Will Arizona's presidential preference election matter after Trump's wins in NH, Iowa?

Tuesday evening may have made it all but official: The Republican primary season has ended as soon as it began. So what does that mean for Arizona's presidential preference election set for March 19?

Former President Donald Trump dominated in last week’s Iowa caucuses, the Republicans’ first presidential nomination contest, with a margin of victory that broke records.

New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary on Tuesday brought another big win for Trump. Boosted by the endorsements of several of his former competitors, he won a solid victory over his top GOP rival, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, even as he faces four criminal trials and accusations of subverting American democracy. The Associated Press called the race for Trump at 6 p.m. Arizona time.

"After President Trump's resounding victory in New Hampshire tonight people will say this primary is over.The truth is, tonight's result proves it never existed at all," Kari Lake, a Trump ally running for the Senate in Arizona, said Tuesday in a written statement. "President Trump has been our nominee all along. It's now time for the entire Republican Party to unite behind our nominee to defeat Joe Biden in November."

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Arizona’s own nomination contest, the presidential preference election, is two months away. If Trump’s winning streak continues, that election will likely have little bearing on the party’s eventual nominee. In past cycles, presidential hopefuls have stumped in Arizona ahead of the vote and built campaign organizations in the state, but that won't happen this time.

Constantin Querard, a conservative political consultant who originally supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the presidential race, said that candidates have allocated their resources accordingly.

“For most campaigns, it doesn’t make sense to spend a lot of time and money on a state that’s so far down the calendar,” he said. “Our primary will be completely inconsequential.”

State lawmakers established Arizona’s "preference election," rather than a typical "primary," during the 1990s. It was a bid for relevance: they wanted to shift up the state’s election timeline because early results add momentum to a presidential campaign. Now, Arizona's preference elections take place in mid- to late-March.

Arizona’s ‘primary’ election is a separate affair. Slated for Aug. 6, 2024, that election will include candidates for the U.S. Senate and Congress, among other races, and will include no mention of the presidential race.

Paul Bentz, a Republican strategist based in Arizona, argued that a strong performance by Trump in the preference election could still be significant, even if it’s more of a victory lap than a nailbiter.

“Even if it’s already a foregone conclusion that they’re going to win, they are going to want to have high percentages to demonstrate support going into the general election,” Bentz said. “There’s nothing Trump would want more in Arizona than a dominant performance in the primary to demonstrate to his base how popular he is, as he goes into campaigning.

“Performance in the primary does very little to impact the undecided portion of the electorate, but it is something that creates enthusiasm among the base.”

Will candidates still be listed on Arizona ballots even if they drop out?

Arizona’s presidential preference election may not be competitive in practice. But it will be on paper.

In total, nine candidates will appear on the Republican ballot. That will include several prominent candidates who have since ended their campaigns, including DeSantis, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

Only two of the major candidates on Arizona’s ballots — Trump and Haley — remain in the race as of Tuesday. "This race is far from over," Haley said after the polls closed in New Hampshire.

The minor candidates John Anthony Castro, David Stuckenberg and Ryan L. Binkley will also be listed on the ballot.

That’s virtually set in stone. No candidate has formally withdrawn from the preference election, and the deadline for candidates to do so has since passed, according to Aaron Thacker, a spokesperson for the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office.

The Democratic ballot will list incumbent President Joe Biden, the party’s presumptive nominee, along with Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, the author Marianne Williamson and the more minor candidates Frankie Lozada, Gabriel Cornejo, Jason Palmer and Stephen Lyons.

It's also too late to cancel the preference election if, for example, Trump has a runaway victory. Theoretically, the state Republican Party could have canceled the preference election, but the deadline to do that was in October 2023, Thacker said.

Overall, the results from early nomination contests send a clear message: the focus has now shifted to the general election. Arizona is one of the few states seen as up for grabs by both parties.

Laura Gersony covers national politics for the Arizona Republic. You can contact her at lgersony@gannett.com or 480-372-0389.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona's 2024 presidential preference election: Will it matter?