Presidential Nomination Process Research Articles

Life of the Party: Social Networks, Public Attention, and the Importance of Shocks in the Presidential Nomination Process

We examine the effects of shocks on the invisible Presidential primary in the United States. First, we build on existing models using an algorithm simulating social network shocks. Findings show that positive shocks significantly aid the lead candidate’s chances of winning in the invisible primary. Negative shocks, however, are less detrimental to a lead candidate than positive shocks are helpful, as the leader is often able to survive a negative shock and still emerge victorious. Broad empirical tests demonstrate the importance of shocks as well. Beyond the importance of shocks, findings also suggest that Presidential candidate success in the invisible primary owes more to public- than elite-driven factors.

Democratic Disarray: Organizational Messaging Coherence and the Local Echoing Press During the 2020 Iowa Democratic Caucus

The Iowa caucuses are the inaugural event of the American presidential nomination process. When the state Democratic Party failed to report the 2020 caucus results in a timely manner and manage the consequences, the crisis situation threatened the legitimacy of the party and the integrity of the results. This research presents an in-depth case of the Iowa Democratic Party’s public communication response regarding an event described by the Des Moines Register as “hell” and a “results catastrophe.” Specifically, we were interested in how the Iowa Democratic Party responded to the crisis event and the extent to which the party organization was successful in disseminating favorable messaging about the caucus process to the local press. Drawing on organizational crisis management and echoing press perspectives, this analysis uses network and qualitative analytic approaches to assess message development, dissemination, and ultimately adoption. A local event with national implications presents a critical case in investigating how a political party, due to its institutional role in American elections and unique organizational structure, struggled to respond to the crisis.

Democratic Disarray: Organizational Messaging Coherence and the Local Echoing Press During the 2020 Iowa Democratic Caucus

The Iowa caucuses are the inaugural event of the American presidential nomination process. When the state Democratic Party failed to report the 2020 caucus results in a timely manner, researchers began to assess how party and press officials co-constructed the events. This research presents an in-depth case of the Iowa state and local Democratic Party’s public communication response regarding an event described by the Des Moines Register as “hell” and a “results catastrophe.” Specifically, we were interested in how the Iowa Democratic Party responded to the crisis event and the extent to which the party organization was successful in disseminating favorable messaging about the caucus process to the local press. Drawing on organizational crisis management and echoing press perspectives, this analysis uses network and qualitative analytic approaches to assess message development, dissemination, and ultimately adoption. A local event with national implications presents a critical case in investigating how a political party, due to its institutional role in American elections and unique organizational structure, struggled to respond to the crisis.

Primary Debates and the Presidential Nomination Process

Debates have become a centerpiece of the presidential nominating contest. In this essay, I explore the role debates played in the Democrats’ 2020 primaries. While debates can help voters make decisions about candidates, several aspects of the way debates are held may have unintentional impacts on the nominating process. The Democrats struggled with an oversized field of candidates, and their solutions to this challenge probably hurt the chances of several worthy candidates. Meanwhile, news outlets’ use of debates as major events that showcase their journalists and elaborate production values often overshadows the candidates on stage. In preparing for 2024’s primary debates, America’s political parties should nevertheless avoid the trap of trying to fix the debates of 2020, and focus instead on creating debate formats that best serve the interests of candidates and rank-and-file party members.

Tiny Donations, Big Impact: How Small-Dollar Donors are Eroding the Power of Party Insiders

The shift to small- dollar fundraising in the 2020 Democratic nomination contest is not only a change in how campaigns operate. Campaigns that depended on small donors also shifted their rhetoric and behavior, flaunting their “outsider,” populist credentials and decrying politics as usual. The new power of small donors has the potential to be the greatest challenge to the control of party elites over the presidential nomination process since the reforms of the 1970s.

