Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way: Elite Party Actor Endorsements in Presidential Nominating Contests, 2004-2012

Abstract

Party elites influence the outcomes of presidential nomination contests through endorsements, financial support, encouragements to run, and other means. In this paper, we compare the patterns of elite endorsements of presidential candidates in four recent nomination contests – the Democratic races in 2004 and 2008 and the Republican contests in 2008 and 2012. We examine these contests with an eye not toward their eventual outcomes but to the manner in which a set of elite party actors – governors and members of Congress – made their public endorsements of candidates for the nominations including both the timing and (for Romney in 2012) their stated rationales as a communication to party members and the broader public. Our findings suggest that Republican officeholders are more reluctant than their Democratic counterparts to endorse candidates in contested presidential nomination contests, even – or perhaps particularly – when the field of candidates is less than stellar. Furthermore, in the case of Romney, they were strategic in offering rationales, emphasizing personal qualities earlier and the process later while downplaying ideology.