tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/primaries-25319/articlesPrimaries – The Conversation2024-02-28T12:31:46Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2221332024-02-28T12:31:46Z2024-02-28T12:31:46ZHow media coverage of presidential primaries fails voters and has helped Trump<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577956/original/file-20240226-26-lub4tk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C8%2C5964%2C3970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis on television screens at a Washington, D.C. bar during the first 2024 Republican presidential primary debate on Aug. 23, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidate-and-florida-gov-ron-news-photo/1635010270?adppopup=true">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s common to hear Americans complain about the media throughout presidential elections. Partisans tend to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2011.565280">believe the press is biased against their side</a>. These perceptions may lead people to believe the media can affect how people vote.</p>
<p>Political scientists have found some evidence that media bias can push people to <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250002761/leftturn">vote for Democrats</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.122.3.1187">Republicans</a> in presidential contests. But we theorize that media influence is actually stronger in primary elections.</p>
<p>Why? </p>
<p>In a general election, most people plan to vote for their party’s candidate, meaning a <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691163635/the-gamble">large portion of the outcome is predetermined</a> and there is less room for media influence. Moreover, in a general election, both major party candidates are inherently newsworthy. There may be <a href="https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-general-election/">some discrepancies</a> in how much coverage each person gets, but the media cannot simply ignore one of them. </p>
<p>Primaries are different. </p>
<p>When candidates are from the same party, voters cannot rely on their partisanship to make a choice. Instead, they must sift through candidates within one party and learn about them. Since media have more leeway to focus on some people over others in this context, they help choose which candidates voters hear about in the first place.</p>
<p>And those choices are potentially meaningful.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577958/original/file-20240226-20-xnuftd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a white shirt, dark jacket and tie talking to a crush of reporters." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577958/original/file-20240226-20-xnuftd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577958/original/file-20240226-20-xnuftd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577958/original/file-20240226-20-xnuftd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577958/original/file-20240226-20-xnuftd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577958/original/file-20240226-20-xnuftd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577958/original/file-20240226-20-xnuftd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577958/original/file-20240226-20-xnuftd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump greets reporters in the spin room following a March 3, 2016, debate in Detroit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidate-donald-trump-greets-news-photo/513647894?adppopup=true">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Patterns of primary coverage</h2>
<p>I am a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096522000452">political scientist who researches</a> and teaches about patterns in political media, including how the press has decided which Republican primary candidates to focus on from 2012 until now. </p>
<p>A widely discussed pattern in primary coverage is called <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691163635/the-gamble">“discovery, scrutiny, decline</a>.” When a candidate says something novel, they are “discovered” and receive a burst of coverage. This attention brings momentum, making them subject to “scrutiny,” which then pushes their polling numbers back down and they “decline.” This trend is likely due to the media’s appetite for novelty. </p>
<p>The pattern <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2021.1942016">does not hold for all primaries</a>, but explains some on both the Republican and Democratic side. Additional research also confirms that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592718003274">media leads the public in this dynamic rather than vice versa</a>.</p>
<p>Here are the recent presidential primaries that demonstrate changes in the discovery, scrutiny, decline pattern and the media’s process of focusing on some Republican candidates over others. </p>
<h2>2012 – the ‘Bubble Primary’</h2>
<p>The GOP presidential primary in 2012 provides the clearest example of discovery, scrutiny, decline. Though Mitt Romney <a href="https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/republican-primary/2012/national">dominated the polls on average</a>, other candidates – such as Herman Cain and Rick Santorum – would occasionally say something noteworthy, get bursts of coverage, then face scrutiny and decline. Reporter Matthew Jaffe called this the “<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/11/the-bubble-primary-republicans-keep-finding-a-new-flavor-of-the-week/">Bubble Primary</a>,” in which a new candidate would float to the top of the pack like a bubble, pop, and then sink. </p>
<h2>2016 – Trump dominates</h2>
<p>There were muted levels of discovery, scrutiny, decline with some candidates <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2021.1942016">in the 2016 GOP primary</a>. For example, Ben Carson, a political outsider with a unique backstory, received a burst of media attention before <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/qpoll-ben-carson-republicans-donald-trump-216321">the scrutiny process kicked in</a> and he then declined in popularity. This pattern was not the central story of this cycle though. </p>
<p>Ultimately, <a href="https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-presidential-primaries/">Donald Trump got the majority of Republican news coverage</a>. His constant provocative statements meant the media kept “rediscovering” him, thereby thwarting the “decline” stage. By the end of the general election, The New York Times estimated that Trump dwarfed every other candidate and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/upshot/measuring-donald-trumps-mammoth-advantage-in-free-media.html">received nearly US$2 billion in “free media</a>,” an estimated amount a campaign would need to pay in ads rates to get comparable coverage. </p>
<p>If the magnitude of his coverage was unique, so was the effect. Whereas media attention drove sustained public curiosity for other Republican candidates – which is different from support – researchers have found that Trump’s level of coverage actually <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592718003274">increased his poll numbers</a>, which do indicate support. Trump then <a href="https://www.axios.com/2017/12/15/the-insane-news-cycle-of-trumps-presidency-in-1-chart-1513305658">dominated the news cycle into his presidency</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578007/original/file-20240226-20-oq6q1z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Five men debating each other on a stage behind lecterns." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578007/original/file-20240226-20-oq6q1z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578007/original/file-20240226-20-oq6q1z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578007/original/file-20240226-20-oq6q1z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578007/original/file-20240226-20-oq6q1z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578007/original/file-20240226-20-oq6q1z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578007/original/file-20240226-20-oq6q1z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578007/original/file-20240226-20-oq6q1z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">GOP presidential candidates, left to right, Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in a debate on Nov. 22, 2011, in Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidates-u-s-rep-ron-paul-texas-news-photo/133950841?adppopup=true">Mark Wilson/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>2020</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/06/republicans-cancel-primaries-trump-challengers-1483126">The Republican Party canceled some of its primaries in 2020</a>, allowing Trump to run virtually uncontested. </p>
<h2>2024</h2>
<p>Most of the past discovery, scrutiny, decline patterns have taken place while candidates debated and campaigned in the early primary or caucus states. The 2024 GOP primary has been different. </p>
<p>Eight Republican candidates participated in debates while Trump sat them out and focused his campaign efforts elsewhere. Though these debates generated small moments and poll bumps for some candidates – <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/12/vivek-ramaswamy-polls-rise-00110937">such as Vivek Ramaswamy</a> in August 2023 – this time period did not produce a series of clear and obvious flavors of the week. </p>
<p>Instead, prominent outlets seemed to have fixated on a – potential – Republican nominee literally years before debate season: Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, who did not declare he was running <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/ron-desantis-2024-president-election-run-announcement-twitter-rcna82291">until May 24, 2023</a>. Even though coverage of Trump became more prominent as the primary season picked up in 2023, this early selection of DeSantis is the more unusual story of American media behavior. </p>
<h2>‘Choosing’ DeSantis</h2>
<p>In the months after the 2020 election, <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2021/08/13/inside-fox-news-desantis-is-the-future-of-the-party-and-hes-taking-advantage/">Fox News asked DeSantis to appear on the network almost every day</a>. New York Times journalists suggested the network was “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/31/us/politics/desantis-media.html">promoting</a>” his inevitable campaign. </p>
<p>But the New York Times itself published a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/10/us/politics/ron-desantis-republican-trump.html">slew of articles</a> that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/02/opinion/donald-trump-ron-desantis-republican-party.html">increasingly sounded like</a> DeSantis was the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/magazine/ron-desantis.html">inevitable nominee</a>, culminating in the 2022 article “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/opinion/ron-desantis-midterms.html">Did Ron DeSantis Just Become the 2024 Republican Front Runner?</a>” </p>
<p>The New York Post in late 2022 <a href="https://nypost.com/cover/november-9-2022/">featured him on their front page</a> with the title “DeFUTURE.” Though some reporters hedged their language about DeSantis’ prospects, headlines like these are nonetheless signals to the public about a politician’s viability, which <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2669334">voters use to make decisions</a>.</p>
<p>The abnormally early focus on DeSantis could have been because he was genuinely newsworthy <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/18/politics/desantis-florida-covid-mandates/index.html">given his controversial COVID-19 policies</a>, he increased viewership or because, as one Fox producer said in an email, he is “<a href="https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2021/08/13/inside-fox-news-desantis-is-the-future-of-the-party-and-hes-taking-advantage/">the future of the party</a>.” Ultimately, the hype was premature; DeSantis <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/ron-desantis-planning-drop-presidential-bid-sunday-rcna134953">dropped out and endorsed Trump</a> before the New Hampshire primary.</p>
<h2>Trump throws a wrench</h2>
<p>What can be made of all this? </p>
<p>The media is influential in telling the public who to consider. In 2012, coverage moved in distinct cycles, leading the public to focus on certain Republicans over others. In 2016, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592718003274">Trump benefited from this attention in ways others did not</a>, allowing him to monopolize the spotlight for years and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0708-1">bond with his base</a>. </p>
<p>Trump’s dominance – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592718003274">partially a creation of the American press</a> – may have thrown a wrench into <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2021.1942016">somewhat normal patterns</a> of primary coverage, as some outlets then seemed to “discover” a new Republican candidate the moment Trump left the Oval Office. </p>
<p>Regardless of why major outlets selected DeSantis early, Trump has shown that when he is actively campaigning, he comes out on top and <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-r/2024/national/">other Republicans mostly fade into the background</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222133/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karyn Amira does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In a general election, most people will vote for their party’s candidate. But in a primary, voters rely on media coverage to help them choose among candidates. And that gives the media influence.Karyn Amira, Associate Professor of Political Science, College of CharlestonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1922402022-10-18T12:37:48Z2022-10-18T12:37:48ZWho’s the most electable candidate? The one you like<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489834/original/file-20221014-18-ais06p.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C4948%2C3276&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">GOP primary voters in 2022 often chose the Trumpiest candidate, even if they had substantial electoral vulnerabilities, as does Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters, shown here with Donald Trump.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-u-s-president-donald-trump-shakes-hands-with-news-photo/1432098229?phrase=Blake%20masters&adppopup=true">Mario Tama/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/us/politics/democrats-electability.html">Electability was a significant force motivating</a> voters in the 2022 Democratic primaries. </p>
<p>But what is it? What makes one candidate seem like they could get votes from a majority of voters while another one couldn’t? </p>
<p>Objectively, <a href="https://polisci.indiana.edu/about/faculty/hershey-marjorie.html">political scientists like myself</a> have done a lot of research on what types of candidates win and lose. We find that moderate candidates tend to win general elections more often than <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055418000023">far-left or far-right candidates</a> do. Despite the widespread assumption that women are less electable than men, research shows that <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2022-women-candidates-data/">women candidates are at least as likely to succeed as men</a>. That was true in 2018 and 2020, as well as in 2022 primaries for Congress and governor. It’s especially likely when an election year is dominated by scandal, because <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/09/20/2-views-on-leadership-traits-and-competencies-and-how-they-intersect-with-gender/">women are stereotypically viewed</a> as more honest than men. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318972/original/file-20200305-106568-1dqea25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318972/original/file-20200305-106568-1dqea25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318972/original/file-20200305-106568-1dqea25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318972/original/file-20200305-106568-1dqea25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318972/original/file-20200305-106568-1dqea25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318972/original/file-20200305-106568-1dqea25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318972/original/file-20200305-106568-1dqea25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318972/original/file-20200305-106568-1dqea25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Women are stereotypically viewed as more honest than men. Pictured here, an Amy Klobuchar supporter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woman-wears-various-political-pins-during-democratic-news-photo/1205632339?adppopup=true">Getty/Scott Eisen</a></span>