Primary Day: Why Presidential Nominees Should Be Chosen on a Single Day

Why do we have an Election Day but not a Primary Day? No aspect of the presidential nomination process causes as much controversy as the primary calendar. The calendar starts off in January or February of each election year and ends in June. Fifty-seven jurisdictions hold their primaries and caucuses over the course of these months. The Iowa caucuses always start off the calendar, and they are followed by the New Hampshire primaries. The results of these contests work to eliminate some candidates while they bestow momentum on others. More candidates participate in the first few nomination contests than in the last ones, meaning that disproportionate power is given to voters in states holding early nomination contests, while those in states with later contests are provided with less or no voice in choosing their party’s presidential nominee. In some years, a party’s presidential nomination contest ends before citizens in late-voting states have even had a chance to cast their ballots. To gain more influence and greater voice, states have consistently attempted to move their primaries forward in a process known as “front-loading.” This dynamic has led to calls for reform, as politicians, journalists, scholars, and citizens all try to rethink the primary calendar ahead of each election cycle. This essay examines the primary calendar and what can be done to change it. It begins by explaining why Iowa and New Hampshire always hold their nomination contests first, and it looks at how other states have tried to match Iowa and New Hampshire's power through front-loading. It also briefly looks at the 2020 primary calendar and explains how both major parties tried to play with the rules in 2020 to bring some stability to the presidential nomination process. This essay then turns to examine the one reform that a majority of voters consistently support: holding all primaries and caucuses on a single day. Scheduling a national Primary Day is important not only because the current staggered nature of the primary calendar privileges some candidates over others, but also because it favors voters and party members in some states over those in other states. The way to remedy this problem and to ensure that all voters are treated equally is to hold all 57 nomination contests on the single day. While scheduling a national Primary Day would appear to be a simple, direct, and fair way of selecting a party’s presidential nominee, a national primary also comes with its own challenges. A national primary would change the nature of presidential campaigns by shifting the resources and spending of candidates from low-population states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina to high-population states like California, Texas, and Florida. It would also diminish the aspirations of candidates with less money and name recognition by denying them the opportunity to build momentum in the early states. A related concern has to do with how votes would be tallied and added up in a national primary when the list of candidates running in 57 different jurisdictions could potentially be very large and no candidate wins a majority of these votes. Finally, there is the thorny issue of how a single primary date could ever be imposed on the states. Whether Congress has the power to set the date on which the states hold their primaries is a constitutional question that remains unresolved. Whether the national parties could muster the willpower to impose a national primary on the states also remains in doubt. As a result, while the benefits of holding a national Primary Day may be substantial, the path to getting there comes with its own challenges.

Revisiting McGovern-Fraser: Party Nationalization and the Rhetoric of Reform

Abstract:The Democratic Party faced a crisis of political legitimacy in the late 1960s as distrust and protest permeated its electoral base. In response, the Democratic National Committee established the Commission on Party Structure and Delegate Selection, tasked with restructuring the party’s presidential nomination process. Contrary to the conventional historical narrative of the McGovern-Fraser Commission that has focused on a supposed displacement of the party’s old guard by radical insurgents, this article instead argues that the main impetus for reform came from national party leaders seeking to build up the legitimacy and authority of the National Committee. Commission Chair George McGovern and the DNC used a particular reform rhetoric that charged state parties with the corruption of the political process, necessitating rescue by an empowered national party. This focus on the nationalizing impulses behind McGovern-Fraser serves to shift our attention away from ideological struggles and toward institutional motives.

The Influence of Technology on Presidential Primary Campaigns

There is no doubt that the American people object to the high cost of election campaigns. For example, a 2018 Pew poll found that 77 percent of Americans would support laws to restrict the total amount of campaign spending. Support for spending caps crosses partisan lines. The idea of legal restraints on campaign spending receives the support of 85 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of Republicans. Many blame the high cost of American elections on the Supreme Court's decisions in Buckley v. Valeo and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which deregulated aspects of federal campaign finance law. Ultimately, however, the origins of skyrocketing campaign costs long predate Buckley and Citizens United. More than any other single factor, innovations in communication technology have shaped presidential campaign spending since 1912. First radio, then television, and more recently the internet emerged as indispensable means of political communication. But the technological innovations have come with a high price for candidates and campaigns, driving costs relentlessly higher. This chapter examines how technology has shaped the presidential nomination process, making the pursuit of the White House an ever more expensive proposition. This work is a chapter in a forthcoming 2020 book entitled The Best Candidate: Presidential Nomination in Polarized Times.

Laying the Foundation for a Successful Presidential Campaign: Public Attention and Fundraising in the Preprimary Period*

ObjectiveThis study advances the presidential primary fundraising literature in two ways. First, we explore candidate fundraising during the preprimary period through the lens of public attention, arguing that candidates must find ways to activate interest in their campaigns in order to raise money. Second, we use Google Trends data to measure how much the public is paying attention to each presidential primary candidate and how this concept affects fundraising.MethodsWe use pooled cross‐sectional time‐series models to determine the impact of public attention on a candidate's weekly fundraising totals.ResultsWe find that a candidate's share of public attention is one of the main drivers of preprimary period fundraising, even for non‐front‐running candidates.ConclusionThis finding illustrates the role the public plays in shaping the preprimary period and identifies a determinant of fundraising that is readily available and frequently updated, allowing both scholars and campaigns to better monitor the preprimary phase of the presidential nomination process.

