Presidential Primaries

Introduction

Pete Buttigieg, then still mayor of South Bend, Ind., gets grilling tips from Iowa Pork Queen Gracie Greiner at the Iowa State Fair in August. Buttigieg and other 2020 Democratic presidential contenders are seeking attention in any way they can in early-voting states such as Iowa. (Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla)

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Overview

Pete Buttigieg's Iowa backers shot a video of themselves dancing to “High Hopes” by Panic! At the Disco outside a county steak fry. Elizabeth Warren posed for a seemingly endless series of selfies with fans. Andrew Yang showed off his skateboarding skills. Beto O'Rourke, before he dropped out, posted videos of himself getting a flu shot, a haircut and a dental checkup.1

What all these efforts by Democratic presidential campaigns have in common is a desire to display the candidates' informal sides — and stand out in a historically large field of contenders — in the runup to this year's primaries and caucuses. It is these contests, which begin in Iowa on Feb. 3 and end with primaries in five states on June 2, that will almost certainly determine the party's nominee.

What does all this attention-seeking activity have to do with running for, or serving as, president? Does it tell voters anything about how the candidates would address health care, trade or tensions in the Middle East?

The answer, according to some political observers, is to be found in the news media's attraction to spectacle and gamesmanship rather than policy.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren poses for a selfie with an audience member at a Democratic presidential debate in Los Angeles in December. Warren has made taking selfies with fans a centerpiece of her campaign for the party's nomination. (Getty Images/Justin Sullivan)

“There's been some evidence that getting the most media attention affects the polls,” says Casey B.K. Dominguez, a political scientist at the University of San Diego. And much of the media attention, she says, is not devoted to substance. “So much coverage is horse race coverage,” she says, meaning which candidates appear to be gaining or losing momentum.

But the process does reveal something about the qualifications of those running, says Barry C. Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The current system rewards candidates who can build and manage — or pick people to manage — large, multistate organizations. The candidates must be able to communicate, find talented staff, work hard themselves and travel all the time.

“Those are all things we expect of presidents today,” Burden says. “In that sense, the juggernaut that is the modern campaign serves us pretty well by being able to handle all that.”

The current system of choosing presidential nominees, Burden says, evolved in layers, over time. Once, party elders and powerful officeholders chose the candidates behind closed doors, with limited public input. But since Democrats implemented extensive reforms for the 1972 campaign, power in both major parties has been transferred to the voters who participate in primaries and caucuses.2

In the process, party leaders' authority has gradually dwindled. “Without the vetting of the party, it allows outsiders to get a toehold and the nomination, [candidates] who otherwise would not be deemed qualified,” Burden says.

The political figure who offers the clearest demonstration of this is President Trump. During his 2016 presidential run, Trump initially had essentially no support from Republican Party leaders or senior officeholders. But he found a way to attract intense media attention, receiving the equivalent of billions of dollars worth of coverage — much of it focused on his flamboyant personality and his rising standing in the polls, not on scrutiny of his ideas.3

Trump's rise divided the party in 2016. The previous two Republican presidents, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, refused to endorse him, and many GOP officeholders also said they could not support him, either for ideological reasons or due to offensive statements Trump had made. “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., as Trump wrapped up the nomination.4

Graham has since become one of Trump's most adamant supporters. With Trump enjoying roughly 90 percent approval ratings among Republican voters, party elders who once scorned him have fallen in step behind him, and Trump faces no serious threat in winning the GOP nomination a second time. “The base of the party loves our president, and if anybody runs against him, they are going to get absolutely smashed,” Florida GOP Chair Joe Gruters said last year.5

William M. Tweed, the Tammany Hall political boss, reportedly said he did not care “who does the electing, so long as I do the nominating.” (Getty Images/Bettmann)

Although Trump was once registered in New York as an independent and talked about running as a third-party candidate, the nature of the American political system meant that he had to compete for a major-party nomination to mount a serious bid for the White House.6 That same reality has led Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who calls himself a democratic socialist, to seek the Democratic nomination in 2016 and again this year.

While other democracies have multiparty systems, in the United States only Republicans or Democrats stand a reasonable chance of being elected president. Former President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond in 1948 and former Alabama Gov. George Wallace in 1968 all won some electoral votes as minor-party candidates, and businessman Ross Perot took 19 percent of the national popular vote running as an independent in 1992. But no third-party candidate has come close to winning the White House since the formation of the Republican Party in 1854.

That makes a major-party nomination essential. William “Boss” Tweed, who ran Tammany Hall, the Democratic political machine that dominated New York politics in the 19th century, reportedly said, “I don't care who does the electing, so long as I do the nominating.”7

Party leaders still wield some influence in the nomination process. In 2016, the support of the bulk of elected Democratic officials helped propel former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the party's presidential nomination. About 15 percent of the delegates to the 2016 convention were so-called superdelegates — party leaders and elected officials who automatically became uncommitted delegates by virtue of their positions — and they overwhelmingly supported Clinton.8

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At this year's Democratic convention in Milwaukee, however, superdelegates will not have a vote on the first ballot if the nomination is still contested.9 Moreover, although former Vice President Joe Biden has received the most party leader endorsements in the campaign, he has not enjoyed the same level of support as Clinton, helping to keep the race competitive.10

“My impression is that despite the large field of candidates, we're still seeing roughly the same rituals that the Democratic Party has pursued in the past,” says University of Denver political scientist Seth Masket. “The winnowing is slow, but it's happening. People are choosing between candidates.”

The debate over the roles of party leaders versus rank-and-file voters in the nominating process has been going on for decades and shows no sign of abating. Some observers argue that the party should once again play a large part, saying that system produced nominees who were at least as strong and perhaps superior to those chosen by the voters.

Others argue that, on the contrary, the process should be opened up even further. Since party primaries are essential in the nominating process, they should be open to all voters, not just party registrants, says Jeremy Gruber, senior vice president of Open Primaries, an election reform group based in New York. “Many voters who are members of the parties are members only because it affords them the right to vote,” he says. “You shouldn't have to join a private organization in order to be able to vote in this country.”

The vetting of candidates occurs long before any primary votes are cast. The candidates spend considerable amounts of time in the year before the election wooing voters in the early-voting states, particularly Iowa and New Hampshire. At the same time, they are seeking endorsements from party leaders and cash from donors. This process, known as the invisible primary, now receives considerable media attention. That makes the campaign seem endless — even before primary voting has even started. (See Short Feature.)

The reality is that campaigns are lasting longer. Former Rep. John Delaney of Maryland announced his Democratic presidential bid in July 2017. Warren and Sanders formally announced their candidacies in February 2019, Biden in April 2019 — and Trump filed papers to run for a second term on the day he was inaugurated in January 2017.11

It used to be that some candidates got into the race just a few months before the first primary: Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, the eventual Democratic nominee and presidential winner in 1992, announced his run in October 1991.12

When former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick entered the 2020 race in November, they became the latest major-party entrants since Clinton in 1991.13 Bloomberg, one of the richest people on Earth, is testing the theory that there is no such thing as getting in too late. He spent more than $100 million on his campaign during its first month, dwarfing total 2019 spending by any other Democrat in the field.14

Bloomberg is skipping the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, betting that his advertising blitz will make him competitive in the 14 states holding primaries and caucuses on Super Tuesday, March 3. Past candidates have not done well with similar strategies, but if Bloomberg emerges on top, it will upend expectations about the various roles played by the parties, the invisible primary and the first-in-the-nation states.

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In the meantime, here are some questions about the presidential nominating process that candidates, observers and voters are asking:

Should parties play a bigger role in the nominating process?

The two most recent presidents were elected with less experience than had once been the norm. Trump is the first to take office without prior government or military experience. Barack Obama, his Democratic predecessor, launched his presidential run in February 2007 after serving slightly more than two years in the Senate.15

Elaine Kamarck, an expert on the nominating process at the Brookings Institution, a centrist Washington think tank, believes the parties should play a more active role in vetting — or even vetoing — potential nominees. Superdelegates, she argues, should interview presidential candidates before primary voting gets underway to assess their chances of winning and their capability for governing. Any candidate who failed to win a vote of confidence from at least 15 percent of the superdelegates could be blocked from debate stages and perhaps deprived of a spot on primary ballots.16

Kamarck noted that for most of American history, rank-and-file voters played either a limited role in the nomination process, or no role at all. “The challenge for the future is to reintroduce some element of peer review into the nominating process,” Kamarck wrote. “We are well past the time when we can or should go back to a closed process, but an argument can be made that our democracy is better off when it, at some point, vets future leaders for their potential to lead in a democratic system.”17

After the 1968 election, when the Democrats nominated Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, who had not won a single primary, a party commission recommended extensive changes to the nominating process.18 The new rules led to an explosion of voter participation, with most states holding primaries that gave voters direct input in the selection process for convention delegates.

Supporters of Vice President Hubert Humphrey rally at the bitterly contested 1968 Democratic National Convention. After Humphrey was nominated despite failing to win a single primary, the party began enlarging the role of voters in the selection process. (Getty Images/Hulton Archive)

Support from party leaders had once been essential for candidates seeking to raise money from donors or garner media attention. Now, it is easy for candidates to do both without much party backing, if any. “We have a system that makes it very hard for the parties to do the kind of winnowing that they used to,” says Art Sanders, a political scientist at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.

In the current environment, party vetting has been overrun by a media landscape that favors “plutocrats, celebrities, media figures and activists,” according to Jonathan Rauch, another Brookings scholar, and Ray La Raja, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Like Kamarck, they have called for increased vetting from party pros.19

“Primaries are only half of a functional nominating system,” Rauch and La Raja wrote. “The other half is input from political insiders and professionals who can vet candidates, steer them to appropriate races and, as a last resort, block them if they are unacceptable to the party or unfit to govern…. As entertainment, America's current primary system works pretty well; as a way to vet candidates for the world's most important and difficult job, it is at best unreliable — and at worst destabilizing, even dangerous.”20

But Drake's Sanders says voters are put off by any attempt by party officials to try to dictate whom they should support. Just as it is common for presidential hopefuls to run as Washington outsiders, many fashion themselves as insurgents running against the party establishment. “The public overall is kind of distrustful of party leaders telling them who the candidates ought to be,” Sanders says.