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<p>In legislatures, incumbents probably have a better chance of getting caught at inappropriate texting than they are of losing renomination in their primary or failing to win. And we know that when incumbents do lose, it’s because their challengers <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538123416/The-Politics-of-Congressional-Elections-Tenth-Edition">surpassed the fundraising threshold</a> that could match the incumbent’s advantages in media coverage, name recognition and other factors, no matter how much the incumbent spent. </p>
<h2>Primaries can upend the rules</h2>
<p>Of course in general elections, the candidate’s party label is the single major determinant of electability. Most election districts are now dominated by one party, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/153244000400400406">in large part due to gerrymandering</a>. So the dominant party’s candidate is usually assured of winning.</p>
<p>Note the “usually.” </p>
<p>At times, electability in a primary can make a candidate less electable in the general election. Republican Senate primaries offered some interesting examples in 2022. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/08/us/politics/senate-midterm-elections.html">The U.S. Senate is a major battleground in the 2022 midterms</a> because it is currently divided: 50 Democrats, 50 Republicans. Because the <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/What_happens_if_U.S._Senate_party_control_is_split_50-50">vice president casts the deciding vote when there’s a tie</a> in the Senate, Democrats currently control that body because the current vice president is a Democrat. But if Republicans can gain a net of at least one Senate seat in 2022, the Senate will be under Republican control.</p>
<p>Yet in primary elections in several states, Republican primary voters selected the Senate candidate with arguably the weakest chance of winning or holding that seat: think of <a href="https://theconversation.com/dr-oz-should-be-worried-voters-punish-carpetbaggers-and-new-research-shows-why-188569">Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, a longtime New Jersey resident</a> who only recently moved to Pennsylvania; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/28/us/politics/blake-masters-arizona-senate.html">Blake Masters in Arizona</a>, who has raised only one-tenth the funding of his opponent; and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/10/04/1126692026/herschel-walker-rejects-abortion-report-georgia-republican">Herschel Walker in Georgia, an anti-abortion candidate</a> who allegedly paid for his girlfriend’s abortion.</p>
<p>The reason these relatively weak candidates emerged victorious in Republican primaries is that those who turn out to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0894439315595483">vote in primaries tend to be partisan stalwarts</a>: those with the most deeply held views. In <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/08/03/donald-trump-primaries-control-gop/10222402002/">Republican primaries in 2022, pro-Donald Trump partisans were a major force</a>, and voters often chose the Trumpiest candidate, even if he or she had substantial personal, fundraising or electoral vulnerabilities.</p>
<h2>Looking at polls, money and mirrors</h2>
<p>One way to gauge electability before an election is to look at fundraising data and polls. Early in a campaign, though, poll data often says more about a candidate’s name recognition than his or her public support. </p>
<p>Yet, many people are convinced that regardless of these indicators, the candidate they like better – or dislike the least – will win the election. That was true of many <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-polls/how-the-polls-including-ours-missed-trumps-victory-idUSKBN1343O6">Hillary Clinton supporters in 2016</a>, who simply couldn’t accept that Trump could become president, and of many Trump supporters in 2020, who felt the same about Joe Biden, and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-supporters-election-fraud-belief/">continued to feel that way after the votes were counted</a>. </p>
<p>This is bolstered by “confirmation bias,” or the tendency to seek out and remember bits of information <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00214.x">that confirm your existing opinions</a>. This tendency is nothing new. </p>
<p>In 1964, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1953052">supporters of conservative Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater</a> believed that their man was destined to win because an invisible – except to them – conservative majority would emerge on Election Day. Goldwater lost in a landslide.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318974/original/file-20200305-106610-1ta358j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318974/original/file-20200305-106610-1ta358j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318974/original/file-20200305-106610-1ta358j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318974/original/file-20200305-106610-1ta358j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318974/original/file-20200305-106610-1ta358j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318974/original/file-20200305-106610-1ta358j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318974/original/file-20200305-106610-1ta358j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318974/original/file-20200305-106610-1ta358j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater’s supporters thought he’d win when an invisible army of conservatives would emerge on Election Day. They didn’t.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/barry-goldwater-supporters-holding-a-sign-at-the-republican-news-photo/641760092?adppopup=true">Mickey Senko/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That tendency is even stronger today. Many intense partisans assume that most other citizens agree with their point of view and will step up to the polls given the proper encouragement. The number of partisans who place themselves in news silos – who limit themselves to news sources that share their point of view – has become more possible because of the rise in news sources <a href="https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mprior/files/prior2005.news_v_entertainment.ajps-3.pdf">catering to one partisan or ideological perspective</a>, such as Fox News or MSNBC.</p>
<h2>Wishful thinking</h2>
<p>The problem with this kind of thinking about electability – that there’s an army of nonvoters who will rush to the polls to support your own values – is the lack of evidence.</p>
<p><a href="https://the100million.org/">A large recent survey</a> showed that nonvoters don’t differ much from voters, other than in their lack of engagement with politics. </p>
<p>“Nonvoters are also far less progressive than is commonly believed,” <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/truth-about-non-voters/607051/">wrote Yascha Mounk in The Atlantic</a>. “A clear majority of them consider themselves either moderate or conservative; only one in five say that they are liberal.” </p>
<p>Democrats often hope that <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Party-Politics-in-America-17th-Edition/Hershey/p/book/9781138683686">young people, who lean Democratic</a>, will finally decide to vote in large numbers, unlike previous voters of their generation. But even in <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/change-and-continuity-in-the-2016-and-2018-elections/oclc/1085592473">the high-turnout midterm elections of 2018</a>, people under 30 voted at much lower rates than people over 65. </p>
<p>Who then, is an electable candidate?</p>
<p>For most primary voters, the most electable candidate is whichever one that voter favors. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-candidate-you-like-is-the-one-you-think-is-most-electable-132647">of a story originally published</a> on March 9, 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192240/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marjorie Hershey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Voters trust their gut when they decide who an electable candidate is or isn’t. That may be a bad idea.Marjorie Hershey, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1829102022-06-08T04:19:02Z2022-06-08T04:19:02ZPrimaries are getting more crowded with candidates, and that’s good news for extremists and bad news for voters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467583/original/file-20220607-13060-47atj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C26%2C5854%2C3894&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nine of the 48 candidates for Alaska's lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives participate in a debate on May 12, 2022, at the Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center in Anchorage. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Loren Holmes / ADN</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As they head to the polls to cast a ballot in primaries, voters may find themselves staring at a long list of candidates. In most cases, these primaries are winner-take-all. Whoever gets the most votes will represent their party in November. </p>
<p>There were seven candidates on the GOP primary ballot in <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/June_7,_2022,_election_results#New_Jersey">New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District</a> on June 7, 2022. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/06/07/us/elections/results-new-jersey-us-house-district-7.html">Thomas Kean Jr. had 45.9% of the vote</a> with 80% of ballots counted when the Associated Press declared him the winner. In Montana, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/June_7,_2022,_election_results#Montana">five candidates competed in the June 7 GOP primary</a> in the 1st Congressional District. With 78% of the ballots counted, Ryan Zinke was leading with 41.4% of votes and Al Olszewski had 40%. </p>
<p>There was a difference this year from primaries just a decade ago: <a href="https://electionscience.org/commentary-analysis/no-one-guarding-the-house-the-implications-of-increasingly-crowded-u-s-congressional-primaries/">Data from the Center for Election Science</a>, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on voting reform, indicates that in contested primaries, the number of candidates has been rising since 2010. That growth has important implications about the quality of the candidates and the views they represent.</p>
<p>Each additional candidate who gets votes lowers the number of votes needed to secure a nomination. The outcomes of primaries with many candidates are <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/30026328">unpredictable</a> and may result in extreme, inexperienced or controversial nominees who may not truly represent a majority of voters. And a fringe candidate winning the primary and advancing to the general election can mean a risky candidate for their party.</p>
<p><iframe id="la0Lx" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/la0Lx/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Flooded field</h2>
<p>The average contested primary for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives <a href="https://electionscience.org/commentary-analysis/no-one-guarding-the-house-the-implications-of-increasingly-crowded-u-s-congressional-primaries/">grew</a> from 5.2 candidates in 2010 to 7.3 candidates in 2020. This flooding of the field can be attributed to several <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/554625-democrats-gop-face-crowded-primaries-as-party-leaders-lose-control/">factors</a>, including the role of technology: Getting on the ballot is relatively easy, and candidates can promote themselves and solicit funds via social media.</p>
<p>As a political scientist in Missouri, I’ve been closely following this crowding of the field <a href="https://www.ozarksfirst.com/local-news/ozarks-politics/missouri-gop-split-on-who-to-support-in-us-senate-race/">in our U.S. Senate race</a>. Here, the GOP is reckoning with the presence of <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/25/former-governor-greitens-maga-warrior-senate-bid-517051">disgraced former governor Eric Greitens</a> in a packed primary field of <a href="https://s1.sos.mo.gov/candidatesonweb/DisplayCandidatesPlacement.aspx">21 candidates</a>. </p>
<p>The crowding of fields is not limited to congressional candidates. The GOP presidential primary in 2016 featured <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-republican-field-dwindled-from-17-to-donald-trump/">17 candidates</a>, while the Democrats fielded <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/us/politics/2020-presidential-candidates.html">28 presidential candidates</a> in 2020. </p>
<p>While the field began to clear for Joe Biden following February 2020’s South Carolina primary, eight months before the general election, Donald Trump won primaries well into March 2016 while <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/primaries/missouri">hovering around 40%</a> of the vote.</p>
<p>These crowded fields don’t always lead to the kind of results that prompt fear among party leaders of a general election disaster. For example, scandal-plagued Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, who <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/madison-cawthorns-icarus-moment">failed to get the support of mainstream Republicans</a> in the primary race, was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/17/us/elections/results-north-carolina-us-house-district-11.html">ousted</a> after losing to a candidate who won 33.4% of the vote in an eight-person field.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467494/original/file-20220607-24-ryi19z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Ten people standing on stage behind illuminated lecterns." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467494/original/file-20220607-24-ryi19z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467494/original/file-20220607-24-ryi19z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467494/original/file-20220607-24-ryi19z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467494/original/file-20220607-24-ryi19z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467494/original/file-20220607-24-ryi19z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467494/original/file-20220607-24-ryi19z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467494/original/file-20220607-24-ryi19z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the 2020 presidential primaries, the Democrats began the season with 28 candidates. By July 31, 2019, at a debate in Detroit, there were 10 candidates.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2020DemocratsDebate/cd7ea637af8d487799af4f6249209c44/photo?Query=Democrats%20presidential%20primary%20debate%202020&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=490&currentItemNo=107">AP Photo/Paul Sancya</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Competitive versus safe seats</h2>
<p>Being an ideologically extreme candidate <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0894439315595483">can be an advantage</a> in partisan primaries. Although there is some dispute in political science as to how representative party primary voters are of their parties, there is no debating that they are ideologically polarized subsets of the general electorate.</p>
<p>Candidate crowding in partisan primaries is more <a href="https://electionscience.org/commentary-analysis/no-one-guarding-the-house-the-implications-of-increasingly-crowded-u-s-congressional-primaries/">likely to happen</a> in seats where the primary is the only true contest in the election. In these districts, it is a virtual certainty that one party’s nominee will win the general if they can survive the primary. Victorious primary candidates can often walk to a general election victory after winning a third or less of the primary vote.</p>
<p>This happened in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/03/us/politics/michigan-primary-rashida-tlaib-brenda-jones.html">Michigan’s 13th Congressional District</a> in 2018. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/conyers-wont-seek-reelection-following-harassment-allegations-report-says/2017/12/05/17057ea0-d9bb-11e7-a841-2066faf731ef_story.html">Incumbent Rep. John Conyers had resigned</a>. A primary election was being held for a Democrat to seek to finish out his term. At the same time, the Democratic candidate to run for a full term in Congress was also being elected. </p>