Jokowi’s Authoritarian Turn and Indonesia’s Democratic Decline

This article examines the decline of Indonesia’s democratic institutions under President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) ahead of his 2019 re-election bid. It argues that the latter part of Jokowi’s first term has seen a downturn in the quality of Indonesian democracy, associated with the continued mainstreaming and legitimation of a conservative and anti-pluralistic brand of political Islam; the partisan manipulation of key institutions of state; and the increasingly open repression and disempowerment of political opposition. These trends have served to unbalance the democratic playing field, limit democratic choice, and reduce government accountability. This article first discusses the medium-term ramifications of the polarised 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election and their implications for 2018’s marquee political events: a major round of sub-national elections and the presidential nomination process. It then argues that the Jokowi government has taken an ‘authoritarian turn’ ahead of the 2019 elections, highlighting its manipulation of powerful law enforcement and security institutions for narrow, partisan purposes, as well as the administration’s concerted efforts to undermine and repress democratic opposition. Finally, it frames the 2019 election as a contest between two candidates—Jokowi and Prabowo Subianto–who display little regard for the democratic status quo. The declining quality of Indonesian democracy is particularly troubling in a global context of democratic recession.

“Umoja ni ushindi (Unity is victory)”: management of factionalism in the presidential nomination of Tanzania's dominant party in 2015

ABSTRACTThis article examines how Tanzania's dominant party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), managed intensified factionalism in its presidential nomination process prior to the 2015 general elections. While CCM was victorious, maintaining its long-term rule, it was seriously challenged by an opposition coalition and its presidential candidate, a former prime minister who defected from CCM after elimination from the presidential nomination. Through an analysis of CCM's presidential nominations in 1995, 2005 and 2015, the article demonstrates how a group of politicians including the former prime minister grew to be a powerful faction and created a sharp division within the party until CCM leaders eliminated him from the 2015 nomination to restore party unity in preparation for the election. Drawing on Boucek's typology of factionalism, the article argues that CCM's 2015 presidential nomination was characterised by a revival of its centralised control and the influence of retired party leaders in leadership succession to prevent a fall into degenerative factionalism that would seriously weaken the party.

The Risen Phoenix: Black Politics in the Post–Civil War South. by Luis-Alejandro Dinnella-Borrego

Reviewed by: The Risen Phoenix: Black Politics in the Post–Civil War South. by Luis-Alejandro Dinnella-Borrego Michael W. Fitzgerald (bio) The Risen Phoenix: Black Politics in the Post–Civil War South. By Luis-Alejandro Dinnella-Borrego. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016. Pp. 233. Cloth, $49.50.) Let's accentuate the positive. This is a nuanced work reflecting on black congressmen during Reconstruction and its aftermath. Through an appreciative examination of six leaders, Dinnella-Borrego shows that they disagreed on a lot. But having determined to provide a deromanticized version of what these beleaguered legislators could accomplish, the author could have gone farther. These six congressmen were relatively prominent. They were James Rapier of Alabama, Josiah Walls of Florida, John Roy Lynch of Mississippi, Robert Smalls of South Carolina, John Mercer Langston of Virginia, and George White of North Carolina. They seem a plausible cross-section of the postwar era's twenty black House members. Still, the author never explains why he chose these individuals, beyond the existence of relatively ample evidence, three of them having written autobiographies. The tone is upbeat, with the author twice framing the study as an antecedent to the age of Obama. The author dissents from scholars such as Thomas Holt and Steven Hahn who see these leaders as elitists, locked into a political structure that diminished their ability to speak for the impoverished masses. "This critique is largely unjustified," Dinnella-Borrego concludes (6). The author emphasizes the relationship between these leaders and their grassroots constituency, rather than the machinations of Washington power politics. He also demonstrates quite tangibly that black congressmen were not monolithic, that especially after Redemption they differed on issue after issue as the wider political climate chilled. In general, this study approaches black officeholders with an appreciation of the practical constraints under which they operated. They were locked as junior partners in an interracial Republican Party, but they were not sellouts: "they did their jobs well" and their constituents took pride in them. Though they favored negotiation and compromise in their congressional roles, they also "functioned as national spokesmen for all African Americans" (216). This nuanced emphasis makes Dinnella-Borrego helpfully attentive to real-world constraints. In particular, he highlights the generational conflict between the older Republican officeholders and the younger generation of unelected black activists, like Ida Wells and T. Thomas Fortune, who saw themselves as protest leaders per se. And because this study extends beyond the normal Redemption endpoint of 1877, it enables exploration of the fluid political alignments of the 1880s and 1890s, as agrarian movements challenged the two-party order. This [End Page 341] is complicated political terrain, marked by apparent opportunistic shifts, and it is refreshing to see a knowledgeable take on how African American leaders responded. As should be evident, this book has much to recommend it. The discussion of what black congressmen actually did, and what the institutional constraints were, is refreshingly concrete. That said, having determined on a realist defense of these legislators, the author could have pursued that line more consistently. Dinnella-Borrego notes in his introduction that his subjects fought "for patronage and other government improvements," but he seldom recurs to the topic of government jobs again, once mentioning it in the context of corruption (6). This oversight understates the centrality of patronage, an abiding practical obsession of Reconstruction politics; patronage provided a tangible civil rights demand that tied black activists to the political structure. Nor does the author talk much about the related Reconstruction factional divisions—the Radical-versus-moderate conflicts—that facilitated black leaders' rise to elective office. One might expect discussion of the quadrennial presidential nomination process, which enabled black Republicans to maintain some modest bargaining power even after their party had abandoned Reconstruction. And the opposition Democrats did not "unwittingly" promote black officeholding through racial gerrymandering; they consciously did it to maintain control elsewhere and to hold their restive agrarian constituency in line (151). The book would have profited from a review of the published Ulysses S. Grant papers, especially since the congressmen Dinnella-Borrego examines so often acted as loyal foot soldiers for Republican administration policy. Given the Gilded Age context, and the Republicans...