Party leaders — including officials with the state and national parties, elected officials and aligned interest groups — still play a considerable, if less formal, role in helping guide voters toward their preferred choices. Candidates themselves have complained loudly about the ground rules set by the parties, notably the innovation by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) this cycle to require candidates to meet minimum thresholds in numbers of donors and support in polls to qualify for televised debates.

“What's striking is that Tom Perez — made [party] chairman by a handful of party super-insiders — seems to actually believe it's his prerogative to determine the presidential field & which candidates we get to see & hear from,” tweeted Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., a presidential candidate who has failed to qualify for recent debates. “Democratic voters should decide. Period.”21

Caitlin Jewitt, a political scientist at Virginia Tech, contends that there is no guarantee that a group of party insiders would nominate better-qualified or more electable candidates than primary voters. “It's potentially dangerous to say that party decisions lead to the best candidate,” she says. “It implies that the parties or even party elites have a clear idea of who that is.”

Barbara Norrander, a political scientist at the University of Arizona, suggests that there is a question about who makes up the party. “In some ways, the voters are the party, as well as the elites,” Norrander says.

In any case, even Kamarck, Rauch and La Raja concede that because voters have been empowered in the selection process, there is no chance of returning to the days when a limited number of party barons could anoint the nominees of their choice without voter input.

“The public may not like the candidates that emerge, but if you ask them the major problem, they don't say it's that too many people get to vote,” says William Mayer, a political scientist at Northeastern University. “They say that it's not democratic enough.”

Should primaries be open to all voters?

The rules on voting eligibility in primaries are set by state party officials, and there is considerable variation. Seventeen states hold so-called open primaries, allowing anyone to vote in the presidential primary of their choice. Eleven have partially open primaries, allowing independent or unaffiliated voters to vote, but blocking registered Republicans from participating in the Democratic primary and or vice versa.22 All told, 31 states and the District of Columbia register voters by party.23

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There is considerable sentiment that independents should be involved in the selection process. Forty-one percent of Americans consider themselves politically independent, more than those who consider themselves either Democrats or Republicans, according to a December Gallup Poll.24

Last June, the Pennsylvania state Senate passed a bill that would allow independent voters to cast a ballot in either the Democratic or Republican presidential primary, but the measure has not become state law.25 In May, the New York Democratic Party changed its rules to allow voters to enroll with the party within 25 days of this year's April 28 presidential primary and be eligible to vote in it, rather than having to change their affiliation 200 days ahead.26 “There are going to be almost 27 million registered voters who are going to be shut out of the presidential primaries because of closed primaries,” says Gruber, the Open Primaries senior vice president. “Keeping the fastest-growing group of voters out of primary elections is flatly undemocratic.”

Georgetown University political scientist Hans Noel disagrees. Expecting primary voters to identify with the party, if only through temporary changes in registration, is not too much to ask, Noel says. “The notion of open primaries just cements the idea that anybody who wants to should be able to tell the party who its nominee should be,” he says.

One argument for closed primaries is that voters should have to make a commitment to a party, says Mo Elleithee, a former DNC communications director. “If an independent voter chooses to vote in a party primary, they are now invested in that party, at least for that cycle,” he says.

In theory, open primaries could enable partisans to make mischief by participating in the other party's primary and voting for a candidate they believe will be weaker. That idea may be more folklore than fact, but parties are private organizations and should be able to pick their own standard-bearers, says Lara M. Brown, director of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University (GW).

“It's sort of problematic to have people who have essentially no relationship to a party, who have never thought of themselves as a partisan, to be selecting that party's nominee for a specific office,” Brown says.

In 2018, a Democratic Party commission considered, but rejected, a proposal to ask states and state parties to open primaries and caucuses to independent voters. Advocates for open primaries say it is precisely because independents do not think of themselves as partisans that they should be allowed to vote.

Having a broader electorate should help moderate the party picks, says David Thornburgh, president and CEO of the Committee of Seventy, a civic leadership group in Philadelphia that supports open primaries. “Bringing independent voters to primary elections would help moderate the hyperpartisanship that afflicts us in Harrisburg, as well as Washington,” he says, referring to the Pennsylvania state capital. “If our presidential primaries were open to unaffiliated voters, it would make the choices more reflective of the voice of all Pennsylvanians, and also help moderate those same choices.”

But political scientists have found little evidence that open primaries produce more moderate nominees.27 Most voters who consider themselves independent in reality lean toward one party or the other and vote essentially the same way as declared partisans in that party.28 A 2018 study found that primary voters are not more ideologically extreme or demographically different from voters as a whole, regardless of whether primaries are open.29

For all those reasons, many political scientists are skeptical that opening primaries would have much practical effect. However, some experts cite as an exception New Hampshire, which traditionally holds the nation's first primary, this year on Feb. 11. Its open primary has allowed moderate independents to vote for candidates with crossover appeal, such as Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who won the contest in 2000 and again in 2008, and Republican Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, the second-place finisher in 2016.

Arizona Sen. John McCain speaks at the 2008 Republican convention that nominated him for president. McCain's path to the nomination was paved by his victory in the New Hampshire primary, with the help of independents, who are allowed to vote in that state's party primaries. (Getty Images/Win McNamee)

“New Hampshire has an open primary, has a very engaged electorate and very high turnout in their primary election,” says Burden, the Wisconsin political scientist. “Most years only one party has a serious contest going on. That frees up people to participate in the other party's process.”

This confluence of factors does not exist in other states. And even in New Hampshire, since 1972 no candidate has won the state's Democratic or Republican primary without winning a plurality of a party's registered voters, according to Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.

“You have to win your own party's vote,” he says. “Undeclareds make up about 42 to 43 percent of the registered voters, and their numbers will go up at election time. But their [primary] turnout is significantly lower than either registered Republicans or registered Democrats.”

Do Iowa and New Hampshire have too much influence?

In November, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary and Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro complained that the prominent roles Iowa and New Hampshire have played for nearly half a century — holding the first and second contests of the presidential nominating process — are not just unfair, but wrong. He noted that both states have populations that are more than 90 percent white.

“What I really appreciate about Iowans and the folks in New Hampshire is that they take this process very seriously,” said Castro, who dropped out of the race on Jan. 2. “They vet the candidates, they show up at town halls, they give people a good hearing. At the same time, demographically, [they're] not reflective of the United States as a whole, certainly not reflective of the Democratic Party, and I believe that other states should have their chance.”30

Given the outsized influence Iowa and New Hampshire exert by going so early — with candidates spending months focusing their efforts there and some dropping out immediately after finishing poorly there — complaints like Castro's are heard every four years. “The downside is the voters are overwhelmingly white, and their concerns are not the same as the nation as a whole,” says Democratic consultant Matthew Hennessy.

Former Vice President Joe Biden campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination at the Iowa State Fair in August. Some observers complain that early-voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire are demographically unrepresentative of the entire country. (Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla)

To answer questions about racial and regional diversity, since 2008 the DNC has reserved the third and fourth slots in the schedule for Nevada and South Carolina. (This year, the Republicans have canceled nominating events in those states and four others.)

“If you include Nevada and South Carolina, the early states are fairly representative,” says Hans J.G. Hassell, a political scientist at Florida State University. “South Carolina, with a large African American population, and Nevada with a large Latino population, create [ethnic] diversity, as well as geographic diversity.”

Others defend the idea of having small states go first. If the first to vote were, say, Texas and Florida, the only candidates who would stand a chance would be those entering the race with high name recognition or lots of money to spend. Iowa and New Hampshire are “small enough states that money isn't everything,” says Sanders, the Drake political scientist. “If California went first, obviously the only thing that would matter is having enough money to get on the air.”

The political traditions of Iowa and New Hampshire force candidates to get out and meet voters. They are expected to make countless appearances, with seasoned voters and caucus-goers expecting not just to see but to meet and talk with candidates to take their measure. (While primaries are run more or less like general elections, with people casting a ballot at a neighborhood precinct at their convenience on Election Day, caucus participants must show up at specific places at a particular time and sometimes sit through a lengthy meeting.)

“There's still this saying among Iowans that you have to shake hands with a candidate at least seven times before you'd consider caucusing for them,” says Christopher Larimer, a political scientist at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. “The reality might not be that high, but I would be surprised if someone would caucus for someone they haven't met two or three times.”

The demand that candidates encounter voters face-to-face has enabled some previously little-known contenders to post strong showings in the early states. Long before Buttigieg emerged as a contender this year, others have come from relative obscurity by campaigning hard in the early states, such as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2008 and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum in 2012, both Republicans. Democrat Jimmy Carter's strong Iowa showing in 1976 launched the former Georgia governor toward the White House and established the importance of the state's caucuses as a showcase.

“Iowa and New Hampshire take it seriously, and it does create opportunities for more minor candidates to rise to the surface who wouldn't be able to do that in California or New York,” says Norrander, the University of Arizona political scientist.

Still, if there are virtues in having small states kick things off, critics of the status quo wonder why it always has to be Iowa and New Hampshire. Presidential aspirants who may have been critical of federal support for ethanol in the past, for example, nearly always change their tune because of the biofuel's importance as a market for Iowa corn.31

Some observers advocate a rotation of early-voting states, to mix things up. “My problem is that it's the same two states all the time,” says Mayer, the Northeastern University political scientist. “It accentuates the particularities, the eccentricities, of those two states.”

Others say it makes no sense to allow less than a half-million voters — the combined Democratic turnout expected in Iowa and New Hampshire this year — to take their pick from among the entire field, while the rest of the country will have far fewer candidates to choose from after candidates who finish out of the money in Iowa or New Hampshire drop out.