<p>Both races included Democrats Rashida Tlaib and Brenda Jones, among other candidates. Moderate Jones won the four-way race to compete for the remainder of Conyers’ term. Tlaib, currently a member of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/15/politics/who-are-the-squad/index.html">the left-wing “Squad,</a>” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/07/us/elections/results-michigan-primary-elections.html">won the six-way race</a> to become the nominee for the full term. The presence of two additional candidates who were not close to winning had seemingly flipped the results.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A sample ballot for the US House primary, showing names of the 48 candidates in Alaska, with" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467581/original/file-20220607-15494-r11t50.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C1%2C247%2C320&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467581/original/file-20220607-15494-r11t50.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467581/original/file-20220607-15494-r11t50.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467581/original/file-20220607-15494-r11t50.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467581/original/file-20220607-15494-r11t50.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467581/original/file-20220607-15494-r11t50.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467581/original/file-20220607-15494-r11t50.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sample ballot in the June 2022 primary election to fill Alaska’s one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/ak_elections/status/1519813218616578048?s=20&t=KlThj2ZIKAZdaVpsGRThqQ">Alaska Division of Elections Twitter account</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>National political party organizations may try to steer voters and clear the primary field in competitive districts, but candidates are often left to their own devices <a href="https://electionscience.org/commentary-analysis/no-one-guarding-the-house-the-implications-of-increasingly-crowded-u-s-congressional-primaries/">in safe seats</a>. National and state parties would prefer to focus on competitive races than ones in which their side will likely win regardless of the nominee.</p>
<p>Where ideological extremists run in competitive districts and win the primary, it can present a different problem. The extremist’s party can be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055414000641">damaged</a> by their candidacy with a lower vote share in the general election.</p>
<h2>‘Extreme, inexperienced or controversial’</h2>
<p>Several primaries in recent memory have followed the pattern of elevating extreme, inexperienced or controversial primary candidates into party nominees. </p>
<p>In the special election Democratic primary for Florida’s safely Democratic 20th congressional district in November 2021, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick won by just <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/11/02/us/elections/results-florida-20-special-primary.html">five votes</a>. Cherfilus-McCormick, who had never held elected office before, won 23.8% of the vote in a field with 10 other candidates after <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ne-florida-congress-candidate-millions-sheila-cherfilus-mccormick-20210731-2rh6jniulfexpa37ioi556fztu-story.html">spending millions</a> of her own money on the campaign. She won the general election.</p>
<p>This year, in the GOP House primary in Ohio’s 9th congressional district, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/03/us/elections/results-ohio-us-house-district-9.html">J.R. Majewski won with 35.8% of the vote</a>. Majewski, a proponent of the <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jr-majewski-republican-nomination-ohio-qanon-1350624/">QAnon</a> conspiracy theory who has never held political office, defeated two state legislators in the primary.</p>
<p>In the GOP House primary in North Carolina’s 1st congressional district, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/sandy-smith-domestic-abuse-north-carolina-primary-1355236/">election conspiracy theorist</a> Sandy Smith won the primary with 31.4% of the vote, defeating seven other candidates. One of her GOP competitors dug up <a href="https://restorationnewsmedia.com/enterprise/news/sandy-smith-denies-domestic-violence-claims-in-heated-gop-congressional-primary-536359">allegations of abuse</a> against Smith by multiple ex-husbands and her daughter. She has denied them.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467496/original/file-20220607-26-75ygzd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="In a campaign website photo, a woman wearing goggles and ear protectors holds a gun." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467496/original/file-20220607-26-75ygzd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467496/original/file-20220607-26-75ygzd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467496/original/file-20220607-26-75ygzd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467496/original/file-20220607-26-75ygzd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=294&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467496/original/file-20220607-26-75ygzd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467496/original/file-20220607-26-75ygzd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467496/original/file-20220607-26-75ygzd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the GOP House primary in North Carolina’s 1st congressional district, election conspiracy theorist Sandy Smith, pictured here on her website, won the primary with 31.4% of the vote, defeating seven other candidates.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://sandysmithnc.com/">Sandy Smith for Congress website</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In perhaps the most extreme example of a crowded primary field, the nonpartisan special primary election to replace Rep. Don Young in Alaska asks voters to wade through <a href="https://www.adn.com/politics/2022/04/04/alaskas-us-house-race-includes-48-candidates-and-a-lot-of-uncertainty/">48 candidates</a>, ranging from Sarah Palin to Santa Claus. Yes, <a href="https://thehill.com/news/state-watch/3275609-santa-claus-is-coming-to-congress/">Santa Claus</a>. While ranked-choice voting in the general election might lead to a consensus choice, the wide-open primary has led to questions from voters about how to ensure they’ll have one of their top choices make it <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/05/alaska-struggles-with-its-weird-new-election-system.html">to that stage</a>.</p>
<h2>‘Nothing approaching a majority’</h2>
<p>While the quality of a candidate is in the eye of the beholder to some extent, the pattern here is political newcomers, often with strong ideological views, winning their parties’ nominations with nothing approaching a majority.</p>
<p>On one hand, contested primaries can be symbolic of a vibrant democracy. They can indicate that candidates want to get involved and are able to do so. They offer multiple perspectives for voters. </p>
<p>On the other hand, these crowded fields can make choosing more difficult for voters. They have to make decisions with little knowledge of how other like-minded voters will vote. Strategic support for a specific candidate can be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/05/dc-election-ranked-choice-voting-at-large/">hard to coordinate</a>.</p>
<p>With votes split among multiple candidates, a candidate may win with a small plurality while being disliked by, or disconnected from, the larger primary electorate.</p>
<p><a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Runoff_election">Runoff elections that exist in many Southern primaries</a> and <a href="https://legislature.maine.gov/lawlibrary/ranked-choice-voting-in-maine/9509#:%7E:text=On%20November%208%2C%202016%20Maine,enacted%20as%20IB%202015%2C%20c.">ranked-choice voting in Maine</a> can help in requiring candidates to meet a certain threshold of support. In the majority of states, however, 2022 will provide, I believe, countless examples in which primaries are akin to what political scientist Henry E. Brady described as “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23317857">poorly designed lotteries</a>.” With lots of candidates on the ballot, the winners of those lotteries may not be the voters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182910/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Harris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The number of candidates running in party primaries has ballooned since 2010. That may result in extreme, inexperienced or controversial nominees who do not represent a majority of voters.Matt Harris, Assistant Professor, Political Science, Park UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1834162022-05-18T20:27:49Z2022-05-18T20:27:49ZAppealing to Trump (and his base) might have worked in Pennsylvania primaries – but it won’t play so well in the midterms<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464079/original/file-20220518-17-6nn6jw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C54%2C4524%2C2968&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The doctor is in ... with Trump, at least.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2022SenatePennsylvania/24762581aa57440d924d43859f4125bb/photo?Query=trump%20oz&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=32&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Gene J. Puska</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/17/us/elections/results-pennsylvania-us-senate.html">Pennsylvania primaries</a> of May 17, 2022, proved a good night for Donald Trump, a better one for “Trumpism” and a problem for moderates hoping for a candidate primed to capture the center in the upcoming midterms. </p>
<p>Trump’s officially endorsed Senate candidate, Mehmet Oz, is <a href="https://www.wgal.com/article/automatic-recount-pennsylvania-primary-dave-mccormick-dr-oz/40033116">currently in a tight race</a> with main GOP rival David McCormick – with the balloting set for a recount.</p>
<p>Both ran their primary campaign as Trumpist candidates and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/david-mccormick-donald-trump-endorsement-mehmet-oz/">vied for the former president’s nod</a>. Meanwhile, third place in the GOP race went to Kathy Barnette, a Fox News commentator who touts herself as <a href="https://time.com/6177232/kathy-barnette-pennsylvania-senate-republican-primary/">more MAGA than Trump</a>. </p>
<p>The fact that all three leading GOP candidates had the DNA of Trumpism in them suggests a couple of things. First, it indicates that echoing the policies, rhetorical style and personality of the former president can be an effective tool for Republican candidates seeking to appeal to the party base. And this is especially important in a <a href="https://www.fairvote.org/open_and_closed_primaries">closed-primary state</a> such as Pennsylvania, in which only party members have a say in who gets to run for Senate. </p>
<p>And second, it raises a question about the tried-and-tested plan of candidates’ appealing to the party base in the primary before pivoting closer to the center in the general election: Will that post-primary transformation be possible for Republicans in Pennsylvania – and elsewhere – in 2022?</p>
<h2>All local politics is national</h2>
<p>The Pennsylvania primary proved that the adage that “<a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/all-politics-is-local-the-debate-and-the-graphs/">all politics is local</a>” has to some degree been inverted: Local and state elections are now run on national issues and are influenced by national figures.</p>
<p>But whereas a Trump endorsement in the recent Ohio primary <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/jd-vance-poll-donald-trump-b2066919.html">resulted in an immediate surge</a> for his anointed candidate, J.D. Vance, Pennsylvania didn’t quite play out the same way.</p>
<p>Oz’s chance of winning was certainly <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/16/trump-oz-pennsylvania-senate-00032900">not harmed by getting Trump’s stamp of approval</a>. But he didn’t seem to take many votes off McCormick or Barnette in the process. In fact, some see Barnette <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/13/us/elections/kathy-barnette-pennsylvania-senate.html">faring better than expected</a> because Trump supporters decided to vote for her as “the more Trump” candidate, over Oz as the “official” Trump candidate. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Trump’s endorsement actually meant very little for Doug Mastriano, who won the state’s GOP primary for governor. Mastriano – an avidly Trumpian candidate who repeats the former president’s election conspiracy theories – was already <a href="https://www.wgal.com/article/franklin-and-marshall-poll-may-2022-pennsylvania-primary/39914699#">pulling ahead</a> by the time Trump made a late nod of approval in his favor.</p>
<p>The point is, whether these Republican candidates are seen as being faithful to Trump’s signature MAGA cause is what matters when it comes to winning in these primaries.</p>
<p>But here’s the rub for Republicans. That may work well enough in firing up the base during primary season, but it complicates the pivot to running against Democrats – and appealing to more moderate voters – in the midterm election. A candidate like Mastriano will have to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/far-right-election-denier-mastriano-wins-gop-race-governor-pennsylvani-rcna29136">defend positions like</a> a total ban on abortion, reversal of support for mail-in voting and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. </p>
<p>Pennsylvania is seen as a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/17/seven-states-decide-senate-control-00032881">toss-up state</a> when it comes to the Senate vote. In such circumstances, appealing to the center becomes more important – party faithful tend to be locked in; swing voters are up for grabs.</p>
<p>Any GOP candidate who hitches his or her wagon to Trumpian policies and rhetoric may find it harder to appeal to centrists – and may actually alienate some moderate Republicans.</p>
<h2>Circling back to the center</h2>
<p>A similar dynamic played out in Pennsylvania in the Democratic primary race for Senate, but with success found by positioning policies to the left of the center. One of the more progressive candidates, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/17/john-fetterman-pennsylvania-primary/">prevailed against</a> the moderate Rep. Conor Lamb. </p>
<p>But even so, Fetterman has, I believe, more room to maneuver come the general election. Fetterman has experience running for – and winning – a statewide office before. Moreover, he has carefully cultivated an “everyman” image, which could play well against either Oz or hedge fund CEO McCormick. Even so, he will have to defend more progressive positions that could also turn off moderate Republicans. </p>
<p>Success in the Pennsylvania primaries came to those candidates able to position themselves away from the center and more in line with the party’s ideological extreme. But it is the Republican candidate, in vying against others for Trump’s blessing as well as his base, who might find it more difficult to circle back to the center during the midterms.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183416/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel J. Mallinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The three leading candidates in the GOP Senate primary race in Pennsylvania all hitched their wagons to Trump. But will that make it harder for the Republican winner to win the center come the fall?Daniel J. Mallinson, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Administration, School of Public Affairs, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1734322021-12-13T15:21:32Z2021-12-13T15:21:32ZNigeria’s legislature wants political party members to elect leaders directly. But is it constitutional?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436944/original/file-20211210-25-10yh8q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A delegate gets accredited during the last All Progressives Congress presidential primary</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/delegate-gets-accredited-for-the-opposition-all-news-photo/460297948?adppopup=true">Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Nigeria’s National Assembly has <a href="https://tribuneonlineng.com/electoral-act-nass-adopts-direct-primaries-transmission-of-election-results-electronically/">adopted</a> legislation that allows direct primaries – where all party members and not just delegates will vote in political parties’ primaries to choose candidates for elections. But President Muhammadu Buhari is yet to assent to the <a href="https://www.channelstv.com/2021/10/12/breakdown-of-senates-amendments-to-electoral-act/">Electoral Act No. 6, 2010 (Repeal and Re-enactment) Bill 2021</a>. Though the Independent National Electoral Commission has endorsed other aspects of the bill, it <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/499679-exclusive-inec-replies-presidency-endorses-electoral-bill.html">suggested</a> that the president consult with political parties over the controversial direct primaries provision. The Conversation Africa’s Wale Fatade asked public law expert Akinola Akintayo to explain the issues.</em></p>