The Presidential Nominating Process, Campaign Money, and Popular Love”

Could it be that money doesn’t matter in American elections? A fixation on campaign finance reduces the influence of money on politics as purely transactional. But what if you are self-financed or don’t spend very much money on campaigns, yet still draw enormous media attention? Donald Trump’s candidacy forces us to reexamine the roots of success in American politics. What Trump lacks in campaign money, he more than makes up for with claims to great personal wealth and the exhortation of capitalism and favorable markets as a panacea for America’s ills, especially the ills defined by Trump. Over the years, Trump cultivated an aspiration to consume as he did, despite failed businesses and failed marriages. These events lead us to reexamine traditional views about the relevance of campaign cash in American campaigns.

The effects of traditional news, partisan talk, and political satire programs on perceptions of presidential candidate viability and electability

ABSTRACTThis study examines how exposure to network news, partisan opinion talk, and political satire programs during the 2012 Iowa presidential caucuses affected viewers’ perceptions of candidate viability (likelihood of capturing the party nomination) and electability (likelihood of winning the general election). Programs representing these genres—ABC World News, Fox News’s Hannity, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart—all framed the same candidate as the front-runner for the nomination, though each framed this candidate’s general election prospects in distinctive ways. A randomized field experiment assigned respondents to view one (or none) of the three programs as they aired. Assessments of the front-runner were significantly shaped by assignment to view television coverage, hence demonstrating the potential importance of all three media genres for the presidential nomination process.

Book Review: A Force for Good: How the American News Media Have Propelled Positive Change by Rodger Streitmatter

A Force for Good: How the American News Media Have Propelled Positive Change . Rodger Streitmatter. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. 246 pp. $90 hbk. $36 pbk. $35.99 ebk.Following up his previous book on the history of journalism, Mightier Than the Sword, now in its fourth edition, Rodger Streitmatter has written another set of case studies dealing with how the media has influenced American history. This time, though, Streitmatter focuses solely on instances when journalists have, as the subtitle indicates, propelled positive change. In his introduction, Streitmatter considers this usage appealingly vague, providing him with wonderful degree of latitude in the topics covered. While it's tempting to devote an inordinate amount of time assessing the problematic rhetoric of this cringe-worthy turn of phrase, the book's content and structure warrant attention on their own.The chapters range from the late 19th century, beginning with Nellie Bly's undercover expose of mental health facilities in New York City, to today's world, concluding with pieces on media coverage of the Roman Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal and Ellen DeGeneres's coming out. In between, we find accounts of how journalism, to select but a few examples, brought down Charles Ponzi's financial scam; caution against the dangers of smoking; celebrate the first Jewish Miss America; and popularize the availability and benefits of birth control. Chapters flow by in a relatively brisk pace as all 16 of them, plus the conclusion, clock in at 177 written pages, excluding notes, bibliography, and index.Meanwhile, no more than three pages elapse at any time throughout the book without extra spacing and a newly titled section break. Chapter 9, for instance, traces the media's praise for Jackie Robinson, who in 1947 broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball, with the following subheadings on three consecutive pages: Portraying Jackie Robinson as Humble, Portraying Jackie Robinson as Congenial, and Portraying Jackie Robinson as Wholesome. Rather than providing a consistent, coherent synthesis in each essay by weaving through the primary news accounts of the day, Streitmatter distracts from the flow of each chapter, short as they are, with many section breaks. He effectively provides examples that prove the subhead titles, mind you, but the book sacrifices depth in such a discontinuous manner and, ultimately, fails to craft carefully constructed arguments.To his credit, Streitmatter, a professor of journalism at American University, focuses on events often neglected in history courses and case studies of journalistic practice that many readers, scholars included, might not be too familiar with. Some of the more novel work in the book include chapters devoted to how African American newspapers in the early 20th century helped spur the great migration of subjugated persons away from the South; the publicity arm of the Justice Department under J. Edgar Hoover, which recruited journalists to portray the heroics of G-Men in the 1930s; and the degree to which television news facilitated democratic changes to the presidential nomination process. …