“It is bizarre,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, chair of the Texas Democratic Party. “It makes absolutely no sense except for tradition, and sometimes tradition doesn't get us anywhere.”32

Even defenders of first-in-the-nation status for Iowa and New Hampshire concede there is nothing magical about those states, that only accidents of history gave them pride of place instead of, say, Nebraska and Vermont. But since the early states have long been in place, voters there know how to play the vetting game. That lends certainty to the parties and candidates, who know from past experience whom they need to woo among the key elected officials and most important activists, potential staffers, donors and local journalists.

“They've developed a nice infrastructure for candidates,” says Masket, the University of Denver professor. “They take this job seriously. They see themselves doing a vetting job for the rest of the country, and they don't take it lightly. But it's hard to dismiss the idea that Iowa and New Hampshire don't look like the rest of the country.”

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Background

‘King Caucus’ and Conventions

The U.S. Constitution is silent on the question of how nominees should be chosen for president. The framers attending the Constitutional Convention of 1787 wanted an independent executive who would not be chosen by Congress, but they could not agree on how to select nominees. Presidential selection was “the most difficult of all on which we have had to decide,” according to convention delegate James Wilson.33

The framers did not contemplate that campaigns would be separated into two phases — selecting nominees and then holding a general election. Instead, they set up a system under which members of an Electoral College, chosen by states, would pick the president. “They assumed the Electoral College would act as a nominating function, once you got past George Washington,” says Brown, the GW political scientist. “Very quickly, that became not the way it worked. The parties realized they could stack the Electoral College in their favor, if they organized before the Electoral College held its votes.”

Beginning in 1796, parties held caucuses of their congressional members, who picked their favored presidential and vice presidential candidates. This process became derided as “King Caucus” because of its insular nature that limited the decision to a small group of officeholders.34

In 1824, three-quarters of Democratic-Republican Party members in Congress boycotted the caucus because party leaders intended to select William Crawford, the ailing Treasury secretary, as their presidential candidate. Five candidates were nominated that year, primarily by state legislatures, representing different party factions.35 The resulting split led to the president being chosen by the House, which elected John Quincy Adams, even though Andrew Jackson had won a plurality — although not a majority — of both popular and electoral votes.36

In response to complaints about an illegitimate process and a “corrupt bargain” that sealed Adams' victory, parties moved to a convention system for choosing nominees, with state parties sending delegations, bringing various factions together to agree on a champion. This often required much negotiating. The states were allocated delegates according to population, with bonuses for support of party nominees in past elections. Beginning in 1832, Democrats required nominees to earn the support of two-thirds of the delegates, which led to hard bargaining and brokered conventions. (The rule lasted until 1936, when it was changed to simple majority support.)

Many states sent “favorite son” candidates to conventions, in hopes of gaining influence during negotiations over the nomination, or even having that person emerge as the compromise pick. Of the 26 Democratic Party conventions held between 1832 and 1932, 14 required two or more ballots to choose a nominee, and seven needed more than 10.37 The longest fight occurred in 1924, with 103 ballots cast over nine days, eventually resulting in the nomination of John W. Davis, a politician and diplomat, who lost to Republican incumbent Calvin Coolidge.38

“When political observers think of old-style party conventions, they most often think of those from the era of powerful party bosses and the proverbial smoke-filled back room,” Brown wrote. “Nearly all of the delegates were elected officials and party bosses who presided over state or city party organizations that could deliver votes by the thousands to their preferred candidates.”39

Birth of the Primaries

The closed nature of the process led to a push to involve rank-and-file voters. In the Progressive Era at the dawn of the 20th century, this took the form of primary elections in which voters were involved in the distribution or selection of convention delegates. Florida passed the first primary election statute in 1901, while four years later Wisconsin passed a law requiring that convention delegates be directly elected.40

“If the voter is competent to cast his ballot at the general election for the official of his choice, he is equally competent to vote directly at the primary election for the nomination of the candidates of his party,” said Wisconsin Gov. Robert La Follette, a leading Progressive.41

Primaries emerged as the main method for selecting congressional nominees. By 1916, they were held in 26 states at the presidential level.42 They were not decisive events within the presidential nominating process, however. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt challenged his successor, William Howard Taft, winning nine of the 12 Republican primaries that he entered.43 But Taft and his party-selected delegates dominated the convention, leading to fistfights on the convention floor and Roosevelt forces chanting “steamroller, steamroller.”44

Recognizing that the game was lost, Roosevelt asked that his name not be placed in nomination. He ran as a third-party candidate, outpolling Taft but splitting the Republican vote, handing the Democrats a rare victory in that era with the election of New Jersey Gov. Woodrow Wilson. (Wilson was the only Democrat elected between 1892 and 1932.)

John F. Kennedy campaigns in West Virginia before that state's 1960 presidential primary. The Catholic Massachusetts senator's victory in the largely rural, Protestant state helped convince party leaders of his vote-getting appeal. (Getty Images/The LIFE Picture Collection/Hank Walker)

Given the primaries' lack of impact, and the costs of holding them, most states abolished them in the 1920s and ‘30s. Primaries only re-emerged as important factors in presidential nominations after World War II. Candidates such as Republican Harold Stassen, a former governor of Minnesota, and Democratic Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee saw appealing to voters directly through primary elections as their only chance. It did not work for them, but demonstrating popular support through strong performances in primaries became essential for postwar nominees.

Former Army Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's upset victory over Ohio Sen. Robert A. Taft in the 1952 New Hampshire Republican primary helped convince GOP power brokers that the World War II hero would be a dominant candidate in the fall.45 (In 1952, Democrats held the last major-party convention requiring multiple ballots, selecting Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson on the third ballot over Kefauver and others.)46

In 1960, John F. Kennedy's victory in the West Virginia primary helped the Massachusetts senator allay party doubts, as the young Catholic candidate prevailed in a state with a population that was only 6 percent Catholic. The West Virginia primary “established Kennedy as the popular favorite and opened the road to the Democratic presidential nomination,” wrote political scientist James W. Davis. “Kennedy had proved to the skeptical, uncommitted, big-city Democratic leaders — a power bloc which at that time still heavily influenced the choice of party nominees — that he was the type of vote-getting candidate needed to sweep the party to victory in November.”47

Overhauling the Process

By 1968, primaries were gaining in importance, with 15 states holding Democratic primaries. But they still were not essential, as the Democratic nominating process that year showed. President Lyndon B. Johnson won his party's New Hampshire primary, but only narrowly defeated — 48 percent to 42 percent — Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who ran as a protest candidate against the Vietnam War.48 Within days, Johnson announced he would not run, and his vice president, Humphrey, announced a month later that he would seek the nomination.

McCarthy and another anti-war candidate, New York Sen. Robert Kennedy, went on to win nearly all of the remaining primaries. (Kennedy was assassinated the night he won the California primary.)49 Still, the nomination went to Humphrey, who did not run in any primaries but had the backing of Johnson and party bosses such as Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley.

“While Kennedy and McCarthy were storming through the country, Humphrey was quietly lining up delegates,” wrote historian William L. O'Neill.50

Following a tumultuous convention marred by a violent police response to street protests, Humphrey went on to lose the election to Republican Richard M. Nixon. In an attempt to heal the party's wounds, Humphrey agreed to the creation of a commission to overhaul the party's nominating procedures. The Commission on Party Structure and Delegate Selection was chaired first by South Dakota Sen. George McGovern and then by Minnesota Rep. Don Fraser. Known in retrospect as the McGovern-Fraser Commission, it advanced what are generally considered the most important changes to the presidential nominating process since the advent of national party conventions.

The commission proposed 18 guidelines. They included limiting the number of delegates state party committees could name, awarding delegates in a state proportionally rather than to a single candidate and requiring all delegates to be chosen in the election year.51 While few women, blacks or young people served as delegates at the 1968 convention, the commission called for these groups to be represented “in reasonable relationship” to their share of state populations.52

There was some pushback from party insiders who saw their influence being stripped away. “Any party that produced a Roosevelt, a Truman, a Kennedy and a Johnson doesn't need reform,” groused one labor official.53 Nonetheless, the Democratic National Committee adopted all the commission's guidelines in February 1970, the same month they were proposed.54

The practical effect was that primaries replaced state party conventions as the main method for choosing delegates to national conventions. The percentage of Democratic delegates chosen through primaries rose from 38 percent in 1968 to 60 percent in 1972 and more than 72 percent by 1976.55 And the number of states holding primaries rose from 15 in 1968 to more than double that by 1980.56

The Iowa caucuses also emerged as an important force in the 1970s. In 1972, McGovern's close finish there helped lend his campaign credibility, although he had spent only a day and a half in the state.57 In 1976, Carter was little-known nationally until his victory in Iowa. That win propelled him to victory in New Hampshire, the Democratic nomination and the presidency.

“Other candidates targeted major primary states and wrote Iowa off as unimportant,” wrote consultant Kandy Stroud. “Carter blitzed the state 110 times.”58

Parties vs. the People

The McGovern-Fraser reforms set a pattern that has prevailed for a half-century. Although it was a Democratic commission, its guidelines led to changes in state laws regarding primaries, changes that affected the Republicans as well. Both national parties established guidelines to which state governments and state parties adapted, leading to changes in strategies and tactics by candidates and campaigns.

The shift in power from party insiders toward voters led political scientists and observers to wonder whether the parties had any real remaining influence.59 The parties were further weakened by changes in campaign finance law that limited the amount of money they could raise.60

“The party has lost control of the system,” says Noel, the Georgetown professor. “That was the conventional wisdom for most observers in the 1980s.”

But, as Noel points out, “party leaders aren't stupid.” Realizing that the changing nominating structure was taking power out of their hands, they found ways to regain influence. In 1982, Democrats created the superdelegates, guaranteeing that elected officials and national party committee members would be able to vote at conventions without being bound to a particular candidate.61 Both parties enacted window rules, which limited the time frame in which states could hold their primaries, imposing penalties if they tried to move them too early.62

Party leaders also continued to play an influential role by signaling to donors and voters which candidates were acceptable, for instance through endorsements. In several recent cases, party support has helped favored candidates secure popular support and nominations. In 2000, for instance, Texas Gov. George W. Bush received the endorsements of all his fellow Republican governors, a reservoir of support that helped him fend off McCain's strong challenge and win his party's nomination.63

The persistent ability of party leaders to agree on a candidate and help propel that person to the nomination led Noel and three of his colleagues to publish an influential 2008 book called The Party Decides.