<p><strong>Are direct primaries consistent with the constitution?</strong></p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2021/11/sdp-to-national-assembly-dont-lord-direct-primaries-on-political-parties-its-unprogressive-act-agunloye/">politicians</a> have voiced <a href="https://www.thecable.ng/no-party-should-impose-its-processes-on-another-pdp-kicks-against-direct-primaries">their opposition</a>. They are worried because the adoption is a direct fallout of happenings in the ruling All Progressives Congress party over selection of candidates for the 2023 general elections. The ruling party is the majority party in the National Assembly. </p>
<p>There are four grounds on which the National Assembly can directly regulate political parties. You can find them in <a href="https://www.lawhub.com.ng/section-221-229/">Sections 221 to 229</a> of the constitution. These are specific provisions in the constitution that deal with regulation of political parties. </p>
<p>The first ground is the provision that the National Assembly can make laws to provide for the punishment of persons who violate specific provisions of the constitution with respect to the formation and operation of political parties. </p>
<p>This is in relation to those who carry on political party activities without registering or without complying with the provisions of the constitution. It also speaks to receiving or retention by political parties of funding from outside the country. This is prohibited and all funds received from abroad must be turned over to the electoral commission within 21 days of such receipt. </p>
<p>The second ground is the authority of the National Assembly to make laws disqualifying anyone found to have aided or assisted political parties to receive or retain funding from overseas. </p>
<p>The third ground is the authority to make laws providing for annual grants to be disbursed to political parties by the electoral commission. The fourth ground is the authority to confer necessary and incidental powers on the commission to perform its functions. </p>
<p>Those provisions and others do not give the National Assembly the power to regulate the primaries of political parties. The constitution doesn’t allow the National Assembly to force political parties to elect candidates this way. The National Assembly may have reasons for adopting direct primaries, but it is inconsistent with the constitution.</p>
<p><strong>Why do you think the National Assembly wants direct primaries?</strong></p>
<p>It is something we knew might come, considering what happened during the presidential primaries in 2018. Contestants <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/10/dollar-rains-at-port-harcourt-pdp-presidential-primaries-2018/">allegedly</a> spent millions of dollars to bribe delegates. Any serious legislative body will want to do something about that because it has a trickle down effect on the integrity of the political process and those who emerge as winners. The integrity and sanctity of democracy serve as a barometer of governance in the country. </p>
<p>I think this initiative is a bid to curb the excesses of politicians. That is not to say that the ruling party may not have its own agenda, especially against the background of the <a href="https://thenationonlineng.net/direct-primary-governors-national-assembly-clash/">disagreement</a> between state governors and National Assembly members on how to select candidates for elections. </p>
<p><strong>What could be done to make the political parties more democratic?</strong></p>
<p>The things that brought us here are the very serious poverty level in the country, the desperation of ordinary Nigerians for survival, lack of education, and political lethargy, among others. People don’t care, they just want to feed themselves and do their stuff and have generally given up on governance and politics. We can see this in <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/451955-voter-apathy-nigerian-legislative-election-witnesses-3-turnout.html">low voter turnout</a> in recent elections. But there is a lot we can do. </p>
<p>We need to start empowering the people. I don’t mean the political class but the citizens. So that when it is time for elections, you can reject that small bag of rice and cash regularly doled out to induce voters. That is economic empowerment. </p>
<p>Legally speaking, maybe the National Assembly can empower the electoral commission to properly monitor the internal processes of political parties. They do at present but that mechanism can be strengthened. </p>
<p>But I think it goes beyond the law. People must be empowered economically to be self sufficient and thereby more altruistic. Politicians too must put citizens’ interests ahead of their own in their political dealings. Citizens must be enlightened on the importance of their contributions to the democratic process. </p>
<p>If the president assents to the bill, the innovation becomes law, pending the time it is challenged and overturned or affirmed by the courts as unconstitutional or constitutional. </p>
<p>If the president refuses assent, the innovation is at an end unless the National Assembly overrides the president’s veto by passing the bill again by two-thirds majority of members of both houses of the National Assembly at a joint sitting.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173432/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Akinola Akintayo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nigeria’s legislators have no constitutional right to force political parties to adopt direct primaries.Akinola Akintayo, Senior Lecturer and Legal Consultant, University of LagosLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1478302020-10-16T11:01:13Z2020-10-16T11:01:13ZJudges used to stay out of election disputes, but this year lawsuits could well decide the presidency<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363556/original/file-20201014-19-ll7a48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C3000%2C1989&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A poll worker places vote-by-mail ballots into a ballot box set up at the Miami-Dade Election Department headquarters on Oct. 14, 2020 in Doral, Fla.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/poll-workers-places-vote-by-mail-ballots-into-a-ballot-box-news-photo/1280201205">Joe Raedle/Getty Images News via Getty</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Throughout American history judges have generally <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6366&context=ylj">tried</a> to avoid getting involved in political questions, including litigation about elections. They followed Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter’s famous <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/328/549">advice</a> to avoid “embroilment” in “the political thicket” of “party contests and party interests.”</p>
<p>This tradition began to <a href="http://www.electionlawissues.org/video-modules/basics-of-election-litigation">erode</a> in the 1960s, when courts took up cases involving <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/redistricting/redistricting-and-the-supreme-court-the-most-significant-cases.aspx">legislative redistricting and gerrymandering</a>. And since the Supreme Court’s 2000 <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/531/98/#tab-opinion-1960861">Bush v. Gore</a> decision, which effectively decided that year’s presidential election, political parties have increasingly turned to the courts in search of electoral advantage.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363521/original/file-20201014-23-w4nyla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A portrait of Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363521/original/file-20201014-23-w4nyla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363521/original/file-20201014-23-w4nyla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363521/original/file-20201014-23-w4nyla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363521/original/file-20201014-23-w4nyla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363521/original/file-20201014-23-w4nyla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363521/original/file-20201014-23-w4nyla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363521/original/file-20201014-23-w4nyla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Courts ought not enter ‘the political thicket,’ Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter cautioned.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.93.388.11">National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Prior to 2000, an average of 96 election law cases <a href="http://www.electionlawissues.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/5411/el-mod1slides.pdf">were</a> brought every year in state and federal courts. By 2004, that average jumped to 254, most of them filed at the state level.</p>
<p>This year, the <a href="https://healthyelections-case-tracker.stanford.edu/">Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project reports</a> that as of Oct. 15, 365 such cases have been filed in 44 states.</p>
<p>Many of those cases arise from state efforts to respond to the difficulties of campaigning and voting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Democrats generally have supported efforts to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/12/873878423/voting-and-elections-divide-republicans-and-democrats-like-little-else-heres-why">making voting easier</a>, such as in Michigan, where they <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-michigan/michigan-court-rules-that-late-arriving-ballots-must-be-counted-idUSKBN2692II">were successful</a> in getting the courts to extend the period during which late-arriving mail ballots could be legally counted. Republicans generally have opposed those efforts.</p>
<h2>When the voting happens</h2>
<p>This year’s election-related litigation began to emerge in the spring as states tried to cope with the pandemic’s first wave during the political primary season. </p>
<p>Those cases fell into two major categories. Some were filed to try to change the date when people voted in presidential primaries. Others focused on how people voted in those primaries and the general election.</p>
<p>Sixteen states <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/2020-campaign-primary-calendar-coronavirus.html">changed</a> the dates of their primaries, and most did so without resorting to litigation. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, some states faced lawsuits over the timing of presidential primaries, filed by political candidates and public officials, including in New York and Wisconsin. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363546/original/file-20201014-21-1nnf1az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A picture of Andrew Yang speaking into a microphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363546/original/file-20201014-21-1nnf1az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363546/original/file-20201014-21-1nnf1az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363546/original/file-20201014-21-1nnf1az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363546/original/file-20201014-21-1nnf1az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363546/original/file-20201014-21-1nnf1az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363546/original/file-20201014-21-1nnf1az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363546/original/file-20201014-21-1nnf1az.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang was involved in election-related litigation regarding the Democratic presidential primary in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/democratic-presidential-candidate-andrew-yang-speaks-during-news-photo/1204313086">Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In April, Andrew Yang, then a Democratic presidential candidate, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6879404-Complaint-Yang-Et-Al-v-NYS-BOE.html">sued</a> the New York State Board of Elections after it effectively canceled the Democratic presidential primary. He argued that doing so was illegal since he already had met the requirements for having his name to appear on the ballot. One month after the suit was filed, a judge agreed with Yang and <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/f/?id=00000171-e73b-d2fd-a9f5-e73ba1430000">ordered</a> the state to proceed with its presidential primary.</p>
<p>Wisconsin proved to be a particularly fertile ground for litigation over its April primary. In one case, the Wisconsin legislature prevailed in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/wisconsin-supreme-court-order-blocking-gov-evers-s-executive-order-seeking-to-postpone-in-person-voting-in-tuesday-s-elections/8b825494-999b-4fd9-bd03-0c67daa3d3e2/?itid=lk_inline_manual_1">challenging</a> the governor’s executive order postponing in-person voting.</p>
<p>In another Wisconsin case, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Republican National Committee and the state party when it <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/06/politics/read-supreme-court-decision-on-wisconsin-primary-election/index.html">blocked</a> a plan to extend the period to return absentee ballots in the primary election.</p>
<h2>How the voting happens</h2>
<p>In cases concerning the ways people could vote, Democrats in Kansas <a href="https://hayspost.com/posts/2f25f992-e93c-410d-b2d0-95d7930798e5">sued</a> to force Secretary of State Scott Schwab to implement a law permitting voters to cast ballots from any polling station within their home county. Schwab argued that the complexity of developing necessary administrative regulations prevented him from doing do so in time for this year’s election.</p>
<p>A state court judge dismissed the suit but said that county officials could, if they wished, implement the Kansas <a href="https://www.kake.com/story/40318191/new-kansas-law-would-let-you-vote-anywhere-in-your-county-on-election-day">Vote Anywhere Act</a> on their own without waiting for the state to act.</p>
<p>In Ohio, a federal judge also <a href="https://www.jurist.org/news/2020/04/ohio-requests-a-federal-judge-dismiss-a-lawsuit-against-the-state-for-the-new-primary-election-vote-policy/">dismissed</a> an American Civil Liberties Union suit seeking to extend the deadline for absentee voting for the state’s presidential primary and move from in-person to universal mail balloting. The plaintiffs claimed that the state’s inefficient absentee-voting system would disenfranchise people through no fault of their own unless the deadline was changed and that in-person voting during the pandemic would pose a health risk.</p>
<h2>Focus on mail-in ballots</h2>
<p>Many of this year’s election-related cases <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/court-cases/voting-rights-litigation-2020">have focused</a> specifically on mail-in ballots. This is not surprising given President Donald Trump’s well-publicized <a href="https://theconversation.com/research-on-voting-by-mail-says-its-safe-from-fraud-and-disease-141847">but baseless</a> <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/08/28/906676695/ignoring-fbi-and-fellow-republicans-trump-continues-assault-on-mail-in-voting">attacks</a> on voting by mail.</p>
<p>Some of this litigation has been brought to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-voting-state-elections-lawsuits-7104cfbeb854710ebe7ff9528560249a">expand</a> opportunities to cast that kind of ballot or to ease the requirements for doing so. Other cases have been <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/election-2020/ct-nw-2020-ballot-witness-notary-public-requirement-20200925-sg4n6sf6prd5hetrzl6iqml25a-story.html">filed</a> by groups opposing such changes and raising concerns about voter fraud.</p>
<p>Recent rulings in some of those cases have made voting by mail more difficult; others have made it easier.</p>
<p>In the first category, the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20a55_dc8e.pdf">ruled</a> on Oct. 5 that South Carolina could require people voting by mail to have another person sign their ballot as a witness. However, over the objection of Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, the court declined to invalidate the more than 20,000 ballots that had been cast prior to its ruling.</p>
<p>Three days later, in a victory for Wisconsin’s Republican Party, a federal appeals court <a href="https://www.wpr.org/federal-court-blocks-extension-wisconsin-absentee-ballot-deadline">upheld</a> that state’s requirement that in order to be counted, mail-in ballots must be in the hands of election officials by 8 p.m. on Election Day.</p>
