for Laxalt recently.

All of which goes to show, Nevada is a very popular destination for those who want to be president in two years. Eat your heart out, Iowa!

Speaking of Nevada and the president and Iowa

We certainly don’t want to add to the pressure felt by Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske or Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria as Election Day nears. Both are total professionals and have reputations for running clean and efficient elections.

But there’s more riding on Tuesday’s balloting then merely the outcomes of the 2022 elections. In fact, the future is on the ballot!

The Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee postponed a decision about which states to place at the top of the 2024 nominating calendar until after the midterm elections. And how Nevada handles its election business next week is going to play a role in where we end up on that calendar.

Oh, yes, we know that the 2021 Legislature passed a bill by then-Speaker Jason Frierson to make the second Tuesday in February our official presidential preference primary election day. But the real decider in this case is the Democratic Party, which can punish states if they hold primaries or caucuses out of the party-determined order.

And the whole reason that Nevada may get to advance from its current third-place slot was the disaster of the 2020 Iowa caucus, which finally convinced people that decades of tradition may not be the best way to decide who gets to start winnowing the presidential election field.

If Nevada returns a quick election night verdict, we will show the nation that we know what we’re doing (even if both Cegavske, who is term-limited, and Gloria, who is retiring, will be gone by the time 2024 comes around).

Screw it up, and the case gets harder to make.

Of course, we’re not going to know what are called the “final unofficial” results on Tuesday, but that’s not Cegavske or Gloria’s fault. The state decided during the pandemic to start sending mail ballots to every active registered voter. And as long as those ballots are postmarked by Tuesday and received by Nov. 12, they will be counted. That means results can and will change, and we won’t learn final unofficial results until the week after Election Day.

The verdict about Nevada’s place on the 2024 calendar? That will take a bit longer to decide. But that process starts on Tuesday, so let’s show ‘em how it’s done in the West!

A peek at the future?

Voters aren’t just going to decide about candidates in Tuesday’s balloting; they’re also going to decide a trio of ballot questions. One of those is Question 3, which would implement open primaries – in which all candidates of all parties appear on the ballot at once, and any voter can vote for any person, regardless of party. The top five vote-getters in the primary would advance to a general election, where voters would rank them in order of preference.

The New York Times had a piece this week about California’s elections, which use a similar open-primary system. But in California, Democrats so dominate the process, that general elections can often pit two Democrats against each other with no Republicans on the ballot at all.

Naturally, Democrats who agree on policy have to differentiate themselves for voters somehow, and that often results in some nasty Democrat-on-Democrat violence.

It just goes to show that open primaries – which are designed to get a more moderate slew of candidates into general elections and avoid the most rabid parts of the party base from picking candidates who struggle in a general election – still can’t get rid of the timeless practice of negative campaigning.

That’s all, folks!

By the time most of you read this, early voting will be over, which means you have only a few more opportunities to cast a vote if you haven’t already. You can still send in a mail ballot, so long as it’s postmarked by Tuesday. And you can still vote in person on Election Day at myriad locations around Clark County. Whatever your preferred method is, do your homework, turn out and vote! And then tune in to the Review-Journal on election night for comprehensive coverage of all the races, preliminary results and more. And tune in to Party Lines next week for our analysis of what we will know so far at that point.

Quotable I

“For entrepreneurs of chaos, making untrue claims about the election is a route to greater glory. Elections and the American experiment exist basically on faith in the system, and if people don’t have any faith in the system, they may decide to take things into their own hands.” – John Dickerson, chief political analyst for CBS News.

Quotable II

“If we want to ensure the survival of our republic, we have to walk away from politics as usual. We have to stand up, every one of us, and say we’re going to do what’s right for this country. We’re going to look beyond partisan politics.” – Soon-to-be-former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., endorsing Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan.

Quotable III

“(Adam Laxalt came) every time we called him for four years. Adam Laxalt got on the plane. He helped. And in politics, that’s a big deal.” – Donald Trump Jr., speaking of Laxalt’s loyalty.

Contact Steve Sebelius at SSebelius@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0253. Follow @SteveSebelius on Twitter.