“The reformers of the 1970s tried to wrest the presidential nomination away from insiders and bestow it on rank-and-file partisans, but the people who are regularly active in party politics have regained much of the control that was lost,” they wrote.64

Trump as Outsider

Their thesis was put to the test in 2016. On the Democratic side, it appeared accurate. Eighty percent of sitting Democratic governors, senators and members of Congress endorsed candidates before the Iowa caucuses, nearly all supporting former Secretary of State Clinton. (At that point Clinton had received 201 endorsements, to just two for Sanders.)65

Although Sanders gave Clinton an unexpectedly difficult challenge, winning primaries and caucuses in 22 states, Clinton's ultimate nomination was never seriously in doubt.66

“This was arguably the most effective coordination by a political party during a modern invisible primary,” wrote Vanderbilt University political scientist John Sides and two colleagues. “Clinton's strength in 2016 not only marginalized several other Democratic candidates, … but arguably kept other potential candidates from even getting into the race.”67

The dynamics were considerably different on the Republican side. While Clinton ran as the choice of the Democratic establishment, no such consensus existed in the GOP, which attracted 17 presidential aspirants. Only 35 percent of Republican governors, senators and House members endorsed candidates ahead of Iowa. None supported Trump.68

In prior cycles, Republicans had seen inexperienced candidates receive considerable media attention and grab temporary polling leads that soon dissipated, such as Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former restaurant association executive Herman Cain in 2011. That may have led to the sense among party leaders and the media that Trump's support would deflate in time.69 His rivals did not launch attack ads against Trump until after he had won the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries.70

Donald Trump celebrates his victory in the 2016 New Hampshire primary, flanked by his wife Melania (left) and daughter Ivanka (right). Trump captured the Republican nomination that year despite an almost total lack of support from party leaders and officeholders. (Getty Images/The Washington Post/Jabin Botsford)

“If other campaigns wish that we're going to uncork money on Donald Trump, they'll be disappointed,” Mike Murphy, who oversaw a well-funded political action committee aiding former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's campaign, said in 2015. “Trump is, frankly, other people's problem.”71

Party leaders were unable to coalesce around another candidate. Jeb Bush attracted money, but little voter enthusiasm. A coalition of Christian conservatives decided to throw their collective support behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, but he remained unpopular with other party factions.72 Trump himself received only a few high-profile endorsements on his way to the nomination.73

If he clearly was not the pick of the GOP establishment, Trump enjoyed enough popular support to become a plurality winner in the primaries.

“One can point to Trump as an exception to the rule” of party consensus nominees, says independent political scientist Josh Putnam. “But the man ultimately won the White House in the end.”

Democrats' New ‘Unity’ Rules

During the 2016 campaign, candidate Sanders continually complained that the Democratic National Committee put its collective thumb on the scale to favor Clinton. For example, he saw the DNC's decision to limit the number of debates to six as a way of protecting Clinton. “It was clear that they wanted to give Hillary Clinton's opponents as little public exposure as possible,” Sanders wrote.74

In a series of emails that were later hacked and leaked — by Russian intelligence operatives, according to a report by special counsel Robert Mueller — DNC officials, including the chair, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, derided Sanders or dismissed his chances. “He isn't going to be president,” she wrote.75 Wasserman Schultz stepped down from her leadership post the night before the 2016 Democratic National Convention got underway.76

Despite the embarrassing comments, no evidence emerged to bolster Sanders' complaints that the party had rigged the nominating process in Clinton's favor. Still, in light of his strong showing, the Clinton campaign and party officials agreed to create a Unity Reform Commission to examine rules and procedures for 2020 with instructions to find ways to increase voter participation and limit or reduce the role of superdelegates. The commission included nine members appointed by the Clinton campaign, seven by the Sanders camp and three appointed by the next DNC chair.77

Meeting in 2017, the commission agreed to encourage the use of state-run primaries where available, rather than caucuses, and to call on states and state parties to simplify voter registration. The commission voted down a proposal from Jeff Weaver, who had managed Sanders' 2016 campaign, to require states to open their primaries to independent voters.78

In 2018, the DNC agreed to block superdelegates from voting on the first ballot at national conventions, unless their vote would not affect an outcome already determined through the primary process.79 At the end of that year, the DNC also announced new rules regarding debates. The party would sanction a dozen official debates, beginning in June 2019 and continuing into April 2020.80 Along the way, it would announce eligibility criteria for the debates. These involve meeting minimum thresholds in terms of numbers of donors plus candidates' standing in recognized opinion polls.

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Current Situation

Debate Over Debates

The requirements to qualify for the party-sponsored Democratic debates have ratcheted up over time. To qualify for the December debate, for example, candidates had to have raised money from at least 200,000 donors while reaching the 4 percent mark in at least four qualifying polls, or 6 percent in at least two early-state polls.81 DNC Chair Perez contended that the criteria, announced well in advance, were neutral, with the party having no control, for instance, over the number of polls conducted. But that did not insulate the party or its rules from criticism, especially by candidates who missed the cut.

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard threatened to boycott the October debate, complaining that the qualification requirements demonstrated that the DNC and “corporate media” were attempting to “rig” the qualifications, usurping the judgment of voters in early primary states.82 She later announced she would skip the December debate in protest, even if she qualified. (She didn't.)

Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez speaks at a party-sponsored presidential debate in Los Angeles in December. Perez and the committee have attracted intense criticism over the rules to qualify for such debates. (Getty Images/Justin Sullivan)

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock complained that billionaire businessman Tom Steyer was able to buy his way into debates by boosting the number of his donors even though he spent more money soliciting the donations than he collected from the contributors. “We're kidding ourselves if we're calling a $10 million purchase of 130,000 donors a demonstration of grassroots support,” said Bullock, who dropped out in December.83

While neophyte candidates such as Steyer and tech entrepreneur Yang were able to earn spots on the debate stage, governors, members of Congress and former cabinet officials were not. Criticism of the debate formula grew after California Sen. Kamala Harris dropped out, leaving Yang as the only person of color to qualify for the December debate. All the participants in the January debate were white.

Trump's Limited Competition

Despite his impeachment by the House, Trump faces no serious challenge to winning the GOP nomination in 2020. Although his overall approval ratings have remained historically low for an incumbent throughout his presidency, he has remained popular among Republican voters, retaining support from roughly 90 percent of them.84

Trump faces only token opposition in the Republican primaries from former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld (the Libertarian Party nominee for vice president in 2016) and former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh. Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who lost his House seat in a 2018 GOP primary after criticizing Trump, ended his presidential campaign in November.85

South Carolina — historically a key early primary state for Republican candidates — is among a half-dozen states that do not plan to hold GOP primaries or caucuses in 2020. That has led to criticism from Trump's opponents, who say the party is unfairly shielding Trump from competition.

“Trump and his allies and the Republican National Committee are doing whatever they can do to eliminate primaries in certain states and make it very difficult for primary challengers to get on the ballot in a number of states,” Walsh said. “It's wrong, the RNC should be ashamed of itself, and I think it does show that Trump is afraid of a serious primary challenge because he knows his support is very soft.”86

It is not unusual for states to cancel primaries when an incumbent is on the ballot, although the number of scrapped contests is higher this year. Some states have laws allowing the cancellation of primaries when there is only one qualified candidate. “I hate to call it business as usual, but certainly we have seen it in previous cycles when there are incumbents,” says political scientist Putnam, who runs Frontloading HQ, a blog devoted to the nominating process.

Why So Many Candidates?

The 2020 election attracted a large field of Democratic candidates. Once exceeding two dozen, it had dwindled to 17 before Patrick and Bloomberg entered in November. This horde of candidates follows the 2016 cycle, when Trump beat 16 other Republicans to win the nomination.

So why are so many candidates running?

“Right now, driving the number of candidates on the Democratic side is Donald Trump,” says Jewitt, the Virginia Tech political scientist. “Many Democrats see him as beatable. That increases the number of candidates. But Donald Trump also broke the mold and showed you don't have to have this typical resume to win.”

Politicians in both parties now see running for president as a smart career move. Even if they cannot win the race, they can increase their national profiles, boosting their political careers and their media opportunities. Every cycle seems to feature a candidate with seemingly little strength on paper who gathers enough support to be taken seriously, if not necessarily to win.

“Many people would have thought of Buttigieg as a vanity candidate 12 months ago, before he started to rise,” says Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank in Washington.

If there are incentives for individual candidates to get in the race, the parties no longer have the authority to keep them out, says Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist. “Who is going to tell some of these minor and ridiculous candidates that they shouldn't run or that they'll embarrass themselves?” he asks. “The parties as organizations have declined in every way but financial. They're raising more money than ever before, but as organizations they have less impact on what really happens.”

While the parties are important as sources of cash and voter data, they have no monopoly on fundraising. Once, party elders could signal to major donors that a candidate was not worth spending money on, but now candidates can attract their own cash in one of two ways. With the rise of so-called super PACs, which can spend unlimited sums supporting a campaign so long as there is no direct coordination with that campaign, even a single wealthy donor can keep a campaign going, while the internet allows candidates to raise huge amounts of money in small increments from large numbers of supporters.

“The campaign finance structure has shifted over the past two decades,” says Masket, of the University of Denver. “It's gotten easier for candidates to raise money for themselves and put together super PACs and other financial organizations that basically keep them from being dependent on specific party-aligned sources for a campaign.”

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Outlook

Does the System Work?

Every four years, one party or the other — usually the losing party — tinkers with its presidential nomination rules in an effort to address perceived problems in hopes of selecting a more electable candidate the next time around.