<p>But, also on October 8, Justice Elena Kagan <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/08/politics/supreme-court-mail-in-ballots-montana/index.html">turned down</a> a request from Montana Republicans to block some counties from proactively mailing ballots to voters starting the next day.</p>
<p>In another victory for supporters of mail balloting, a federal judge in Pennsylvania <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pennsylvania-trump-lawsuit-voting/2020/10/10/44c16ba6-0b2c-11eb-859b-f9c27abe638d_story.html">dismissed</a> a lawsuit filed by the Trump campaign seeking, among other things, to block the use of drop boxes as receptacles for mail ballots. </p>
<h2>Full employment for election lawyers</h2>
<p>November 3 is <a href="https://prospect.org/justice/will-the-supreme-court-decide-the-election/">unlikely to end</a> litigation to resolve election-related disputes. In fact, both the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/14/us/politics/biden-legal-challenges-trump.html">Biden</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/27/trump-legal-network-election-day-fight-422035">Trump</a> campaigns have assembled armies of lawyers who will be ready to bring lawsuits in the election’s aftermath.</p>
<p>President Trump already has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/us/elections/trump-supreme-court-election-day.html">indicated</a> that he expects the Supreme Court to again resolve a contested presidential election.</p>
<p>For someone who <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=10050">studies</a> the complex intersections of politics and law, the use of litigation to resolve electoral disputes that we are seeing this year is a reminder of what the famous French aristocrat and author Alexis de Tocqueville <a href="https://xroads.virginia.edu/%7EHyper/DETOC/1_ch16.htm">observed</a> early in the 19th century: namely, that “Scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A white sign with red text that says 'Every Vote Counts.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363541/original/file-20201014-19-1e270jq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2041%2C1103&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363541/original/file-20201014-19-1e270jq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363541/original/file-20201014-19-1e270jq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363541/original/file-20201014-19-1e270jq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363541/original/file-20201014-19-1e270jq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363541/original/file-20201014-19-1e270jq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363541/original/file-20201014-19-1e270jq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Every vote counts – but what does it mean when election results go to court?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/presidential-candidate-al-gore-supporters-carry-a-sign-news-photo/51569584">Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nonetheless, when courts and judges take sides in cases that shape the outcome of a hotly contested election, they open themselves up, as Frankfurter warned, to <a href="https://yale.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.12987/yale/9780300093797.001.0001/upso-9780300093797">charges</a> that they are making purely partisan decisions rather than strictly following the law. That is why public confidence in the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.democracy.uci.edu/files/docs/conferences/2011/SemetPersilyAnsolabehere.pdf">took a hit</a> in the aftermath of its Bush v. Gore decision.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Whatever decisions judges make this year, the rush to the courthouse to shape the 2020 election will pose real challenges for their legitimacy, which ultimately <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2998595?seq=6#metadata_info_tab_contents">depends</a> on the public’s belief that they are not simply political actors. </p>
<p>And if the Supreme Court again decides who becomes president, it may further weaken its already <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2018/07/24/confidence-in-the-us-supreme-court-is-declining-and-that-puts-its-decisions-at-risk-from-congress/">diminished standing</a> with the American public and deepen the divide in an already dangerously polarized nation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147830/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Austin Sarat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Lawsuits are being argued in courthouses across the country over the conduct of the election. That could lead to the public losing confidence in the election’s legitimacy.Austin Sarat, Associate Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty and Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1449022020-08-28T12:22:51Z2020-08-28T12:22:51ZJoe Kennedy III challenges Ed Markey in 2020’s weirdest primary race<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355180/original/file-20200827-20-1qpm46s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=64%2C0%2C1129%2C512&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Massachusetts, you usually wait your turn. But Joe Kennedy III decided to jump the queue.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rep-joseph-p-kennedy-iii-stretches-his-face-before-his-news-photo/1216967043?adppopup=true">Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Senate incumbents are challenged in a primary and lose, it is usually because they are enmeshed in a scandal.</p>
<p>Incumbency has numerous advantages: sitting senators have six years to build up a <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/incumbent-advantage">war chest</a>, they have high name recognition, and they have experience running statewide campaigns. Plus, both parties actively <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/democratic-leaders-stand-firm-on-incumbent-favor-rule-rebuff-liberal-cries-of-blacklist/2019/04/02/117a7714-54bd-11e9-8ef3-fbd41a2ce4d5_story.html">discourage primary challenges</a>.</p>
<p>Yet in the fall of 2019, 39-year-old Rep. Joe Kennedy III decided to challenge 74-year-old incumbent Ed Markey in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate. Markey has done nothing scandalous and has <a href="https://progressivepunch.org/scores.htm?house=senate">one of the Senate’s most progressive voting records</a> while representing <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/most-liberal-states">one of the most progressive states</a>.</p>
<p>So why did Kennedy decide to mount this challenge? And why might he actually have a shot of unseating Markey? </p>
<h2>A primary not like the others</h2>
<p>It is tempting to see Kennedy’s challenge as another instance of generational conflict among Democrats. </p>
<p>Markey served in the House from 1976 until he won the Senate seat in a 2013 special election. During his House tenure, Markey established himself as an expert on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2019/09/23/the-energy-202-ed-markey-s-climate-change-chops-may-be-critical-in-joe-kennedy-challenge/5d87c3a8602ff1737aef7369/">energy</a> and <a href="https://www.wbur.org/news/2013/06/24/markey-telecommunications-act">telecommunication policy</a>. </p>
<p>Kennedy, the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, has served in the House for only eight years compared to Markey’s 37. Before announcing his Senate bid, Kennedy seemed to be on a path toward playing a role in the House Democratic leadership.</p>
<p>The 2020 primary season has featured several House campaigns in which young, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/05/all-members-congress-who-have-lost-their-primaries-2020-so-far-why/">progressive candidates have challenged</a> long-serving incumbents in districts that were once considered safe. Three of these challengers – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/nyregion/jamaal-bowman-eliot-engel.html">Jamaal Bowman</a> in New York, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/8/21358539/cori-bush-victory-lacy-clay-aoc-bernie-sanders-protester-politician">Cori Bush</a> in Missouri and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/us/politics/marie-newman-lipinski-illinois.html">Marie Newman</a> in Illinois – even won.</p>
<p>But in the Massachusetts race, the ideological differences – if there are any – are muddled. Kennedy cannot make a credible claim to be running to Markey’s left. Markey has secured the backing of progressive star Rep. <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/13/ocasio-cortez-endorses-markey-massachusetts-1495648">Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez</a>, the winner of the highest-profile primary battle of 2018, and he has made his support of progressive policy goals like <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-ed-markey-the-co-sponsor-of-the-green-new-deal-may-be-hopeful-for-its-chances">the Green New Deal</a> a centerpiece of his campaign.</p>
<p>Kennedy, meanwhile, secured the endorsements of older establishment figures like <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/20/nancy-pelosi-endorses-joe-kennedy-senate-race-399447">Nancy Pelosi</a> and the late <a href="https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2020/01/14/joe-kennedy-endorsements/">John Lewis</a>.</p>
<h2>Throwing a wrench in the machine</h2>
<p>Instead, it seems as though the race is less a battle of ideas, and more one of political calculation on Kennedy’s part. </p>
<p>One of the most influential recent books on political parties, “<a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo5921600.html">The Party Decides</a>,” contends that American presidential primaries are largely a ratification of decisions made by party elites well before the votes are cast. The authors note, however, that political parties long ago lost control of the nominations for the House and Senate.</p>
<p>This has not necessarily been the case in Massachusetts. The Bay State is one of the few remaining in which it is possible to speak of a “<a href="https://www.americanheritage.com/political-machine-i-rise-and-fall-age-bosses">Democratic machine</a>” – a party that can control nominations for state and federal offices. </p>
<p>With a few exceptions – the most obvious is Elizabeth Warren – statewide elections in Massachusetts feature seasoned Democratic officials who have faithfully waited their turn to take the next step up the state’s political ladder. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Joe Kennedy and Ed Markey march together in a parade in 2013." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355174/original/file-20200827-18-1hxoq08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355174/original/file-20200827-18-1hxoq08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355174/original/file-20200827-18-1hxoq08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355174/original/file-20200827-18-1hxoq08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355174/original/file-20200827-18-1hxoq08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355174/original/file-20200827-18-1hxoq08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355174/original/file-20200827-18-1hxoq08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joe Kennedy III marches with Ed Markey during Boston’s 2013 Pride Parade, when Markey was first a candidate for U.S. Senate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/politicians-from-left-to-right-u-s-rep-joseph-p-kennedy-lll-news-photo/170187986?adppopup=true">John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Markey is a product of this approach. When he announced his candidacy in the 2013 special election to fill John Kerry’s Senate seat, his long House tenure made him the closest thing to a “next in line” candidate. Markey’s candidacy dissuaded many other Democrats from running, and <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Senate_special_election_in_Massachusetts,_2013">he easily bested his lone Democratic opponent</a>, the more junior U.S. Rep. Steven Lynch, in the primary.</p>
<p>Both Massachusetts senators – Markey and Elizabeth Warren – are in their 70s, so even if Markey survives this challenge, there will likely be an open seat race in Massachusetts soon. </p>
<p>Why couldn’t Kennedy simply bide his time?</p>
<p>In this overwhelmingly Democratic state, there are many Democrats who have been patiently waiting their turn, from the state’s all-Democratic House delegation, to statewide officeholders such as Attorney General Maura Healey. The Massachusetts Democratic Party also <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjavOfh-bnrAhWOknIEHfhpC1wQFjAAegQIAxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmassdems.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F01%2FMDP-Bylaws-as-of-11_22_2017.pdf&usg=AOvVaw157Af5qmyL15WYYlQdI6ji">requires</a> candidates to receive 15% of the votes at the party convention to even appear on the ballot. </p>
<p>So the state Democratic Party’s byzantine traditions, more than anything else, may have influenced Kennedy’s decision. Had he waited for Markey or Warren to leave, he could have found himself vying against several other more seasoned opponents who have been licking their chops. And he may not have even made it onto the ballot.</p>
<p>Perhaps he thought he had a better chance in a head-to-head primary than in a race for an open seat. Furthermore, should he lose, he could build upon this race to run for an open seat in the future, though <a href="https://www.wgbh.org/news/politics/2020/08/14/meet-the-candidates-in-the-race-to-replace-joe-kennedy">he’s given up his House seat</a> in order to challenge Markey.</p>
<h2>Smelling weakness?</h2>
<p>Kennedy also seems to be gambling that Markey’s campaigning skills are rusty. </p>
<p>He may have a point. With no serious Republican opposition, Markey cruised to victory in <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Senate_special_election_in_Massachusetts,_2013">2013</a> and in the <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Senate_elections_in_Massachusetts,_2014">2014 general election</a>. As the representative from a safe House seat for nearly four decades before that, Markey is the rare Senate incumbent who has never had to run in a competitive race.</p>
<p>Kennedy substantially outspent Markey early in the race, and Markey has only begun to catch up in recent weeks. </p>
<p>Although the two candidates each raised <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2020&id=MAS2">approximately $10 million</a>, Markey had three times as much money as Kennedy on hand as of mid-August. An influx of cash from Markey may be behind his recent <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/senate/ma/massachusetts_senate_democratic_primary-6946.html">surge in the polls</a> that have given him a narrow lead. While Kennedy <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23496668?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">has likely benefited from name recognition</a>, he has struggled to articulate why he is running and where he disagrees with Markey.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1298729009094819840"}"></div></p>
<p>Just how unusual would it be if Markey were to lose? </p>
<p>The only Democratic Senate incumbent who has lost his seat to a primary challenger since the early 1990s was Arlen Specter, who <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/28/specter.party.switch/">switched parties</a> shortly before the 2010 election, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Retirement/sen-arlen-specter-loss-joe-sestak-pennsylvania-senate/story?id=10669683">only to lose the Democratic primary to Rep. Joe Sestak</a>. The last Democratic primary loser who resembled Markey was J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. Like Markey, he had a track record of impressive legislative achievements but rarely had to vigorously campaign for reelection. Fulbright ended up <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40023268?seq=1">losing the 1974 primary</a> to the state’s governor.</p>
<p>If the Arkansas comparison seems strained, a Massachusetts comparison could be more apt. In the first half of the 20th century, it was the Republicans, not the Democrats, who dominated Massachusetts politics. The liberal Republican <a href="https://www2.gwu.edu/%7Eerpapers/mep/displaydoc.cfm?docid=erpn-henlod">Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.</a> was perhaps the most accomplished Massachusetts senator of his generation. Despite his national reputation, he lost his seat in 1952 to a much younger Democrat who, during the general election, ran a personality-based campaign fueled by his family’s money.</p>
