Presidential Primaries, 1960

Report Outline
Primaries in the 1960 Presidential, Race
Primaries and the National Conventions
Primary Campaigning and Opinion Polls
Special Focus

Primaries in the 1960 Presidential, Race

Restriction of Primary Battles to Democrates

Democrats will have the presidential primaries, to be held this year in 17 states and the District of Columbia, very largely to themselves. Announcement the day after Christmas of Gov. Nelson A, Rockefeller's decision to keep out of presidential politics in 1960 left Vice President Richard M. Nixon without apparent opposition for the Republican nomination. Aspirants for the Democratic nomination are numerous enough to stir up lively battles in some of the primary states, although tests of strength among that party's leading contenders may be prevented in other primary states by “No trespassing” signs posted by favorite-son candidates.

Despite the prospect that primary results will not determine the Democratic nomination, party regulars and the public will examine them keenly for indications, however tentative, of voter sentiment toward the various candidates. Experience has shown that success in presidential primaries is of only uncertain aid in nailing down the nomination. On the other hand, failure in primary polls, especially in states regarded as politically strategic, may completely destroy a candidate's chances. Thus these contests, conceived early in the century as a method of giving the people a direct voice in selection of presidential nominees, have worked in practice to perform mainly the negative function of weeding out weak candidates.

Differences in Primaries in Different States

Three fewer presidential primaries will be held this year than in 1956—Alaska, Minnesota and Montana having repealed their primary laws and gone back to the convention method of selecting delegates to the national conventions. Voters in the states where primaries are scheduled for 1960 will elect delegates to the national conventions. In nine of those states and in the District of Columbia the elected delegates may be pledged to a particular presidential candidate, and in nine of the states (including some in the first group) the voters may indicate their presidential preference directly. New York and Alabama are the only primary states in which there is neither a direct presidential preference vote nor any pledging of delegates.