“When you lose, you've got incentive to experiment and innovate,” says Hassell, of Florida State. “When you win, it's hard to argue that you should change things.”

It is impossible to predict what sort of changes may arise after 2020, since no one has voted yet and it is unclear what complaints about this cycle will resonate most strongly within the losing party — or which party will lose. “I doubt anyone is going to win in a blowout,” Masket says. “It's probably going to be a close election either way.”

If Democrats lose to Trump a second time, they'll likely rethink their rules, depending on who the nominee is, Masket suggests. If Trump loses, Republicans might want to come up with a way of ensuring their nominee is someone more traditional. But Masket says it is just as likely Trump loyalists who now dominate the party will resist any major overhaul.

The parties, at any rate, have not fundamentally altered their nominating system since the McGovern-Fraser Commission. Despite numerous changes, the structure in place now would be largely recognizable to candidates who ran 20 or 30 years ago. “A good guess is that whichever party seems like it came out the loser this time around will put together some kind of commission to look at the problem and then decide not to do much about it, or decide there isn't a whole lot they can do,” says Mayer, of Northeastern University.

That leaves open the question of whether the presidential nominating system, as currently constructed, works. Does it produce candidates who reflect the values of the respective parties, and who are also electable among the broader electorate in the fall?

Noel, the Georgetown professor, says the current system reflects neither the wishes of party insiders nor the will of the people. The only voters with a full array of choices are those in the small, early states. Some nominees, such as Trump, do not receive a majority of the total number of primary votes cast, even though the field eventually clears once it is certain they cannot be beaten. “It's possible to design a better system than what we have, but I don't know how to get to one in the gradual way we've gotten to this one,” Noel says. “It will take a bigger shock to the system.”

No one would design a system to nominate candidates like the current one, with candidates vetted largely by media during the invisible primary, then winnowed by small numbers of people caucusing in Iowa and voting in New Hampshire, Jewitt says. All that has happened through circumstance. “No one would start from scratch and design that system to get to the best candidate,” she says. “I'm not sure the best candidate naturally wins under the system we have.”

The two parties are roughly evenly matched, with each commanding a base of supporters who rarely, if ever, vote for candidates on the other side. Candidates now seem to want to appeal to the most ardent voters in their party's base, rather than reaching out to persuadable voters in the middle. The result is what political scientists call negative partisanship — both parties attempting to convince moderates that the other party's candidate is unacceptable.

“The system that we have has so empowered the extremes in either party that it runs the serious risk of leaving a majority of the country out of the mix,” says GOP consultant Whit Ayres.

But Norrander of the University of Arizona counters that there have been no real blowouts in presidential general elections since the 1980s. Candidates gradually figured out the new primary system, and the parties ended up nominating electable candidates who ultimately were not that different from the ones past party leaders might have chosen (with Trump being a notable — but successful — exception).

The current system might be the result of a combination of history and accidents — not the system one would design in a lab. But, despite the complaints and dissatisfactions that are as much a part of the process as anything else, there is no concrete proof some other system would have tradeoffs and incentives that end up working out better.

“As long as human beings are running it and putting it together, there are no perfect systems,” political scientist Putnam says.

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Pro/Con

Should superdelegates be abolished?

Pro Larry Cohen Board Chair, Our Revolution. Written for CQ Researcher, January 2020 Democratic voters overwhelmingly believe that our democracy is skewed toward the 1 percent, not only in terms of growing economic inequality, but also in rules that pose obstacles to any real change. Democrats support voting rights, getting big money out of politics, fair redistricting and a path to citizenship and voting for immigrants — but all too often party rules nationally and in the states restrict voting in primaries. It is in that context that the 2016 convention unanimously passed a resolution to limit the role of unpledged and automatic delegates, often called superdelegates. That resolution established a Unity Reform Commission to implement limits on automatic delegates for 2020 and to address the broader issues needed for reform of the nominating process for president. At the August 2018 meeting of the full Democratic National Committee, many of the commission's reforms were adopted, including provisions allowing only the votes of pledged delegates — those elected in the 2020 primaries and four remaining caucus states — to be counted on the first ballot at the 2020 party convention in Milwaukee. To receive the nomination, a candidate must get a majority of the votes cast. On a second or subsequent ballot, all delegates are unpledged, and the approximately 750 superdelegates would then vote as well. There has not been a second ballot at a Democratic convention since Adlai Stevenson was nominated in 1952, but 2020 could be exceptional. There could easily be two or more ballots. Imagine if liberal candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren collectively have a majority of delegates, or close to it, and then on a second ballot 750 unelected delegates tip the nomination to a centrist. After 25 Democratic candidates campaigned for 18 months, with approximately 30 million votes cast, more than $1 billion in contributions raised and endless hours contributed by volunteers, it would be unimaginable if the decisive votes were cast by party and elected officials who might ignore the results from the primaries in their own states. Democrats should be guided by the election results from the primaries and caucuses, or they will lose credibility. This does not mean that automatic delegates should have no role at the convention or in party governance. The more elected and automatic delegates engage in real debate on the platform, resolutions and other matters, the more the Democratic Party will begin to function as a true party in the states and the 3,000 counties across the country.

Con Donald Fowler Former Chair, Democratic National Committee. Written for CQ Researcher, January 2020 The rationale for superdelegates is sound and straightforward: A citizens-based, mass participation volunteer organization such as the Democratic Party requires continuity in its leadership at the national, state and local levels. Party governance is the responsibility and prerogative of part-time party officials elected at all those levels. There is no element of the Democratic Party more mature and experienced than those designated as automatic delegates, or superdelegates, by the Hunt Commission in the 1980s. This organizational principle has served our party well in the intervening decades. These officials have delivered good governance to the Democratic Party, have conducted nine good or great conventions, and have led to the nomination and election of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. With the many candidates running for the 2020 nomination, we will need mature, wise leadership. Yet automatic delegates will be neutered — prohibited from voting on the first ballot of a contested convention under the rule passed by the Democratic National Committee. This was a very shortsighted decision. Only with voting power and rights can leaders at a Democratic convention be leaders. What the so-called Unity Reform Commission and the Democratic National Committee did was to strip away the influence and authority of members of the Democratic National Committee, along with senators, congressmen, governors and other Democratic elected officials. These people are the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. The decision to deny them a vote on the first ballot of the convention is so unfortunate. Eliminating these approximately 650 party officials will eliminate many members of demographic groups that the Democratic Party has worked long and hard to include fully in our conventions, including 250 African Americans, 325 women, 100 Hispanics and 125 individuals under the age of 35. It does not make sense to spend decades working to ensure that these Democrats have the right to vote in our party affairs, and then to strip them of their rights. Last, these superdelegates provide leadership and stability in times of crisis within the party. Collectively they use their wisdom, leadership and experience to overcome crises and internal divisions and provide a path forward. This is an invaluable factor that protects our party from internal strife, and one whose loss we might well regret next summer when the large number of candidates could bring severe divisions to the convention.

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Short Features

Caucus States Dwindle as Turnout Stays Low

More than 300,000 Minnesotans turned out to caucus for Republican and Democratic presidential candidates in 2016. The turnout was large enough to create hourlong lines in some precincts and shortages of paper ballots in others.1

But all those caucus-goers still represented only 8 percent of the registered voters in the state — a turnout rate that would be considered anemic in any primary election. That is one big reason why Minnesota, along with most other states, is switching from caucuses to primaries this year to choose its national party convention delegates.

In 2016, 14 states held Democratic caucuses. This year, only four states will — Iowa, Nevada, North Dakota and Wyoming. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has adopted new rules that encourage state parties to find ways of motivating more people to participate in the nominating process. Whatever the virtues of caucuses, they tend to limit participation.

With so few caucus states left, some political observers wonder whether the format will die out altogether. “Good riddance, they ought to,” says Republican consultant Whit Ayres. “Caucuses reduce the number of people [participating] and make it even less likely that the ultimate winner will actually reflect the views of most people in the party.”

Caucuses involve more work, or at least more time, on the part of participants than simply showing up at a polling precinct to vote in a primary. Rather than being able to vote anytime during a 12- or 14-hour window, caucus participants must gather at a particular time — say, at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday. The event might drag on for hours. There are also fewer locations available for caucuses than for normal voting. “If we're all for participation, these are clearly low-participation events,” says Christopher Larimer, a political scientist at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls.

Iowa's caucuses first achieved national prominence when a then-obscure former Georgia governor, Jimmy Carter, used them as a springboard to the White House in 1976. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's Iowa victory was key to his ability to upset early Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton in 2008. Ever since Carter, the caucuses have kicked off the presidential nominating season and lured candidates into practically taking up residence in the state in the runup to the event, which is scheduled for Feb. 3 this year.

Iowa Democrat Don Howington prepares to participate in his party's 2016 presidential caucuses at the Wapello County Courthouse. Iowa is now one of only four states still holding Democratic caucuses, as opposed to presidential primaries. (Getty Images/The Washington Post/Matt McClain)

Yet even in Iowa, participation is limited. Since 1988, less than 25 percent of registered voters have caucused. Their numbers ticked up in 2008 and may increase again this year, but likely will not exceed a third of voters.2

At Republican caucuses in Iowa, campaign surrogates make speeches in favor of their favored candidates. Participants are handed a piece of paper and write down their choice, more or less like voting.

Things are more complicated on the Democratic side. There are still speeches, but those attending are asked to express their preference by standing under a sign with the name of the candidate they favor. That makes voting a public act, with everyone able to see whom their neighbors prefer. If any candidate's support falls short of 15 percent of those gathered in a schoolroom, gymnasium or other venue, backers of that contender are asked to switch, or realign. “Once you have to realign, sometimes people leave,” Larimer says. “It's a long process on the Democratic side.”

Some observers believe the participatory nature of caucuses, with their speeches and debate, leads to a more informed process than secret ballots cast individually. In addition, fans of caucuses note they are run by the parties, rather than the states, and are used as party-building exercises.