<p>That Democrat was, of course, Joe Kennedy III’s great uncle: John F. Kennedy.</p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144902/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Boatright does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There aren’t any clear ideological differences between the two, and Senate incumbents who aren’t embroiled in scandal rarely, if ever, lose. So what’s Kennedy’s calculation?Robert Boatright, Professor of Political Science, Clark UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1379822020-05-14T12:04:04Z2020-05-14T12:04:04ZDelaying primaries helps protect incumbents as well as voters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334752/original/file-20200513-156629-1rz8xa6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An Ohio election official on the night of the primary vote rescheduled from March 17 to April 28.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-Ohio-Election/0d011534aee24c7a8c337ad881e79a5b/7/0">AP/Gene J. Puskar</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/2020-state-primary-election-dates.aspx">Nineteen states</a>, including Wyoming, Hawaii and Maryland, have postponed or canceled their primary elections. To many Americans, the idea that states might cancel or postpone their primaries as a response to the COVID-19 epidemic may sound undemocratic. </p>
<p>Whenever election laws are changed, there is reason to worry that one party or faction will benefit. While much of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/2020-campaign-primary-calendar-coronavirus.html">current news coverage has focused on presidential primaries</a>, as a <a href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/rboatright/">political scientist who studies campaigns and elections</a>, I believe the real consequences of delayed primaries will be felt in the House and Senate. </p>
<p>Most American states <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/primary-election">adopted the direct primary</a> for nonpresidential candidates in the early 20th century. In a direct primary, a single election is held to choose the party’s nominee, unlike the presidential primary where an election is held to choose delegates who will then choose the nominee. Today, direct primaries are referred to as “state primaries.” Some state primaries are held on the same day as the presidential primary, but many are not.</p>
<p>Holding primaries during the early weeks of the pandemic <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/03/17/coronavirus-pandemic-delays-primaries-time-worry-2020-november-election/5057930002/">would have been a problem for many reasons</a> – and in the case of Wisconsin, which did hold its presidential primary, may have exposed many to the virus. </p>
<p>But moving state primaries later in the year may insulate congressional incumbents of both parties from challengers – and tamp down a progressive insurgency within Democratic Party.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334757/original/file-20200513-156665-sw77hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334757/original/file-20200513-156665-sw77hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334757/original/file-20200513-156665-sw77hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334757/original/file-20200513-156665-sw77hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334757/original/file-20200513-156665-sw77hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334757/original/file-20200513-156665-sw77hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334757/original/file-20200513-156665-sw77hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334757/original/file-20200513-156665-sw77hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Morgan Harper challenged four-term Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty in the Democratic primary and lost after the primary was postponed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Election-2020-Ohio-Primary-Congress/fcf81593ded94b079989e1f5e3094c55/3/0">AP/Paul Vernon</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Does a primary date matter?</h2>
<p>There are a variety of folk theories about the effects of election timing, which may explain people’s concerns about the potentially undemocratic effects of postponing primaries. </p>
<p>Yet states are constantly tinkering with their primary dates. Over the past two decades, <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/elections-legislation-database.aspx">legislation</a> has been introduced in 31 different states to change the dates of their state primaries.</p>
<p>It has <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Primary_Elections.html?id=P9MGAAAAMAAJ">long been believed</a> that later primaries – and, accordingly, shorter general election campaigns – reduce the cost of campaigning. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1532673X09345823">Some say</a> that later primaries harm nominees in the general election, because parties have less time to resolve conflicts before the general election. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.brookings.edu/book/primary-politics-3/">Others</a> argue that later primaries limit the “buyer’s remorse” that may set in if a candidate wins the nomination but is ultimately shown to be a problematic general election candidate. And some <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo16956602.html">hypothesize</a> that voter turnout is affected by the season – voters may not be paying attention to elections in the spring, or they may travel during the summer. </p>
<p>There is little evidence to back these claims. </p>
<p>Political scientist <a href="http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zvIHOXgAAAAJ&hl=en">Vin Moscardelli</a> and I recently <a href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/primarytiming/files/2017/06/Primary-Timing-Paper-Revisions-062617-Clean-Version.pdf">analyzed</a> the effect of state primary dates on competitiveness, candidate spending and voter turnout. We found no measurable evidence that changing the primary date affects competitiveness or candidate spending. We did find a slight effect on turnout: Voter turnout goes down in the summer but up again in the fall. </p>
<p>Yet anecdotes are often more powerful than facts. In Massachusetts, where I work, it is easy to find Democrats who insist that the party’s frequent losses in gubernatorial races are <a href="http://blogs.wgbh.org/masspoliticsprofs/2014/12/10/forty-thousand-votes-bakers-keys-victory/">caused by the state’s September primary</a>, which they believe creates divisions among Democrats that have helped moderate Republicans win in November. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334764/original/file-20200513-156637-ctrwy4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334764/original/file-20200513-156637-ctrwy4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334764/original/file-20200513-156637-ctrwy4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334764/original/file-20200513-156637-ctrwy4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334764/original/file-20200513-156637-ctrwy4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334764/original/file-20200513-156637-ctrwy4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334764/original/file-20200513-156637-ctrwy4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334764/original/file-20200513-156637-ctrwy4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Canceled primaries avoid the potential exposure to the coronavirus faced by these primary voters in Wisconsin on April 7, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/residents-wait-in-long-line-to-vote-in-a-presidential-news-photo/1209365837?adppopup=true">Getty/Kamil Krzaczysnki / AFP</a></span>
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<h2>Incumbents, challengers and postponed primaries</h2>
<p>Most of the theories, then, suggest that there are benefits for parties, and perhaps for voters, to holding primaries later in the year. </p>
<p>The candidates who stand to benefit most from changing primary dates, however, may be incumbents – regardless of party. </p>
<p>The biggest consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic for congressional candidates is that there has been very little fundraising or campaigning since March. When campaigning becomes difficult or funds become scarce, name recognition becomes more important. It will be hard for unknown candidates to generate the grassroots support or online buzz that has propelled past insurgent candidates of both parties. <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/5181079/getting_primaried">Incumbents rarely lose their primaries</a>, and this year they will be more secure than usual. </p>
<p>This is a particular issue for the left wing of the Democratic Party. Some <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/04/07/how-have-progressives-fared-in-the-2020-congressional-primaries/">national progressive organizations have sought to capitalize</a> on the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-23/new-generation-of-nyc-insurgents-seeks-ocasio-cortez-fervor">success of candidates</a> such as <a href="https://cbs12.com/news/connect-to-congress/ocasio-cortez-stumps-for-insurgent-democrats-in-the-midwest">Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/us/politics/ayanna-pressley-massachusetts.html">Ayanna Pressley</a>, who successfully challenged older, more conventional Democratic lawmakers. These groups will be boosting primary challengers to some mainstream Democrats in U.S. House races this year, and in <a href="https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/politics/news-politics/whos-facing-2020-primary-challenge-in-state-legislature.html">some state legislative races</a> as well. </p>
<p>These efforts will be complicated by the new obstacles to grassroots organizing and fundraising. It’s hard to raise money or knock on doors during a pandemic, and it’s harder still if the campaign season unexpectedly grows a month or two longer than you had anticipated. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Ohio%27s_3rd_Congressional_District_election,_2020">Democratic primary recently held in Ohio’s Third District</a> – a majority-minority district centered in Columbus – may be the clearest example. There, incumbent <a href="https://www.dispatch.com/news/20191217/beatty-gets-challenge-as-candidates-line-up-for-central-ohio-congressional-seats">Joyce Beatty was facing a strong challenge</a> from community activist Morgan Harper. </p>
<p>But Harper’s fundraising and spending were based on the expectation that the primary would happen on March 17. When it was moved from March 17 to April 28, Harper <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/paloma/the-trailer/2020/04/28/the-trailer-how-the-pandemic-is-affecting-a-primary-challenge-in-ohio/5ea89c3b602ff14578420bc1/">reportedly found it difficult to maintain momentum</a>. She ended up losing by a 68% to 32% margin. </p>
<p>It is impossible to know whether the election would have gone differently had it been held in March, but the size of the margin <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joyce-beatty-defeats-morgan-harper-columbus-ohio_n_5ea8a23fc5b61f8313362c8c">surprised many observers</a>.</p>
<p>Many other candidates are in a similar position. Among states that moved their primaries, <a href="https://lancasteronline.com/news/politics/who-s-safe-who-s-not-breaking-down-the-pennsylvania/article_3f928aa4-43b1-11ea-87f7-4b7f7b149fca.html">Pennsylvania has potentially competitive incumbent primaries</a> in both the Republican and Democratic parties, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/06/new-jersey-democratic-primary-albio-sires-hector-oseguera/">New Jersey has a pair of potentially competitive Democratic primaries</a> and <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Indiana_elections,_2020">Indiana has a competitive Democratic open seat primary</a>. </p>
<p>The insurgent candidates in these races will have more time to retool their campaigns than Harper did, but it is hard to see how nonincumbents will be able to run campaigns remotely like what they had planned. </p>
<p>We will never know what the 2020 primaries would have been like without the pandemic, and there are many good reasons for states to move their elections. Whatever the merits of making elections later, and safer, these changes will have lasting political consequences. </p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137982/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Boatright receives funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. </span></em></p>To many, the idea that states might cancel or postpone their primary elections as a response to the COVID-19 epidemic sounds undemocratic. What’s the political effect of these postponements?Robert Boatright, Professor of Political Science, Clark UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1334782020-03-11T18:14:10Z2020-03-11T18:14:10ZBiden’s win shows the power of Democratic moderates<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319904/original/file-20200311-116240-15uq64l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Joe and Jill Biden address the press the evening of the Idaho, Missouri, Michigan, Washington, Mississippi and North Dakota primaries.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Election-2020-Joe-Biden/34387e81c9074d8cbe71805079642649/33/0">AP Photo/Matt Rourke</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Super Tuesday II marked <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/March_10_presidential_primaries,_2020">Democratic primary elections</a> in six states: Idaho, Missouri, Michigan, Washington, Mississippi and North Dakota.</p>
<p>The candidates entered the races on level fields, with Biden enjoying a slight delegate edge over Sanders. Biden’s lead is now decisive, and there is a <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/">high probability</a> he will emerge as the Democratic nominee.</p>
<p>Despite his victory, Biden continues to struggle with young voters. He faces difficulties in appealing to the most ideologically extreme wing of the party, which also tends to be younger. Sanders would have required <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/2/25/21152538/bernie-sanders-electability-president-moderates-data">unprecedented youth turnout to beat Trump</a> in November. By some estimates, youth turnout would need to increase some 30 percentage points over 2016. </p>
<p>Still, youth turnout in the general election has historically slightly exceeded 40 percentage points. Biden will need to appeal to this demographic, if he is to stay competitive against Trump. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/exit-polls-2020-michigan-march-10-primary/">Exit polling in Michigan</a> further clarified the ideological lane the party is likely to occupy this fall. It is becoming clear the party will adopt a center-left agenda. </p>
<p>The 2020 Democratic primaries are frequently cast as referenda on ideological extremism versus moderation.</p>
<p>“I was told at the beginning of this whole undertaking that there are two lanes, a progressive lane that Bernie Sanders is the incumbent for and a moderate lane that Joe Biden is the incumbent for, and there’s no room for anyone else in this,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/05/warrens-right-she-was-stuck-lane-couldnt-pass-sanders/">Elizabeth Warren told the Washington Post</a>. “I thought that wasn’t right, but evidently it was.”</p>
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<span class="caption">A voter fills in a ballot at the the Summit View Church of the Nazarene in Kansas City, Missouri.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Election-2020-Voting-Virus-Outbreak/7a9ebcbbc7d94741b95aaa51371ff2ab/2/0">AP Photo/Charlie Riedel</a></span>
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<p>Sanders enjoyed a 34 percentage point edge among strong liberals. Biden enjoyed an almost equal lead among moderates and conservatives. But even more revealing was Biden’s 18 percentage point lead in Michigan or all over in Michigan among people who described themselves as “somewhat liberal.”</p>
<p>In the Michigan <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/exit-polls-2020-michigan-march-10-primary/">exit poll</a>, 40% described themselves as “somewhat liberal,” also known as center-left voters. The fact that Biden is drawing strong support from center-left voters is important for a simple reason: They constitute a large share of the Democratic coalition. </p>
<p>Data from the <a href="https://www.voterstudygroup.org/">2016 Democracy Fund’s Voter’s Study</a> survey reveals a similar dynamic. At 27%, center-left is the second most popular choice among Democrats, behind “moderate or conservative.”</p>
<p>Thirty-three percent of non-Hispanic white Democrats describe themselves as somewhat liberal. Among African American Democratic identifiers, 34% identify as somewhat liberal, and so do 33% of Latinx Democrats. </p>
