1534 Free Party Presidential Primaries

The 1534 Free Party presidential primaries and caucuses were a series of electoral contests organized by the Free Party to determine the party's nominee for President of the Free Democratic Republic in the 1534 Kinkow presidential election. The elections took place within all forty-two states and occurred between February 1 and June 3, 1534.

A total of four major candidates entered the race starting July 15, 1533, when Alleron Senator Merle Pridmore formally announced his first bid for the presidency. He was followed by Vadron Senator Wil Garfield, former Governor of Beswon David Gourke, and incumbent Vice President Robert Bakefield. A draft movement was started to encourage incumbent Secretary of State Gail Bell to seek the presidency, but Bell ultimately declined to run. There were four debates held before the Alacton Primary, in which all four candidates were invited. Vice President Robert Bakefield did not attend the first debate, while Gourke attended only the first debate; meaning that Bakefield and Gourke never debated each other in the primary election. David Gourke withdrew prior to the February 1, 1534, Alacton Primary.

Bakefield won Alacton by the closest margin in the history of the state's Freerian caucus. Pridmore suspended his campaign after a distant third-place finish and endorsed Bakefield, leaving Bakefield and Garfield the only two candidates. The race turned out to be more competitive than first anticipated, with Garfield decisively winning Congraoya, while Bakefield closely won Gemini and decisively won Estermere and the Highlands. Bakefield then won ten of the nineteen Super Tuesday states, primarily those in the north and Freerian heartland. Garfield performed better than expected in the Super Tuesday contests, winning nine of the nineteen state primaries, including the key swing state of South Bay. Garfield, however, was not able to capitalize on the momentum gained from Super Tuesday, decisively losing the Aldera Primary to Bakefield on March 17th. After Super Tuesday, Garfield managed to win only one further primary contest, the Obrela Primary. Bakefield, by contrast, secured decisive wins in the Industrial Belt and the east. On May 16th, after decisively winning the Beswon Primary, Bakefield secured 1,032 delegate votes, clinching the nomination. By the end of the night, Bakefield had also won the Capricorn, Beswon Island, Tolen, and Utrana primaries; consolidating his place as the party's presumptive nominee. Subsequently, President Michael Irvine and a plethora of high-ranking Freerians formally endorsed Bakefield. Despite losing the nomination, Garfield declared his intention to continue his campaign for the remainder of the primaries; while not actively campaigning for the nomination. On June 3rd, after Bakefield won the final primary contest, the Panamak Primary, Garfield formally endorsed him and called for party unity going into the FNC on July 1st.

On July 2nd, the second day of the FNC, Bakefield formally announced Alleron Senator and former rival for the nomination, Merle Pridmore, as his running mate. The following day, the convention formally nominated Pridmore as the party's nominee for Vice-President by acclamation. On July 4th, the Freerian National Convention formally nominated Bakefield for president. On October 6th, Bakefield and Pridmore decisively defeated the Welfare Party ticket and was sworn in as President and Vice President respectively on January 5th, 1535.

Candidates
Nominee  Withdrew at the convention Withdrew during the primaries Withdrew before the primaries

Context
In the weeks following the reelection of President Irvine in the 1630 election, speculation regarding potential candidates for the Freerian presidential nomination in the 1534 presidential election began to circulate. The speculation centered on the prospects of Bakefield, the incumbent Vice President, making a second presidential bid in the 1534 election. Bakefield had previously served as a Kinkow Senator for Aldera and was the Secretary of Defence under the Morton Administration. Polls in early 1531 indicated that Bakefield had the highest popularity, out of a list of potential candidates, among the Kinkow public. Given the historical tendency for incumbent vice presidents to seek the presidency in election cycles in which the incumbent president is not a candidate and his own popularity and influence within the Free Party, Bakefield emerged as the potential front-runner of the 1534 primaries; should he mount a bid for the nomination. Moreover, as Irvine was term-limited and could not run for reelection to a third term, it was highly speculated that the perennial Freerian presidential candidate and Senator from Vadron, Wil Garfield, would mount a third bid for the party's nomination.

