Party Rules and Equitable Representation in U.S. Presidential Nominating Contests

Abstract

Party rules for determining allocation of delegates to the Democratic and Republican national conventions once again drew criticism in 2016. Analyses of the effects of various rules indicate that the inclusion of party leader and elected official delegates (“superdelegates”) within the Democratic Party and use of winner-take-all primary elections by Republicans bias the representativeness of states’ delegations to national conventions; neither the choice of primary election or caucuses nor of open or closed events affect representativeness. The choice of primary election or caucuses did affect vote percentages of candidates, but the choice of open or closed events had no effect on candidates’ vote percentages in recent nominating contests. The basic conclusion is that the party rules that created biased, unrepresentative state delegations to national conventions and that benefited certain candidates in the 1980s continue to do so in the 21st century.