“You find the people willing to come out for a couple of hours and do some work,” says Art Sanders, a political scientist at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. “Presidential preference is not the only thing they do at the caucuses. They also put people into positions in the party.”

But critics say that caucuses dampen turnout and sometimes reward more-ideological candidates whose supporters are deeply engaged.

“I have never been a fan of caucuses,” says Democratic consultant Matthew Hennessy. “They're great to witness in person, and you do get a sense of civic engagement when you're there, like having a town meeting to decide who the president's going to be. But as a system, they're very exclusionary.”

And they are not always accurate. In the past, Iowa precinct chairs have reported not the raw numbers of supporters for each candidate, but the number of delegates awarded to each, according to a formula. In 2016, Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders were essentially tied on the Democratic side, leading Sanders to call for a recount of the vote totals. But that was not possible, because state party officials had only counted delegates and had not kept track of raw vote totals.3

There have been other problems with caucus tallies. In 2012, results from more than 100 Iowa GOP caucuses were counted incorrectly. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was declared the winner on caucus night, by a grand total of eight votes. A recount found former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania had won, by 34 votes, leading the state party chair to step down.4

All forms of vote-counting have flaws, but caucuses lack the standards common among state-run elections, such as voting machine printouts or checks to make sure precinct, county and state totals match. In 2012, vote counting in the Nevada GOP caucuses stretched over days, leading to accusations of fraud, while Romney was declared the winner in Maine before all counties had completed their caucuses.

For 2020, the DNC is requiring that the few state parties holding caucuses figure out ways of holding a proper recount. In Iowa, Democrats will release both the raw vote totals and delegate counts, making it possible that two candidates will each be able to claim victory. The national party encouraged state parties to devise methods for absentee participation, but in August it blocked plans in both Iowa and Nevada for online voting due to security concerns.5

The mere fact that Iowa holds caucuses is what allows it to vote ahead of New Hampshire, where state law requires that its primary be the first in the nation. The caucus system may survive in Iowa, but it is clearly dwindling around the country. “Iowa might be able to keep the tradition,” says University of San Diego political scientist Casey B.K. Dominguez, “but everywhere else, they're probably doomed.”

— Alan Greenblatt

[1] Greta Kaul, “How Minnesota's switch to a presidential primary might impact the 2020 election,” MinnPost, April 23, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/ucnkh6a.

[2] Michael P. McDonald, “Iowa's Caucus Turnout and What It Means from Now until November,” HuffPost, Feb. 2, 2017, https://tinyurl.com/qu5svac.

[3] Sydney Ember and Reid J. Epstein, “Why Almost Nobody Will Defend the Iowa Caucuses,” The New York Times, Nov. 13, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/rt33w8g.

[4] Alan Greenblatt, “Caucus Confusion: A Recurring Headache For GOP,” NPR, March 5, 2012, https://tinyurl.com/uuzr454.

[5] Miles Parks and Scott Detrow, “DNC Recommends Scrapping Plans For Virtual Iowa, Nevada Caucuses Over Security,” NPR, Aug. 30, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/va3kgsa.

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‘Invisible Primary’ Is Invisible No Longer

Long before any votes were cast in this year's presidential primaries and caucuses, it felt to many voters as if the 2020 election had already dragged on forever. That was in part because it was one of the top news stories all through 2019.

Until the last 20 years or so, the media paid relatively little attention to presidential contenders ahead of primary voting, as the candidates went about the unglamorous chores of raising money, seeking endorsements from elected officials and meeting with party activists. Such activities are known collectively as the invisible primary, a term coined by journalist Arthur T. Hadley as the title of his 1976 book.6

The efforts candidates make between the launch of their campaigns and the actual start of voting — fundraisers, staffing decisions, stumping in Iowa and New Hampshire — are now subject to intense and ongoing attention from the media and politically attuned voters. “The invisible primary is no longer invisible,” says Barbara Norrander, a political scientist at the University of Arizona. “A lot of it's played out more in public, with more public input.”

Performance in the invisible primary has become a key indicator of how candidates are likely to fare during the actual election year. Media coverage is essential oxygen for presidential candidates, and they are not likely to get much of it if they cannot raise money or show party support through endorsements. If they can, the media attention follows.

During the 2008 campaign, for example, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's fundraising prowess helped boost his media profile, which in turn helped fuel his ultimate victory over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for that year's Democratic nomination. Four years later, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney received 10 times as much media coverage during the invisible primary and raised more than 10 times as much money as rival Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, paving the way for Romney's nomination on the GOP side.7

“It wasn't the invisible primary in 1988 or 1996 that delivered the conclusive blow to a lot of the second-tier candidates, but now it is the invisible primary that does it,” says Northeastern University political scientist William Mayer.

In earlier decades, candidates could lay the groundwork for their campaigns more quietly. They could travel around and meet informally with politicians and potential voters, perhaps shadowed by just a single reporter. Christopher Larimer, a political scientist at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, recalls watching a TV documentary showing former Des Moines Register political reporter David Yepsen “talking about how he could get in the car with George [H.W.] Bush in 1980 and ride around for a couple of days…. That's all kind of been lost, that ability to sit down and get close to the candidates, what with all the media coming in.”

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is surrounded by news people as he stumps in Iowa in August. Presidential contenders who once attracted scant media attention in the year preceding the voting now face intense scrutiny. (Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla)

Certainly, there are lower-tier candidates who would be lucky to have a single reporter paying attention on any given day. For the frontrunners, however, every move they make in public is closely documented and scrutinized. That involves not only reporters, but potentially anyone in attendance. “Because of the invention of the cellphone, everybody's a bird dog in the audience,” says University of New Hampshire pollster Andrew Smith. “Candidates can't afford to be less guarded.”

Smith notes that many voters will not make up their minds about whom to support until just before a primary. Nevertheless, the media's relentless need to fill news space and airtime leads to intense coverage of the so-called horse race, with reporters paying less attention to policy proposals than to which candidates appear to be rising or falling in the polls.

Every blip in a poll, any fundraiser and certainly any incident in which a tired candidate loses his or her temper or commits a gaffe can receive considerable coverage. “They look for a moment that is supposedly a game-changer, which can certainly amplify an event” or a mistake, says Vanderbilt University political scientist John Sides. “‘Party frontrunner continues to lead’ doesn't make for a good headline day after day.”

Some political scientists say that all this gives the media an outsized role in determining the candidates' fates. With performance in early polls largely driven by name recognition, candidates receiving heavy media attention may experience a bump in support, which in turn may gain them yet more media attention. “It's one of the factors that could encourage people to get in, even when they don't have a chance, because they can get media coverage,” Sides says.

Heightened attention months and even years before the first ballots are cast changes the incentives for candidates. Their calculations have shifted in terms of how much money they need to raise and when they need to raise it. In the current cycle, candidates have collectively run through tens of millions of dollars long before the race officially starts with the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses. They know they cannot wait to build support, because they can be written off as losers or also-rans in the year leading up to the actual election. And they need to put themselves in a position to capitalize if they finish well in the early contests.

One way of taking advantage of the crucial small-state scrutiny of Iowa and New Hampshire is getting into the race early, to try to get a jump on everybody else, says Art Sanders, a politics professor at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. “As long as you have a system like this, every time around somebody's likely to say we're going to start earlier than they did last time,” he says.

The desire to start campaigning earlier and earlier to seek advantage in the invisible primary means one thing: Campaigns that many voters already think go on far too long will not get any shorter in the future. “It wears the public out more quickly,” Sanders says. “People get tired of it.”

— Alan Greenblatt

[6] Arthur T. Hadley, The Invisible Primary: The Inside Story of the Other Presidential Race: The Making of the Candidate (1976).

[7] Thomas E. Patterson, “The invisible primary — number one,” The Conversation, Jan. 28, 2015, http://tinyurl.com/wd3yhhr.

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Bibliography

Books

Bernstein, Jonathan, and Casey B.K. Dominguez , eds., The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2020 , Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. A collection of essays by political scientists examines campaign finance, media, party influence, straw polls and other issues.

Kamarck, Elaine , Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know About How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates , 3rd ed., Brookings Institution Press, 2019. A Brookings scholar and former Clinton White House aide provides a guide to the primary process, examining issues such as proportional representation, delegate selection and the influence of early-voting states.

Sabato, Larry J., Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley , eds., Trumped: The 2016 Election That Broke All the Rules , Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. Political scientists and journalists analyze polling and other data that help explain the primary and general election results in 2016.

Articles

Bach, Natasha , “The 2020 Iowa Caucuses Won't Decide Who Will Be President — But They Will Decide Who Won't,” Fortune, Nov. 26, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/wnzplal. Winning Iowa is no guarantee of becoming the nominee, a political journalist writes, but the state plays an important winnowing role by limiting the number of viable contenders.

Chooljian, Lauren , “Small But Powerful, New Hampshire Grips Its Primary Spot. But Does It Matter?” NPR, Nov. 25, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/t48v4vb. Longtime New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner has jealously guarded the state's first-in-the-nation primary status.

Cohn, Nate , “Fewer States Will Have Caucuses in 2020. Will It Matter?” The New York Times, April 12, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y4g6ah8k. The Democratic National Committee is encouraging states to move to primaries, leaving only a handful that still hold caucuses.

Collins, Sean , “Most Democratic voters still haven't settled on a candidate,” Vox, Dec. 18, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/s3xos2y. Polls showed that less than two months before voting began in Iowa and New Hampshire, many Democratic voters had either not made up their minds or expected to vote for someone other than their current favorite.

Ember, Sydney, and Reid J. Epstein , “Why Almost Nobody Will Defend the Iowa Caucuses,” The New York Times, Nov. 13, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/rt33w8g. Several Democratic candidates have complained that the Iowa caucuses are not representative of the country because the state is disproportionately white.