On July 15th, 1533, one-term Kinkow Senator from Alleron, Merle Pridmore, formally announced his candidacy for the Free Party nomination at a campaign rally in Alleron City Centre, after speculation since early 1532 that he would mount a campaign presenting himself as an alternative to the plethora of establishment party candidates that were sure to seek the nomination. Pridmore had relatively limited federal political experience, having only served one term in the Kinkow House of Representatives and the Kinkow Senate. However, Pridmore used this as a campaign tool, claiming that Kinkow needed a  'fresh, younger face in the Executive Mansion'  who had  'not been in the party long enough so as to become synonymous with the bureaucratic party establishment'. Pridmore was forty-two when he announced his campaign and, if he had been elected president, would have been forty-four upon his inauguration; making him the youngest president in history by twenty-four days. On August 7th, 1533, Kinkow Senator from Vadron and perennial Freerian presidential candidate, Wil Garfield, announced the formation of an exploratory committee in preparation for a possible run for the Freerian presidential nomination. This was followed by former Beswon Governor, David Gourke's, announcement of an exploratory committee for a potential bid on August 20th. On September 7th, 1533, incumbent Vice President, Robert Bakefield, announced his candidacy for the Free Party's nomination at a press conference in front of the Vice Presidential Residence. The following week, on September 12th and 15th respectively, Gourke and Garfield officially mounted their campaigns for the Free Party's nomination.

Despite his vigorous campaign efforts in Alacton and Gemini, which included speaking and listening tours across both states, Pridmore's poll numbers remained consistently low going into the first debate on October 6th, 1533. As anticipated by most media outlets and pundits, Bakefield and Garfield dominated the early polls; both candidates polling in the mid to high thirties. Gourke, not unlike Pridmore, performed poorly in the polls, primarily due to the miscalculations made when he announced his bid; Gourke announced his bid on the state-wide Beswon1 news channel and did not hold an official announcement rally.

October 1533 - January 1534: early debates
On October 6th, 1533, exactly one year before election day, 1534, the Free Party hosted its first primary debate. Due to the small field of candidates, all four were invited to the debate. Pridmore, Garfield, and Gourke all attended the debate. However, Vice President Robert Bakefield did not attend, as he was accompanying President Irvine on the annual presidential state visit to Chinook. Both Pridmore and Garfield performed well in the first debate, with the major media outlets divided on who won the debate. Gourke, however, performed relatively poorly compared to the other two candidates and rarely intervened when permitted to. This led to the media claiming that Gourke's candidacy would not last till the Alacton Primary in February. Both Pridmore and Garfield enjoyed a boost in the polls after the debate, with a KBC-HSU poll putting them at 22% and 37% respectively among decided Freerian voters nationally, putting Garfield ahead of Bakefield's 35%. The poll put Gourke at a low 6%.

The second primary debate took place on the 15th of November, 1533. Once again, all four candidates were invited to the debate. Bakefield, Pridmore, and Garfield all attended the debate, while Gourke declined the offer. Gourke did not attend either of the two further debates in December and January; meaning that he attended only one primary debate, before withdrawing from the race on January 16th, 1534. The debate saw bitter divisions emerge between the three candidates, who all represented different factions of the Free Party. The second debate was followed by two further debates on December 10th and January 29th. Bakefield dominated all three debates and lead the polls going into the Alacton Primary on February 1st, 1534. Although performing relatively well in the four debates, Pridmore was not able to secure enough momentum to see a significant boost in the polls and went into the Alacton Primary polling at single digits.

February 1534: early primaries
Despite being favored in polls issued weeks earlier, Bakefield was only able to defeat Garfield in the first-in-the-nation Alacton Primary by the closest margin in the history of the contest: 46.4% to 45.9%. Bakefield and Garfield won 17 and 16 pledged delegate votes respectively, while Pridmore won only 7.7% of the popular vote and 3 pledged delegate votes. Pridmore suspended his campaign after a disappointing third-place finish, leaving Bakefield and Garfield the only two candidates in the race. A week later, after another debate at Gemini State University on February 6th, on February 8th, Bakefield won the Gemini Primary with 51% of the popular vote and 43 pledged delegate votes. Garfield won 49% of the popular vote and secured 41 pledged delegate votes; only two fewer than Bakefield's. Bakefield's win in Gemini can be accredited to Pridmore suspending his campaign and endorsing Bakefield, as the majority of polls had Garfield polling between 3 and 5 points ahead of Bakefield in Gemini. Before dropping out of the race, the polls had Pridmore at 5% to 8%, meaning that his dropping out of the race gave Bakefield enough votes to secure over 50% of the vote in Gemini. Garfield had gained exactly 49% of the vote in Gemini, as the majority of polls had predicted, gaining no advantage from Pridmore dropping out of the race. Bakefield's win could also be accredited to his performance in the February 6th debate. On February 16th, Garfield secured his first primary win, when he won the Congraoya Primary; securing 54% to Bakefield's 46%. The result gave Garfield 16 pledged delegate votes and Bakefield 14, putting Garfield's overall pledged delegate count to 73 and Bakefield's to 74. This was the closest in delegate count that Garfield and Bakefield would ever get, as Bakefield led Garfield in the delegate count by over five delegates at every point in the rest of primary season. On February 19th, after another debate on February 17th, Bakefield defeated Garfield in the Estermere Primary with 55% of the popular vote to Garfield's 45%. Bakefield won 40 pledged delegate votes to Garfield's 33, putting his total pledged delegate count at 114 to Garfield's 106. On February 25th, after another debate on February 21st, Bakefield continued his winning streak, decisively winning the Highlands Primary with 57% of the popular vote to Garfield's 43%. Bakefield won 51 pledged delegate votes to Garfield's 38, putting his total pledged delegate count at 165 to Garfield's 144.

