State Responses to National Demnocratic Party Reform

Abstract

This research examines the proliferation of Democratic state presidential preference primaries from 1972-80, an unintended consequence of McGovern-Fraser reforms to delegate selection adopted following the acrimonious 1968 Democratic National Convention. Unlike previous work, which has addressed the primary proliferation qualitatively and in a way that does not permit sorting out the various elements that may underlie the adoption of party reforms in the 1970s, we operationalize and test hypotheses about the influence of several factors -Democratic National Committee directives, party strength and type, partisan control of state government, home-state candidates, and divisive caucuses -on states moving from a caucus/convention arrangement of selecting delegates to a presidential preference primary. Our findings suggest that both national party efforts to involve more rank and file in the process and state characteristics predisposed some states to move in the direction of a preference primary rather than continuing with a party caucus/convention. Democratic control of state government, the presence of home-state candidates, and noncompliance with DNC directives were the most powerful forces behind states adopting Democratic presidential preference primaries.