Epstein, Reid J. , “The D.N.C. Chairman Knows No One Is Happy. Neither Is He,” The New York Times, Dec. 15, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/wk9aw2d. In an interview, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez says some people in the party complain that debate rules are squeezing out candidates, while others worry that the field is still too big.

Korte, Gregory , “Republicans Make a Risky Bet to Shield Trump by Canceling Primaries,” Bloomberg, Sept. 21, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yyolmxwy. Several states have canceled GOP primaries, given President Trump's expected renomination. His opponents complain the party is shielding him from competition.

Morin, Rebecca, and Deborah Barfield Berry , “‘It's a sad day’: As Booker exits Democratic primary, a once-historic field gets less diverse,” USA Today, Jan. 13, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/w3zsxo5. The Democratic field drew a record number of female and nonwhite candidates, but the departures of Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Julián Castro from the race increase the odds the party will select a while male.

Rauch, Jonathan, and Ray La Raja , “Primary Voters Have Way Too Much Power,” The Atlantic, December 2019, https://tinyurl.com/w489hb5. A Brookings senior fellow (Rauch) and a political scientist (La Raja) contend that the parties are not playing a strong enough role in vetting presidential candidates, having ceded power to primary voters.

Reports and Studies

Clinton, Joshua D., Andrew M. Engelhardt and Marc J. Trussler , “Knockout Blows or the Status Quo? Momentum in the 2016 Primaries,” The Journal of Politics, June 11, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/whswdo4. A large survey of voter attitudes finds that the outcome of early primaries for the most part does not determine candidate support.

Coleman, Kevin J. , “The Presidential Nominating Process and the National Party Conventions, 2016: Frequently Asked Questions,” Congressional Research Service, Dec. 30, 2015, https://tinyurl.com/vhp46dm. Congress' research arm provides an overview of rules governing primaries, caucuses and national party conventions.

Kamarck, Elaine , “The urgent need for peer review in the presidential nominating process,” Brookings Institution, Oct. 29, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/w7hm7yw. A scholar argues that party leaders and elected officials should interview candidates before the primary season. If more than 15 percent of them disapprove of a candidate, he or she should be blocked from appearing on the ballot in primaries.

Saad, Lydia , “Satisfaction With 2020 Candidates Is Running High,” Gallup, Oct. 9, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y5rgmg2d. A Gallup survey finds that three-quarters of Democratic voters are satisfied with their presidential choices, the highest level since the pollster began asking the question in 1992.

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The Next Step

Campaign Events

Epstein, Reid J. , “How Bernie Sanders Learned to Love Campaigning in California,” The New York Times, Dec. 24, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/sorz34e. Sen. Bernie Sanders and other Democratic presidential candidates are campaigning in California this year because the state moved its primary earlier in the schedule.

Gray, Rosie , “Mike Bloomberg's Campaign Doesn't Look Like Anything Else Happening in the Democratic Primary,” Buzzfeed News, Jan. 16, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/sxl5moa. Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, held a major rally in Manhattan in January as part of his unusual strategy to skip the early primaries and caucuses and run a nationwide primary campaign.

Reid, Tim, and Michael Martina , “With rivals stuck in impeachment trial, Biden and Buttigieg to barnstorm Iowa,” Reuters, Jan. 16, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/tthl6y7. Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg plan to spend most of their time in Iowa in the lead-up to the Feb. 3 caucuses, while three of their presidential rivals who are members of the Senate are tied down in Washington for President Trump's impeachment trial.

Caucuses

Jaffe, Alexandra , “New Iowa caucus rules could spark clashing claims of victory,” The Associated Press, Jan. 16, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/w6uqamg. For the first time, the Iowa Democratic Party will report which candidates received the most votes at the beginning and end of caucus night, in addition to the state delegate count.

Jin, Beatrice , “An illustrated guide to the Iowa caucuses,” Politico, Jan. 16, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/sdg3d4y. The process in Iowa requires candidates to win at least 15 percent of the vote in an individual caucus to qualify for delegates, which means some voters may have to consider supporting their second preference.

Merica, Dan , “Nevada Democrats increase number of critical Las Vegas Strip caucus sites,” CNN, Jan. 7, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/wcmu4gq. Nevada Democrats are providing workers on the Las Vegas Strip the opportunity to vote early in that state's caucuses at four locations, including one that will be open 24 hours.

Endorsements

Samuels, Alex , “Warren unveils list of new Texas endorsements as presidential race heats up,” The Texas Tribune, Jan. 10, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/vqsedm8. Sen. Elizabeth Warren won endorsements from several Texas state representatives and city council members after Texas native Julián Castro dropped out of the race and backed her.

Sexton, Adam , “Presidential campaigns try to pick up Booker's endorsements,” WMUR, Jan. 15, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/u8e48nn. As soon as Sen. Cory Booker dropped out of the presidential race, New Hampshire politicians who had endorsed him received overtures from other candidates asking for support.

Tin, Alexander , “With a flurry of endorsements, Bernie Sanders shores up Nevada support,” CBS News, Jan. 16, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/vyefj5p. Bernie Sanders has won endorsements from the Clark County Black Caucus, an immigrant rights group and Nevada's largest teachers' union in the runup to voting in the early caucus state.

Parties' Role

Cummings, William , “‘We can't change the rules midstream’: DNC Chair Tom Perez defends commitment to diversity despite lack of it in Iowa debate,” USA Today, Jan. 14, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/uhlwqks. Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez defended the committee's requirements to qualify for its January presidential primary debate, amid criticism that no candidate of color would be on the debate stage.

Downing, Suzanne , “Alaska Democrats organize to conduct private primary,” Must Read Alaska, Jan. 12, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/tknqz6k. The Alaska Democratic Party is conducting a caucus using ballots, an opportunity for early voting and an option for voters to indicate multiple, ranked choices.

Siders, David , “The very real scenario of a protracted, ‘bizarro world’ Democratic primary,” Politico, Jan. 6, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/yghcn2y6. Some leaders of state Democratic parties with contests later in the calendar think a protracted primary battle could benefit local candidates by drawing more attention and fundraising to local races as the presidential candidates visit.

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Contacts

Center for Politics
University of Virginia, 465 Crestwood Drive, Charlottesville, VA 22904
434-243-8468
centerforpolitics.org
An academic institution that promotes civic education and political participation and publishes Sabato's Crystal Ball, a newsletter on American politics.

Democratic National Committee
430 South Capitol St., S.E., Washington, DC 20003
202-863-8000
democrats.org
The national Democratic Party committee that oversees the presidential nominating process and provides guidelines for state parties.

Elections Research Center
University of Wisconsin, 101 North Hall, 1050 Bascom Mall, Madison, WI 53706
608-263-2414
elections.wisc.edu
An academic center that hosts events and conducts research on national and state elections, with an emphasis on factors that influence voter decisions and election outcomes.

Frontloading HQ
frontloading.blogspot.com
A blog run by political scientist Josh Putnam that provides news and analysis about the nominating process.

Institute of Politics and Public Service
Georgetown University, 37th and O Streets, N.W., Healy G-18, Washington, DC 20057
202-687-5474
politics.georgetown.edu
An academic center that explores the ways that campaigns are conducted and how political communication is changing in a shifting media landscape, while promoting leadership and effective governance.

Open Primaries
79 Madison Ave., 8th Floor, New York, NY 10016
646-205-0202
openprimaries.org
A nonprofit that advocates for open and nonpartisan primary systems and opposes primaries that are closed to unaffiliated or independent voters.

Our Revolution
PO Box 66208, Washington, DC 20025
ourrevolution.com
An outgrowth of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign, the group supports liberal candidates and pushes for openness and transparency in the nominating process.

Republican National Committee
310 First St., S.E., Washington, DC 20003
202-863-8500
gop.com
The national Republican Party committee that oversees the presidential nominating process and provides guidelines for state parties.

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Footnotes

[1] Matt Stopera, “People Want To Die After Watching Pete Buttigieg Supporters Doing Their Dance To ‘High Hopes’ By Panic! At The Disco,” BuzzFeed, Nov. 19, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/t98ks9f; Sam Dorman, “Beto O'Rourke faces fresh round of mockery after posting video of him getting flu shot,” Fox News, Oct. 3, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y3hyaafd.

[2] “Document: McGovern-Fraser Commission Report,” Teaching American History, accessed Jan. 13, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/uwdkng8.

[3] Emily Stewart, “Donald Trump Rode $5 Billion in Free Media to the White House,” The Street, Nov. 20, 2016, https://tinyurl.com/wo7h73s.

[4] “US election 2016: Trump nomination divides Republicans,” BBC News, May 4, 2016, https://tinyurl.com/s4ocbyu.

[5] Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin, “Trump's Takeover of the Republican Party Is Almost Complete,” The New York Times, April 3, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yxq4lkjn.

[6] Joshua Gillin, “Bush says Trump was a Democrat longer than a Republican ‘in the last decade,’” Politifact, Aug. 24, 2015, https://tinyurl.com/yajlnm57; Kevin Cirilli and Bob Cusack, “Exclusive: Trump threatens third-party run,” The Hill, July 23, 2015, https://tinyurl.com/st5x4eu.

[7] Lara M. Brown, “The Presidency and the Nominating Process,” in Michael Nelson, ed., The Presidency and the Political System (2018).

[8] “Superdelegates and the 2016 Democratic National Convention,” Ballotpedia, accessed Jan. 13, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/t49nl2m.

[9] “Democrats change superdelegate rules that enraged Sanders supporters,” The Guardian, Aug. 25, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y8t7vepp.

[10] Geoffrey Skelley, “Democratic Party Leaders Are Mostly Sitting Out The Endorsement Race So Far,” FiveThirtyEight, Jan. 13, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/rlswmeu.

[11] Kate Taylor, “Elizabeth Warren Formally Announces 2020 Presidential Bid in Lawrence, Mass.,” The New York Times, Feb. 9, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yxtufx3k; Lauren Gambino and Tom McCarthy, “Bernie Sanders announces run for presidency in 2020: ‘We're gonna win,’” The Guardian, Feb. 19, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y6m6nztp; Marc Caputo and Natasha Korecki, “Joe Biden dives into 2020 race,” Politico, April 25, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y56j8qgy; and “President Trump has already filed for re-election. That's not normal,” The Week, Jan. 27, 2017, https://tinyurl.com/rk4pa2m.