<p>Biden’s lead among this group shows he is making clear inroads with a large share of the party.</p>
<p>[<em>You’re too busy to read everything. We get it. That’s why we’ve got a weekly newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybusy">Sign up for good Sunday reading.</a> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133478/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Weber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It is becoming clear that this election season, the Democratic Party will likely adopt a center-left agenda.Chris Weber, Associate Professor in the School of Government and Public Policy, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1314482020-02-12T08:29:56Z2020-02-12T08:29:56ZSanders narrowly wins New Hampshire as Klobuchar surges, while Queensland is tied 50-50<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314947/original/file-20200212-61941-1csu6sb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bernie Sanders wins the New Hampshire primary.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/EPA/Justin Lane</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With 87% reporting in today’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/11/us/elections/results-new-hampshire-primary-election.html?action=click&module=ELEX_results&pgtype=Interactive&region=Navigation">New Hampshire Democratic primary</a>, Bernie Sanders won 25.7%, defeating Pete Buttigieg, who won 24.4%. Amy Klobuchar was a surprise strong third with 19.8%. Former frontrunners Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren bombed, with both winning fewer than 10% and failing to meet the 15% threshold needed to win national delegates.</p>
<p>In 2016, Sanders won the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_New_Hampshire_Democratic_primary">New Hampshire primary</a> by a crushing 60-38 margin over Hillary Clinton. This year, the combined total for moderate candidates (Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Biden) was almost 18 points ahead of the combined total for far-left candidates (Sanders and Warren).</p>
<p>Democratic delegates are awarded proportionally, but with a 15% threshold. Sanders’ best chance to win the nomination is if the moderate candidates listed above, plus Michael Bloomberg, all miss the threshold in enough places, and allow Sanders to win a pledged delegate majority on a low vote share.</p>
<p>If several candidates win 15% or more and nobody is near a majority of pledged delegates, there will be a “contested Democratic convention” in <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=US+dnc&oq=US+dnc&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l7.2679j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">mid-July</a>. Contested conventions <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brokered_convention">occurred frequently</a> before the era of primaries and caucuses that give voters the opportunity to select their party’s presidential candidate. The last time a genuine contested convention occurred was in 1952. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/">FiveThirtyEight model forecast</a> has the probability of nobody winning a pledged delegate majority rising to 33%, while a Sanders majority chance is down to 38%, and Biden is at 18%, having crashed in the forecast after his poor Iowa result.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/buttigieg-and-sanders-close-in-iowa-results-and-labor-increases-newspoll-lead-130592">Buttigieg and Sanders close in Iowa results, and Labor increases Newspoll lead</a>
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<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Klobuchar">Amy Klobuchar</a> is a US senator from Minnesota. She was first elected in 2006, and re-elected in 2012 and 2018, winning all three times by at least 20 points. In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election_in_Minnesota">2016</a>, Clinton defeated Donald Trump by just 1.5% in Minnesota, while Barack Obama won by 8% in 2012. Klobuchar has outperformed the presidential lean in Minnesota by a large margin.</p>
<p>Klobuchar is 59, while the other top Democratic candidates can be perceived as either too old (Warren, Bloomberg, Biden and Sanders are all in their 70s, with the latter three in their late 70s), or too young (<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Buttigieg+age&rlz=1C1CHFX_enAU672AU672&oq=Buttigieg+age&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l6j69i60.3686j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">Buttigieg</a> is 38). Klobuchar has a good case to make that she’s electable.</p>
<p>Getting under 10% was dismal for both Warren and Biden. Biden may be able to recover once the calendar turns to states with more black voters (Iowa and New Hampshire are almost all white). It is very hard to see where Warren can win, other than in her home state of Massachusetts.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html">RealClearPolitics</a> average of national Democratic polls, Sanders leads with 23.0%, followed by Biden at 20.4%, Bloomberg 13.6%, Warren 13.0%, Buttigieg 10.4% and Klobuchar 4.4%. Most fieldwork for these polls was taken after Iowa, explaining drops for both Biden and Warren. Can Klobuchar increase her national vote share after New Hampshire?</p>
<p>The next Democratic contest is the February 22 Nevada caucus, followed by the February 29 South Carolina primary. There have been no polls in either state since Iowa. 14 states vote on “Super Tuesday” March 3, and 34% of pledged delegates are awarded as a result.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-four-days-remaining-sanders-leads-narrowly-in-iowa-but-biden-leads-nationally-130593">With four days remaining, Sanders leads narrowly in Iowa, but Biden leads nationally</a>
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<h2>Trump’s ratings and general election polling</h2>
<p>One week after Trump’s <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/05/politics/senate-impeachment-trial-vote-acquittal/index.html">acquittal by the Senate</a> on impeachment charges, his ratings with all polls in the <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/?ex_cid=rrpromo">FiveThirtyEight</a> aggregate are 43.6% approve, 51.9% disapprove (net -8.3% approval). With polls of registered or likely voters, Trump’s ratings are 44.4% approve, 51.8% disapprove (net -7.4%).</p>
<p>Trump’s current ratings are his highest since very early in his presidency. The US economy (see below) continues to perform well, and that is Trump’s best asset in the general election this November.</p>
<p>In general election match-ups, Trump still trails all the leading Democrats in <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/National.html">RealclearPolitics averages</a>. He trails Sanders by 4.3%, Buttigieg by 1.0%, Klobuchar by 2.6%, Bloomberg by 6.0%, Biden by 5.6% and Warren by 2.2%.</p>
<p>Trump won the New Hampshire <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/11/us/elections/results-new-hampshire-republican-primary.html?action=click&module=ELEX_results&pgtype=Interactive&region=Navigation">Republican primary</a> with over 85%.</p>
<h2>A great jobs report for Trump</h2>
<p>In the US January jobs report, the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.a.htm">household survey</a> had a 0.1% rise in unemployment from December, to 3.6%. However, this unemployment increase was driven by a 0.2% increase in the participation rate, to 63.4%. The employment population ratio – the percentage of eligible Americans who are employed – rose 0.2% to 61.2%, its highest since <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO">November 2008</a>, near the beginning of the global financial crisis.</p>
<p>The US uses two surveys for its jobs reports. In the establishment survey, 225,000 jobs were added in January, and the three-month average jobs gain for November to January was 211,000. The one weakness in this report is that average hourly wages increased 7c. We do not yet have the January inflation report. In <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.t01.htm">December</a>, inflation-adjusted wages fell.</p>
<p>In a recent <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3655">Quinnipiac University</a> poll, Trump’s ratings on the economy were 54-42 approve, down from his all-time high of 57-38 approve by the same pollster in mid-January.</p>
<h2>Queensland YouGov poll: 50-50 tie</h2>
<p>The Queensland election will be held on October 31, just before the US general election. A <a href="https://www.pollbludger.net/2020/02/07/yougov-galaxy-50-50-queensland/">YouGov poll</a>, presumably conducted November 5-6 from a sample of over 1,000, had a 50-50 tie, a one-point gain for Labor since the last such poll in August. </p>
<p>Primary votes were 35% LNP (down two), 34% Labor (up two), 15% One Nation (up two) and 10% Greens (down three). The reduced Greens vote and higher One Nation vote will decrease Labor’s share of overall preferences.</p>
<p>Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s ratings were 29% approve (down five) and 44% disapprove (down one), for a net approval of -15, down four points. Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington’s ratings were worse, at 23% approve (down eight) and 44% disapprove (up six), for a net approval of -21, down 14 points. Palaszczuk led as better Premier by 34-22 (34-29 in August).</p>
<p>At the May 2019 federal election, Queensland polling greatly overstated federal Labor’s position. However, polling was accurate at the November 2017 Queensland state election.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/newspoll-probably-wrong-since-morrison-became-pm-polling-has-been-less-accurate-at-recent-elections-117400">Newspoll probably wrong since Morrison became PM; polling has been less accurate at recent elections</a>
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<h2>Sinn Féin upsets conservative duopoly at Irish election</h2>
<p>Irish politics has been dominated by two conservative parties: Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. But at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Irish_general_election">Saturday’s election</a>, the far-left Sinn Féin upset this order by coming first on first preferences with 24.5% (up a massive 10.7% since the 2016 election). While Sinn Féin was first on votes, they were second on seats. More details at the beginning of my New Hampshire live blog for The <a href="https://www.pollbludger.net/2020/02/12/new-hampshire-democratic-primary-live-commentary/">Poll Bludger</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131448/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Democratic nomination is still very much up for grabs, with Bernie Sanders having a narrow win in New Hampshire.Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1297392020-02-12T04:45:50Z2020-02-12T04:45:50ZCandidates say they want to build momentum with voters – but what is that actually worth?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314596/original/file-20200210-109912-e7ax9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Before the primary, Buttigieg said his campaign had the 'strongest momentum.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Election-2020-Pete-Buttigieg/f297686fceb54c808a1042be54fa6100/67/0">AP Photo/Mary Altaffer</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“We are the campaign with the strongest momentum in the state of New Hampshire,” <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/buttigieg-on-defense-as-2020-rivals-aim-to-blunt-his-momentum">Pete Buttigieg told a crowd in Nashua</a> last week.</p>
<p>“I’ve got the ‘Big Mo,’” said George H. Bush <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2007/04/the-big-mo-it-can-change-with-time-003562">after winning the Iowa caucuses in 1980</a>. </p>
<p>Following this year’s New Hampshire primary, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/us/politics/nh-primary-election.html">won by Bernie Sanders</a>, observers of the 2020 Democratic primary will undoubtedly continue to hear claims from the candidates and the news media about “momentum” – the advantage a candidate gains after winning a primary election by a greater amount than predicted by polls taken before the election. </p>
<p>But what does it mean for a candidate to have momentum, and how will momentum affect the media’s coverage of the Democratic candidates in 2020?</p>
<p><a href="https://polisci.richmond.edu/faculty/dpalazzo/">We</a> <a href="https://polisci.richmond.edu/faculty/emcgowen/">view</a> momentum as more than a talking point or a prized gift for the winner of the Iowa caucuses or New Hampshire primary. </p>
<p>When a candidate exceeds expectations in a primary or caucus, the media responds with favorable coverage, which in turn influences polls, donations and volunteers. Interestingly, the momentum of the insurgent has a stronger effect on media coverage than that of the front-runner.</p>
<h2>Measuring momentum</h2>
<p>In 2014, building on the research of political scientist <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/dynamic-model-of-presidential-nomination-campaigns/1DFBF264003869EBA727399FFACA3E7D">John Aldrich</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12131">we devised</a> a way to measure momentum numerically.</p>
<p>We calculated pollsters’ expectations relative to total vote share, giving the candidate a bigger “bump” for exceeding expectations by a larger margin. The candidate who exceeds expectations the most relative to the size of their actual primary vote share receives the highest momentum scores.</p>
<p>These “momentum scores” are independent of electoral outcomes, like the accumulation of delegates from state elections.</p>
<p>We then used the scores to compare gains and losses in momentum with the media coverage after each primary election. To assess the amount and favorability of news coverage, we gathered data on the number of mentions and positive stories for each candidate in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post from Jan. 3 to March 12, 2012. </p>
<p><iframe id="9B3mh" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/9B3mh/5/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Who gained and lost in 2012</h2>
<p>In examining the 2012 Republican primaries, we found that candidates with above-average momentum receive more positive media coverage.</p>
<p>However, the relationship between momentum and media coverage depends on whether a candidate is the front-runner or a challenger. The insurgent challenger got a stronger bump from momentum than the front-runner, who received more negative coverage even after securing wins in some primaries.</p>
<p>For example, Mitt Romney was the front-runner going into the Iowa caucuses and winner of 42 out of 54 primary states and 74% of all delegates. He had the highest momentum scores in the GOP field. </p>
<p>Romney’s closest challenger, Rick Santorum, actually led Romney in cumulative momentum between the Nevada and Washington primaries. After Super Tuesday, Romney built a lead in momentum that he would never relinquish.</p>
<p>As one might expect from his front-runner status, Romney received the most media mentions, an average of 11.3 mentions per primary day, almost five more than Santorum. A larger proportion of all stories about him were positive, again exceeding Santorum’s numbers.</p>
<p>But a more nuanced story emerges when we examine the relationship between momentum and media coverage. When both candidates experienced momentum, the challenger, Santorum, received more positive coverage than Romney. </p>
<p>When Romney had above-average momentum, 64.2% of news stories about him were positive. Meanwhile, Santorum received positive stories 78.5% of the time when he had above-average momentum. </p>
<p>Moreover, we saw even when Romney exceeded his average momentum, he was statistically more likely to receive negative coverage than his opponents. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312319/original/file-20200128-81336-1ufduki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312319/original/file-20200128-81336-1ufduki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312319/original/file-20200128-81336-1ufduki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312319/original/file-20200128-81336-1ufduki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312319/original/file-20200128-81336-1ufduki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312319/original/file-20200128-81336-1ufduki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312319/original/file-20200128-81336-1ufduki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312319/original/file-20200128-81336-1ufduki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mitt Romney speaks at a 2012 campaign event in Florida.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/GOP-Campaign/4cdd49f0d6ef44f088d7f3f1ce167396/36/0">AP Photo/Mary Altaffer</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What this means for 2020</h2>
