Combine pre_get_posts into one query

sure, but I think keeping them separate will make it easier to figure out in six months when you come back to the site to fix something. the logic seems cleaner this way.

So it’s easier to have two queries instead of trying to get two queries into the main query?

I didn’t say that. You could combine them, but I think the logic would look messy. I’m not sure what problem you’re trying to solve with your question.

I don’t know at this point. I’ve been working on this for so much that I’m probably over-thinking my problem and I probably made it more complex that it’s suppose to be.

Basically, I’m trying to find a way to have one query then separate posts based on settings. For example, one query has 15 posts but stripped out posts from the category podcast-control-daily and then another query with posts that are in category podcast-control-daily and put those back into the main_query. What happens is sometimes those posts with a category podcast-control-daily get pushed to the bottom and are no longer shown on the front page.

The code above does work, my only problem with it is that it does two queries and I would like it to be one.

In other words, is there a way take this query:

add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'exclude_category' );
function ctrl_daily_posts( $query ){
      if( $query->get( 'ctrl_daily' ) == 'posts' ){
        $query->set( 'tax_query', array(array('taxonomy' => 'category','field' => 'slug','terms' => array( 'podcast-control-daily' ),'operator'=> 'IN')));
        $query->set( 'posts_per_page', 5 );
      }
}
add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'ctrl_daily_posts', 10 );

and add it to the main query on top of this being already set:

function exclude_category( $query ) {
if ( $query->is_home() && $query->is_main_query() ) {
  $query->set('tax_query', array(array('taxonomy' => 'category','field' => 'slug','terms' => array( 'podcast-control-daily' ),'operator'=> 'NOT IN'),array('taxonomy' => 'post_format','field' => 'slug','terms' => array( 'post-format-status' ),'operator'=> 'NOT IN')));
  $query->set( 'posts_per_page', 15 );
}
return $query;}
add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'exclude_category' );

Never mind.