[12] Robin Toner, “Arkansas' Clinton Enters The ‘92 Race for President,” The New York Times, Oct. 4, 1991, https://tinyurl.com/wpzo43c.

[13] Steve Benen, “Deval Patrick joins 2020 field, faces daunting challenges,” MSNBC, Nov. 14, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/um6zrhu.

[14] Michael Finnegan and Seema Mehta, “Have you seen Michael Bloomberg during ‘Jeopardy’ or NFL games? He's spending millions to make sure you do,” Los Angeles Times, Dec.16, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/s3hhqm5.

[15] Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny, “Obama Formally Enters Presidential Race,” The New York Times, Feb. 11, 2007, https://tinyurl.com/ya4lwfbe.

[16] Elaine Kamarck, “The urgent need for peer review in the presidential nominating process,” Brookings Institution, Oct. 29, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/w7hm7yw.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Katie Reilly, “Calls to Reform Democratic Nomination Process Have Roots in 1968 Convention,” Time, July 25, 2016, https://tinyurl.com/txnftht.

[19] Jonathan Rauch and Ray La Raja, “Too Much Democracy is Bad for Democracy,” The Atlantic, December 2019, https://tinyurl.com/w489hb5.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Michael Bennet, Twitter post, Dec. 15, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/smpco9u.

[22] Ruobing Su and Grace Panetta, “Here are all the states where you have to register as a Democrat to vote in the primaries,” Business Insider, Nov. 18, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/rbhc964.

[23] Rhodes Cook, “Registering By Party: Where the Democrats and Republicans Are Ahead,” Sabato's Crystal Ball, July 12, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/wy2bwau.

[24] “Party Affiliation,” Gallup, accessed Jan. 21, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ybjvcb3k.

[25] “Pennsylvania Senate votes to open primary elections,” The Associated Press, June 25, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/v5shlnp.

[26] Bernadette Hogan, “NY Dems make it easier to vote in 2020 presidential primary,” New York Post, May 22, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/s3uj64s.

[27] Eric McGhee et al., “A Primary Cause of Partisanship? Nomination Systems and Legislator Ideology,” American Journal of Political Science, Oct. 31, 2013, https://tinyurl.com/yx83b5k6.

[28] John LaLoggia, “6 facts about U.S. political independents,” Pew Research Center, May 15, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yya8n25o.

[29] John Sides et al., “On the Representativeness of Primary Electorates,” British Journal of Political Science, March 13, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/v73sobe.

[30] Mike Bunge, “Castro Calls for Iowa and New Hampshire to Lose ‘First-in-the-Nation’ Status,” KIMT, Nov. 11, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/wbga9hn.

[31] Jennifer A. Dlouhy, “2020 Democrats stuck on ethanol in Iowa,” Bloomberg News, Iowa Farmer Today, July 19, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/wlzp9a3.

[32] Sydney Ember and Reid J. Epstein, “Why Almost Nobody Will Defend the Iowa Caucuses,” The New York Times, Nov. 13, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/rt33w8g.

[33] James W. Ceaser, Presidential Selection: Theory and Development (1979), p. 3.

[34] Brown, op. cit.

[35] Joseph A. Pika and Richard A. Watson, The Presidential Contest, 5th ed. (1995), p. 5.

[36] Margaret A. Hogan, “John Quincy Adams: Campaigns and Elections,” Miller Center, University of Virginia, accessed Jan. 21, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/trczjmn.

[37] Emmett H. Buell Jr. and Lee Sigelman, eds., Nominating the President (1991), p. 221.

[38] Ibid., p. 220.

[39] Brown, op. cit.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Buell and Sigelman, op. cit., p. 220.

[42] Brown, op. cit.

[43] John H. Aldrich, Before the Convention: Strategies and Choices in Presidential Nomination Campaigns (1980), p. 8.

[44] James Chace, 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs — The Election that Changed the Country (2004), p. 119.

[45] John H. Fenton, “First New Hampshire Primary Put Eisenhower on Way in ‘52,” The New York Times, Feb. 27, 1972, https://tinyurl.com/qof3r9e.

[46] Drew DeSilver, “Contested presidential conventions, and why parties try to avoid them,” Pew Research Center, Feb. 4, 2016, https://tinyurl.com/yxfln5mf.

[47] James W. Davis, Presidential Primaries: Road to the White House, 2nd ed. (1980), p. 3.

[48] Andrew Glass, “McCarthy nearly upsets LBJ in New Hampshire primary: March 12, 1968,” Politico, March 12, 2016, https://tinyurl.com/rz9kpa9.

[49] Tim Arango, “A Campaign, a Murder, a Legacy: Robert F. Kennedy's California Story,” The New York Times, June 5, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/ycxdxk42.

[50] William L. O'Neill, Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960s (1971), p. 381.

[51] Robert Sam Anson, McGovern: A Biography (1972), p. 251.

[52] Brown, op. cit.

[53] Anson, op. cit., p. 249.

[54] Ibid., p. 255.

[55] Davis, op. cit., p. 4.

[56] Pika and Watson, op. cit., p. 10.

[57] Rhodes Cook, Race for the Presidency: Winning the 1988 Nomination (1987), p. 8.

[58] Kandy Stroud, How Jimmy Won: The Victory Campaign From Plains to the White House (1977), p. 239.

[59] Nelson W. Polsby, Consequences of Party Reform (1983).

[60] Kaitlin Washburn, “The legacy and impact of McCain-Feingold,” Center for Responsive Politics, Aug. 28, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y5cfelrr.

[61] Jake Miller, “The Strange History of Superdelegates: What They Mean for Super Tuesday and Beyond,” Mic, March 1, 2016, https://tinyurl.com/wt3luv4.

[62] Josh Putnam, “Everything you need to know about how the presidential primary works,” The Washington Post, May 12, 2015, https://tinyurl.com/j5d9nc4.

[63] Sam Howe Verhovek, “Republican Governors, Wanting One of Their Own, Decided Early on Bush,” The New York Times, Nov. 23, 1999, https://tinyurl.com/qr7kpb2.

[64] Marty Cohen et al., The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform (2008), p. 7.

[65] John Sides, Michael Tesler and Lynn Vavreck, “Voter Choice in Presidential Primaries,” in Jonathan Bernstein and Casey B.K. Dominguez, eds., The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2020 (2019), p. 64.

[66] Nicole Gaudiano, “Bernie Sanders defied expectations with long-shot presidential campaign,” USA Today, July 11, 2016, https://tinyurl.com/qoa8bep.

[67] Sides, Tesler and Vavreck, op. cit., p. 64.

[68] Ibid., p. 63.

[69] Jonathan Bernstein, “The Expanded Party's Influence,” in Bernstein and Dominguez, op. cit., p. 151.

[70] Sides, Tesler and Vavreck, op. cit., p. 69.

[71] Robert Costa and Philip Rucker, “Inside the GOP field's new strategies to ride out the Trump tornado,” The Washington Post, Aug. 20, 2015, https://tinyurl.com/pnljumt.

[72] Tom Hamburger, “Cruz consolidates support from key Christian conservatives,” The Washington Post, Dec. 21, 2015, https://tinyurl.com/wd2y6ww.

[73] Bernstein, op. cit., p. 155.

[74] Bernie Sanders, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In (2016), p. 145.

[75] Zack Whittaker, “Mueller report sheds new light on how the Russians hacked the DNC and the Clinton campaign,” TechCrunch, April 18, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yx35cszb; Michael D. Shear and Matthew Rosenberg, “Released Emails Suggest the D.N.C. Derided the Sanders Campaign,” The New York Times, July 22, 2016, https://tinyurl.com/y7eu9rx8.

[76] Anne Gearan, Philip Rucker and Abby Phillip, “DNC chairwoman will resign in aftermath of committee email controversy,” The Washington Post, July 24, 2016, https://tinyurl.com/hney2qw.

[77] Josh Putnam, “Backward Looking, Future Rule-Making,” in Bernstein and Dominguez, op. cit., p. 96.

[78] Ibid., p. 97.

[79] Boris Heersink, “The DNC voted to strip superdelegates of their powers. Will it matter for 2020?” The Washington Post, Sept. 4, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/y6pex5he.

[80] “DNC Announces Framework for the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary Debates,” Democratic National Committee, Dec. 20, 2018, https://tinyurl.com/usd2lk4.

[81] Reid J. Epstein, “The D.N.C. Chairman Knows No One Is Happy. Neither Is He,” The New York Times, Dec. 15, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/wk9aw2d.

[82] Beatrice Peterson and Justin Gomez, “Rep. Tulsi Gabbard says she'll join Democratic debate after threatening to boycott,” ABC News, Oct. 14, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y4xa22yz.

[83] Allan Smith, “Bullock accuses Steyer of buying his way onto Democratic debate stage,” NBC News, Aug. 13, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y264pud9.

[84] “Presidential Approval Ratings — Donald Trump,” Gallup, accessed Jan. 21, 2020, https://tinyurl.com/ybz9lnv2.

[85] Allan Smith and Amanda Golden, “Mark Sanford ends long-shot Republican presidential campaign,” NBC News, Nov. 12, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/syb9sct.

[86] Alex Isenstadt, “Republicans to scrap primaries and caucuses as Trump challengers cry foul,” Politico, Sept. 6, 2019, https://tinyurl.com/y54czc99.

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About the Author

Alan Greenblatt is a staff writer at Governing magazine. Previously he covered politics and government for NPR and CQ Weekly, where he won the National Press Club's Sandy Hume Award for political journalism. He graduated from San Francisco State University in 1986 and received a master's degree in English literature from the University of Virginia in 1988. His CQ Researcher reports include “Future of the GOP” and “Immigration Debate.”

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