Caucus Reform? Primary Reform? Delegate Reform? Lessons from the 2016 Political Party Presidential Nominating Process: A 50-State Review of the Legal and Political Mechanisms Deployed by the Republican Party for Selecting Delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention

Caucus Reform? Primary Reform? Delegate Reform? Lessons from the 2016 Political Party Presidential Nominating Process: A 50-State Review of the Legal and Political Mechanisms Deployed by the Republican Party for Selecting Delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention

Packed primaries and empty caucuses: voter turnout in presidential nominations

In presidential nomination contests, the number of voters participating in selecting the presidential candidates varies considerably across states. In the same election year, turnout in presidential nomination contests ranges from less than 1 % of party supporters participating in some caucuses to record breaking turnout levels upwards of 50 % in primaries in other states. This variation is attributable, in part, to the electoral rules, which vary across states, years, and parties. In this paper, I provide a comprehensive examination of the extent to which party and state rules affect voter turnout in nomination contests from 1980 to 2012. Using the normal partisan support score as the voter turnout denominator, I find that primaries, open contests, and proportional representation rules result in higher levels of turnout. I also show that within the window of competitiveness, turnout is higher in states that hold contests later in the nomination season. Overall, my analysis provides insight into the institutional structures that influence the number of people who participate in the presidential nomination process and enhances understanding about the factors that affect voter turnout.

Party cohesion in presidential races

Scholars have long been examining the presidential nomination process in the United States. In addition to studies considering the selection mechanism itself, there has been a movement towards analysing the contest even before voting begins. Campaign finance allows for a reliable and valid means to examine the year prior to the nomination with data that are not just vast in quantity but also consistent across time. Donors who gave to multiple campaigns represent a particularly important subset of elite participants in elections whose behaviour shed light on phenomena of parties functioning as a network. We find only rare instances of multiple donors giving across party and that Democratic contributors function as a far more cohesive unit. Also, without any supervising entity, the candidate that amasses the most shared donors goes on to win the nomination in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections.

Congressional Endorsements in the Presidential Nomination Process

Examining congressional superdelegate endorsements in the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, the authors show that changes in the political context affected the balance of factors in members’ decisions to endorse Clinton or Obama. Specifically, the national standing of the candidates became increasingly important—and local opinion less important—to Obama endorsements even as constituency views became a stronger influence over Clinton endorsements. The findings reveal how constituency considerations affect the elite endorsement choices that shape the presidential nominating process. In addition, the analysis highlights the ways in which members of Congress balance conflicting considerations in a changing political context when an issue plays out over an extended period.

Unwritten Rules: Informal Institutions in Established Democracies

Scholars of the developing world have driven a surge of interest in unwritten or informal institutions as determinants of political outcomes. In advanced industrial democracies, by contrast, informal institutions often remain consigned to the analytic margins. This article makes a case for greater attention to informal political institutions in established democracies, and it introduces a theoretical framework to support such analysis. Informal institutions, understood as the unwritten rules of political life, are seen to perform three functions: they complete or fill gaps in formal institutions, coordinate the operation of overlapping (and perhaps clashing) institutions, and operate parallel to formal institutions in regulating political behavior. These three roles of informal institutions are associated with different characteristic patterns of institutional stability and change. The article illustrates its theoretical framework with case studies from American politics, the subfield in which formal-institutional analysis has flourished most. These cases are the historical norm of a two-term presidency (a completing institution), the unwritten rules of the presidential nomination process (coordinating institutions), the informal practice of obstruction in the Senate (a parallel institution), and the normative expectation that presidents should address the public directly (which performs all three functions).