Primaries

Primaries

1. invisible primaries

   • period between candidates declaring intention to run for the presidency and the first contest of the primary season
     • REPUBLICAN: 2012 election Newt Gingrich made announcement 237 days before Iowa caucus
     • DEMOCRAT: Obama announced intention to run for re-election in April 2011, unusual for incumbent predident to announce before any challengers
   • played out mainly in the media as candidates hope to be mentioned as much as possible to be seen as a serious presidential candidate or hope for TV interviews to get platform across
   • 2016 primary season
     • Ted Cruz became the first major candidate to formally announce his candidacy
       • April: floodgates opened with more republican announcements and Clintons entry on the 12 April 2015
         • May and June saw the bulk of the candidate announcements
           • Trump did not announce his candidacy until late June 2015 once most other candidates campaign were in full flow
   • formal events
     • TV DEBATES: 2011 16 televised debates for republicans in 7 months
     • visits to the key states especially Iowa and New Hampshire, 2011 8 candidates had made a total of 771 visits to iowa
     • fundraising to raise money for the actual primary and caucus, to be a viable candidate
       • Mitt Romney significantly outraised his republican rivals in 2012
       • front runners, wisdom is that it is important to end the invisible primaries as a front runner as these usually win the nomination

2. primaries

   • state based elections to choose a parties candidate for the presidency. A presidential primary shows support for a candidate among ordinary voters and choose delegates committed to vote for that candidate at the national party convention
     • types of primaries
       • closed primary: a primary election in which only registerd democrats can vote in the democratic primary and only registered republicans can vote in the republican party
       • open primary: a primary election in which any registered voter can vote in the pprimary of any party
         • this allows for cross over voting which means that democrat voters can opt to participate in the republican primary and vice versa
           • this became an important issue in the democratic primaries in 2008 when, in open primary states, significant numbers of independent and republicans opted to vote in the democratic primary and voted for Barack Obama
       • modified primaries: like closed primaries, in that only registered party voters can vote but they also allow those who have registered as indpedents in either party
         • New Jersey 2012
   • timing of primaries
     • states must decide when to hold their primaries or caucus, the national parties usually lay down the earliest and latest dates - often mid jan to beginning of june
     • some states such as New Hampshire schedule their contest on a day when no other primaries are being held , thereby hoping to give their state primary a prominence it would otherwise not have
     • other states deliberately arrange their primary to coincide with other, often neighbouring states, thereby creating a regional primary dubbed SUPER TUESDAY
     • as increasing number of states like to schedule their primary early in the year, believing the earlier primaries have more influence over candidate selection
       • this recent move is called front loading (phenomenon by which an increasing number of states schedule their presidential primaries or caucuses earlier in the cycle to increase the importance of their state in choosing major party presidential candidates
     • the number of states holding their primaries before the end of march increased from just 11 in 1980 to 42 in 2008
     • incumbent presidents:
       • Obama 2912, primaries for the president go on with little or no coverage at all
         • sometimes don't even both with a primary under such circumstances, Virginia, south Carolina, Florida and new York were amongst the states that dispensed with a democratic presidential election
           • Obama won 92% of democrat primary votes
   • New Hampshire
     • for amny years it was said that a candidate could not win the white house without winning the new Hampshire primary (Trump 2016)
       • although Clinton, bush and Obama didnt
       • tha mount of time the candidates spend in the state and the level of media attention combine to make the new Hampshire primary a critical contest to win

3. factors affecting primaries

   • voter turnout
     • there is no doubt that since the reforms of the nomination process in the late 60s, participation in presidential primaries has greatly increased
       • partly this has been due to the simple fact that more states hold primaries
         • 2008: 58 million people participated in 37 democratic and 39 republican primaries, 30% of the voting age population
   • factors effecting turnout
     • varies between states and demographic groups
       • better educated, higher income and the older members of the electorate are much more likely to vote in primaries
         • Tennessee 2012 republican primary, nearly half had a college degree, a quarter earned more than $100k and three quarters were 45 or over