California’s 2020 shadow sparks New Hampshire fears

The idea that millions of absentee and mail-in votes could be cast in advance of California’s actual primary election day — and the prospect that presidential candidates might bypass the early states entirely to concentrate on target-rich California — is finally beginning to sink in.

Bill Gardner, the longtime secretary of state who has the legal authority to set the New Hampshire primary election date, told POLITICO he doesn’t plan to set the date for the nation’s first presidential primary until the fall, when he will better understand the potential impact of California’s early voting and determine whether other state legislatures have attempted to infringe on the Granite State’s first position…

Was it possible that he could set the nominating contest as early as December 2019? Gardner called that speculative, but wouldn’t rule it out.

“Well, the law, and the circumstances could require that. The law says it can be in the year of the election or the year before,” he said. “The law provides a great deal of flexibility in order to preserve the tradition of the primary.”