March 1st: Super Tuesday
The March 1st Super Tuesday saw nineteen states hold their primary elections on the same day, making it the largest Super Tuesday in history. A total of 1,071 delegates were at stake, more than the 1,032 required to win the nomination. It was widely expected that Bakefield would vastly outperform Garfield and that Garfield would subsequently drop out of the race, allowing for Bakefield to secure the nomination. However, Garfield performed substantially better than anticipated, winning nine of the nineteen primary contests and securing higher shares of the vote in states where he was expected to lose by substantial margins.

Bakefield secured important victories in the freerian heartland and the northern states, winning every north-western state in the union. His biggest victory of the day came in Miselania, where he won 65% to Garfield's 34.8%, although his most significant delegate prize came from Alleron, where he received 57.45% of the popular vote and 113 pledged delegate votes. Apart from the freerian heartland and the north, Bakefield secured a narrow win in Maverick, where he won 51.2% of the popular vote and 33 pledged delegate votes; defeating Garfield by only 2.4%. Garfield secured important wins in the south, which awarded him enough delegates to still provide strong competition to Bakefield. Garfield's biggest victory came in his home state of Vadron, where he won 59% of the popular vote and 14 pledged delegate votes. The fact that Garfield won his own home state with less than 60% of the vote meant that he became the only candidate in primary election history to win his home state by a margin smaller than 20%. The first upset of the day came in the Lake Country, where Bakefield won 62% of the popular vote to Garfield's 38%. Garfield was widely considered to win the state by a substantial margin. The second upset of the day came in the southern swing state of South Bay, where Garfield managed to secure 50.2% of the popular vote to Bakefield's 49.8%; defeating Bakefield by 0.4%. While it was an upset, Garfield won only one more pledged delegate vote than Bakefield. Although the results overall were unfavorable for Garfield, his nine wins and narrow losses in other key states allowed him to remain in the race in anticipation of more favorable territory. At the end of the day, Bakefield collected 577 pledged delegates to Garfield's 494. This put Bakefield's total pledged delegate count at 742 to Garfield's 638, putting Bakefield's lead at only 104 pledged delegate votes; significantly less than was anticipated.

Super Tuesday

March 17th: Aldera Primary
On March 17th,1534, Aldera, Bakefield's home-state, hosted its presidential primary. As expected, Bakefield won the state by a large margin, winning 68% of the popular vote to Garfield's 32%; defeating Garfield by a margin of 36%. Bakefield collected 27 pledged delegate votes to Garfield's 12. This put Bakefield's total pledged delegate count at 769 to Garfield's 650. After the Aldera Primary and the debate at Smith College, Queens, on March 20th, Garfield appeared unable to capitalize on the momentum gained from Super Tuesday and saw a drop in the polls.

March 25th Primaries
March 25th saw all four industrial belt states hold their presidential primaries, in addition to the states of Ascia and Obrela. A total of 137 pledged delegate votes were at stake. As was widely anticipated, Bakefield won all four industrial states with large margins of victory, the largest being in Oswad, where he won 65% of the vote to Garfield's 35%. Garfield suffered an upset in Ascia, where Bakefield unexpectedly defeated him with 51% to 49% of the popular vote. Garfield managed to secure a win in Obrela only, with 52% to Bakefield's 48% of the popular vote. Obrela would be the last state that Garfield would win in the primary elections. At the end of the day, Bakefield collected 78 pledged delegate votes, while Garfield collected 59. This put Bakefield's total pledged delegate count at 847 to Garfield's 709; widening Bakefield's lead to 138 pledged delegate votes.

April 20th Primaries
Three states held their presidential primaries on April 20th, St. Paul, South Tamano and North Tamano. A total of 143 pledged delegate votes were at stake. As expected, Bakefield won all three states with wide margins of victory. His biggest win came in South Tamano, where he secured 58% of the popular vote to Garfield's 42%. At the end of the day, Bakefield collected 81 pledged delegate votes to Garfield's 62. This put Bakefield's pledged delegate count at 928 to Garfield's 771; widening Bakefield's lead to 157 pledged delegate votes.