The presidential nomination process
Introduction
The Constitution does not mention political parties or procedures for electing presidential nominees from each party. Political parties used their own methods, such as having members of Congress or party conventions choose their respective nominee to run for President before the invention of primaries in the late 19th century. The clear advantage of using primaries over the previous methods is that the voters have a direct say on who the presidential candidate will be from each party.
Primaries
A primary is an intraparty election. Most states use a primary system to select their nominees to run for President. A primary is a regular election where people go to polling places and cast a vote for who they want to represent them in the general election. There are two main types of primaries. A closed primary is only open to registered party members (either Republican or Democrat). A disadvantage of a closed primary is that it is not inclusive and forces people to declare their party affiliation. An open primary allows any registered voter to cast a vote in the election. A disadvantage of open primaries is raiding, where there can be crossover voting, ng which members of the opposite party could vote in the other party’s primary and vote for who they consider to be the weakest candidate of the opposing party. The first primary is the New Hampshire primary that starts the primary season. The primaries are held between January and June of the election year.
Caucuses
There are a handful of states that use a caucus to nominate their presidential candidates. A caucus is a meeting of party members at night where the attendees gather, discuss the candidates, possibly change their minds during the discussion, and then vote at the conclusion of the meeting. There are multiple meeting places for the caucus throughout the state. The voters who participate in a caucus are more partisan than primary voters since it takes quite a commitment to attend a caucus as opposed to going to a polling place to vote in a primary. Therefore, candidates take more partisan positions in a caucus as opposed to a primary. The most famous caucus is the Iowa caucus, which is one of the first contests in January of the election year.
New Hampshire primary and Iowa caucus
The first primary (New Hampshire primary) and the first caucus (Iowa caucus) are very important elections for the candidates. Due to the fact that they come first, candidates must perform well in order to gain momentum to be able to stay in the race for the rest of the primary election season, which ends in June. Momentum gained in New Hampshire and Iowa will bring about media attention and campaign fundraising that will be very significant factors for the candidates to win. Generally speaking, the candidates need to finish in the top 3 in those states in order to remain competitive for the rest of the election campaign.
Super Tuesday
Another important date in the primary election season is Super Tuesday. Super Tuesday is a day in March when roughly a dozen states all hold their primaries on the same date. It is clearly important for candidates to do well on Super Tuesday since a lot of votes are cast that day, which would be a significant factor in determining the outcome. It is likely that after Super Tuesday, only two or three candidates will be left in the race, as others will drop out if they are not off to a good start due to lack of funds and momentum. Since getting off to an early start is important, states prefer to hold their election at an earlier date in the calendar. The process of states trying to schedule the date of their primaries at an earlier date is called frontloading.
If the national party agrees to states moving the date of their primary to an earlier date, it could have the following consequences.
- The outcome would be decided earlier, before many states have a chance to participate meaningfully in the election.
- The candidates who are favored to win and have a bigger name will be at an advantage since it takes time to get known for lesser-known candidates.
- There will be less time for voters to cast a well-informed decision.
How a candidate wins the nomination
The winner of the primary is a candidate who accumulates the most delegates. There are two ways for a candidate to get delegates. One is the proportional representation method, where the number of delegates gained will be proportional to the number of votes won. For example, if a candidate receives 20% of the vote in a state, he will receive 20% of the total number of delegates assigned to that state. The number of delegates assigned to each state is mostly based on population, but the members vary based on each party’s calculations. The other way to assign delegates to candidates would be the winner-take-all method, where all the delegates at stake in a state go to the candidate who won the plurality of the votes in a state. For example, if a candidate’s 35% of the vote is the most of any other candidate in a state, she will get all the delegates assigned to that state. Delegates are individuals chosen to support their candidate at the party convention, which is a meeting in late summer of the election year where the winner of the primaries is formally announced. Ultimately, the delegates vote at the convention that determines the winner. A candidate’s total number of delegates is based on how many votes they get in the individual states. There is a separate process to choose the delegates for each party. The candidate who gets more than 50% of the total number of delegates’ votes will win the nomination. As candidates drop out of the race during the primary campaign, they often release their delegates to vote for the ultimate winner. The Democratic Party also uses superdelegates. They cannot exceed 15 percent of the total number of delegates. Superdelegates are politicians who are chosen by the party to represent the party and are unpledged, so they show up at the convention and vote for the candidates that they prefer. Superdelegates will only be significant in the unlikely scenario where no one has emerged as the winner, and only their vote could determine the winner.
National convention
Each party holds a meeting of all the delegates called the national convention at the conclusion of the primaries. The party in power (the party that holds the presidency) holds its convention right after the other party. The two main goals of the convention are to officially nominate the presidential candidate (when delegates vote) and to unify the party behind the winner after a bruising primary fight. The party platform, which lists the party’s official positions on political, social, and economic issues, is also voted on and approved at the convention. The location of each party’s convention is decided by the party’s national committee after cities bid to host it. The location is generally in a big city in a swing state where the party needs to compete and win in the general election in November. The convention lasts five days, and each party invites speakers to talk about the positive qualities of the party’s nominee. After the delegates formally vote, the nominee will give an acceptance speech accepting the nomination and laying out the plans for the general election campaign. In a rare situation, where no one gets the majority of the delegates’ vote, there will be a brokered convention where multiple rounds of voting may be required to declare a winner. Each party should have what is called a convention bounce after the convention concludes, which is a temporary bump in the polls. The delegates at the Democratic National Convention are more diverse due to Democratic convention rules requiring quotas for different ethnic groups and an equal number of men and women delegates. Delegates for both parties are also more ideological than an average voter, since being a delegate requires a lot of passion and dedication in order to participate in the process.