<p>Based on our analysis from 2012, the most recent single-party open primary, we believe a similar pattern may hold in 2020. </p>
<p>Joe Biden and Sanders <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html">appear to be dual front-runners</a>, given Biden’s consistent lead in national polls and endorsements, and Sanders’ fundraising advantage and early successes.</p>
<p>The early results, with Sanders having strong showings in the first two primaries, suggest his situation may be similar to Romney’s, where the media may frame even victories as falling below expectations. </p>
<p>The effects of momentum on Pete Buttigieg will likely vary from week to week, depending on primary election results. He may be framed as a flash in the pan" when the electorate is unfavorable one week and “surging” the next.</p>
<p>Amy Klobuchar, on the other hand, stands to receive the most positive coverage relative to momentum. <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html">As a top-tier candidate with the lowest expectations</a>, Klobuchar will likely enjoy the most favorable coverage overall. Even third place finishes going forward should be enough for her to garner positive coverage and mentions, whereas a similar result for any of the other candidates will stunt their momentum. </p>
<p>So, as this primary season begins, watch the relationships between expectations, votes and media coverage. Candidate momentum is something that can change from one primary election to the next. </p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129739/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Palazzolo previously received funding from the Dirksen Center and the American Political Science Association. Neither source funded any research that went into this article. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ernest B. McGowen III does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When candidates beat pollsters’ expectations, that can mean more positive media coverage.Daniel Palazzolo, Professor of Political Science, University of RichmondErnest B. McGowen III, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1297592020-01-28T19:01:36Z2020-01-28T19:01:36ZThe US presidential primaries are arcane, complex and unrepresentative. So why do Americans still vote this way?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312193/original/file-20200128-81416-u5llw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=726%2C0%2C3944%2C3121&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Like the other Democratic candidates for president, Elizabeth Warren has spent months canvassing Iowa to meet voters while spending little time in other states.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">CJ Gunther/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>While political parties in both <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/19/how-does-the-labor-leadership-ballot-work">Australia</a> and <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/conservative-party-leadership-contests">Britain</a> have recently <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10361146.2012.731490">moved towards</a> leadership contests that give more say to ordinary party members, nothing matches the democratic scale of the American process to nominate presidential candidates. </p>
<p>The Democratic nomination contest, which begins on Monday with the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-26/how-the-iowa-caucuses-work-and-what-s-new-for-2020-quicktake">Iowa caucuses</a> and then continues with the <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/480147-sanders-surges-to-first-in-new-hampshire-poll">New Hampshire primary</a> on February 11, looks and feels a lot like the presidential election that will be held in November. </p>
<p>In 2016, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/10/turnout-was-high-in-the-2016-primary-season-but-just-short-of-2008-record/">57.6 million voters</a> participated in the primaries or caucuses to choose the Republican and Democratic candidates, which was just shy of the record turnout in the 2008 contests.</p>
<p>The amount of money now invested in these nominating contests is <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/01/17/797048821/new-figures-show-billionaire-candidates-spending-big-with-little-return">staggering</a>, as is the attention focused on them by the media.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-democrats-bitter-race-to-find-a-candidate-to-beat-trump-might-elizabeth-warren-hold-the-key-122461">In the Democrats' bitter race to find a candidate to beat Trump, might Elizabeth Warren hold the key?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>When did primary voting begin?</h2>
<p>Americans have not always chosen presidential candidates this way. Throughout the early days of US politics, state party leaders chose candidates at the national conventions in a deal-making process mostly hidden from ordinary citizens.</p>
<p>A few states adopted primaries early in the 20th century as part of the <a href="https://conventions.cps.neu.edu/history/the-progressive-era-reforms-and-the-birth-of-the-primaries-1890-1960/">progressive revolt</a> against elite control of all institutions. Party leaders still made the final choice, but primaries served as a useful “<a href="https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/first-primary-why-nh">beauty contest</a>” to test a candidate’s viability in the presidential election. </p>
<p>The turning point came with the <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1968-democratic-convention-931079/">Democratic National Convention of 1968</a>, a violent affair at the height of the Vietnam War. The vast majority (80%) of the votes in the 13 state primaries that year had gone to anti-war candidates, but party leaders swung the convention to the pro-war vice president, Hubert Humphrey, who hadn’t contested the primaries and went on to lose the election to Richard Nixon.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/two-dozen-candidates-one-big-target-in-a-crowded-democratic-field-who-can-beat-trump-119295">Two dozen candidates, one big target: in a crowded Democratic field, who can beat Trump?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This bitter and divisive event led to <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/reformingthepresidentialnominationprocess_chapter.pdf">reforms</a> in the Democratic Party that made primaries the main means of selecting candidates. Republicans quickly followed suit, and by 1976, primaries and caucuses decided the nominees for both major parties.</p>
<p>In another quirk of the process, candidates are <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-gets-to-be-a-delegate-at-the-presidential-nominating-conventions/">awarded a certain number of delegates</a> depending on how they fare in these nominating contests. The final vote for the nominee takes place among these delegates at the national party conventions in July and August. </p>
<p>Technically, the delegates decide, but they nearly always affirm the results already decided in the primaries. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312207/original/file-20200128-81346-1oo6z1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312207/original/file-20200128-81346-1oo6z1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312207/original/file-20200128-81346-1oo6z1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312207/original/file-20200128-81346-1oo6z1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312207/original/file-20200128-81346-1oo6z1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312207/original/file-20200128-81346-1oo6z1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312207/original/file-20200128-81346-1oo6z1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Because of the US voting system, presidential candidates like Pete Buttigieg focus an inordinate amount of attention on states like Iowa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gary He/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Declining influence of the parties</h2>
<p>Despite this democratic reform, the party elites didn’t entirely lose power. </p>
<p>An <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo5921600.html">landmark study published in 2008</a> examined the importance of the “invisible primary” before voting even begins. In this process, party leaders effectively vet candidates and choose a front-runner to support during the actual primaries and caucuses. </p>
<p>When party leaders coordinate with each other, the authors found, they nearly always get their preferred candidate. </p>
<p>This model has been highly influential, but has required serious <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/01/opinion/campaign-stops/why-cant-the-gop-stop-trump.html?_r=0">re-evaluation</a> since the 2016 election when Donald Trump won the Republican nomination despite fierce opposition from party elites. </p>
<p>Trump’s nomination showed the weakness of the party “establishment” compared to the sheer force of celebrity. His ability to <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2016/03/15/media/trump-free-media-coverage/">command media attention</a> far outweighed endorsements from party leaders during the nominating process.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312206/original/file-20200128-81411-1u3apbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312206/original/file-20200128-81411-1u3apbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312206/original/file-20200128-81411-1u3apbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312206/original/file-20200128-81411-1u3apbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312206/original/file-20200128-81411-1u3apbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312206/original/file-20200128-81411-1u3apbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312206/original/file-20200128-81411-1u3apbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joe Biden has spent considerable time in New Hampshire ahead of the first primary on Feb. 11.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">CJ Gunther/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The power of Iowa and New Hampshire</h2>
<p>As in presidential elections, the outcome of the nominating contests is determined <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/02/confused-by-all-this-talk-about-delegates-read-this.html">state by state</a>, not by a single popular vote. And as in presidential elections, not all states are created equal. </p>
<p>States vote at various times between February and June, and a huge amount of attention is given to the states voting first. </p>
<p>Iowa comes first with its caucuses (small gatherings of voters that discuss candidates and choose delegates), followed soon after by New Hampshire with its primary (a straightforward ballot election). South Carolina and Nevada round out the voting in February before the Super Tuesday contests on March 3, when more than a dozen states vote. </p>
<p>With a large field of candidates, Iowa and New Hampshire play a <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-do-iowa-and-new-hampshire-really-matter-for-2020/">crucial role</a> in giving some candidates momentum, while denying others a pathway to the nomination. It’s not unusual to see candidates drop out after these contests, despite the fact there are still 48 states left to vote.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-secret-origins-of-presidential-polling-129526">The secret origins of presidential polling</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>To make matters more complicated, every state and territory has <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/primary-types.aspx">its own rules</a> on how primaries and caucuses are conducted. </p>
<p>Iowa earned its first-place status because its unique process <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2019/08/30/iowa-caucus-a-brief-history-of-why-iowa-caucuses-are-first-election-2020-dnc-virtual-caucus/2163813001/">takes so long</a>. Iowans will meet at more than 1,600 caucus sites on Monday to choose delegates to go to county conventions. Those representatives will then select delegates for the state convention, where it will be decided how Iowa’s delegates to the national convention will be divided up. </p>
<p>This system was devised to give more power to grassroots activists. It often results in chaos. In 2016, there were ties at some caucuses with results decided by <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-coin-flips-iowa-caucus/459429/">games of chance</a>, and the Iowa Democratic Party <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/05/iowa-democratic-party-altered-precinct-caucus-results-clinton-sanders">unilaterally changed</a> one result. </p>
<p>The Democratic National Committee has since imposed <a href="https://www.iowapublicradio.org/post/seasoned-caucusgoer-first-timer-what-you-need-know-caucus-night">new rules</a> to make the process clearer and more transparent. </p>
<h2>The problem of race</h2>
<p>Another problem is that Iowa and New Hampshire are both whiter and more rural than the rest of the country. Both states are particularly unrepresentative of the Democratic Party electorate, which is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/19/would-booker-castro-be-tonights-debate-if-polls-counted-people-color-accurately/">more than 40%</a> non-white. </p>
<p>Though Iowans are proud of <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2008/05/iowa-was-obamas-jump-start-010403">giving Barack Obama a crucial, early win in 2008</a>, no African-American or Latino candidates gained enough traction in these early states this time around to even make it to the voting.</p>
<p>Julián Castro, one of those minority candidates who has already dropped out, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/14/castro-iowa-new-hampshire-primary-071055">said last year</a> that Democrats can’t </p>
<blockquote>
<p>complain about Republicans suppressing the votes of people of color, and then begin our nominating contest in two states that hardly have people of color. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Castro is <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/01/iowa-and-new-hampshire-wont-always-vote-first/605353/">not alone</a> with this complaint, though others have <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/12/2020-democratic-primary-all-white-debate-booker-castro.html">argued</a> that white and non-white Democratic voters have similar preferences this time around. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312204/original/file-20200128-81403-ceq5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312204/original/file-20200128-81403-ceq5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312204/original/file-20200128-81403-ceq5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312204/original/file-20200128-81403-ceq5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312204/original/file-20200128-81403-ceq5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312204/original/file-20200128-81403-ceq5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312204/original/file-20200128-81403-ceq5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cory Booker was one of several minority candidates who dropped out of the presidential race before the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">CJ Gunther/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There have <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2019/08/30/iowa-caucus-a-brief-history-of-why-iowa-caucuses-are-first-election-2020-dnc-virtual-caucus/2163813001/">been</a> <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/iowa-and-new-hampshire-vote-first-why-it-matters-presidential-primary-elections">attempts</a> since the 1970s to reduce the importance of these two states in the nominating process, but they have fiercely resisted change. </p>
<p>New Hampshire has enshrined in law that it must hold its primary before any other state. And even without Republican challenger to Trump this year, the Iowa Republican Party is still holding its laborious caucuses. </p>
<p>In the <a href="https://qctimes.com/news/local/we-cannot-go-one-year-without-iowa-first-in-the/article_4bc56b76-f875-5df7-aee8-1ad635cc74a2.html">words of the state’s Republican chairman</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>we cannot go one year without Iowa first-in-the-nation or we are done.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Little momentum for change</h2>
<p>The nominating system, then, is a huge and unwieldy monster. Other than the reforms of the 1970s, there has been little conscious design of nominating institutions. </p>
<p>Instead, haphazard bargains have hardened into historical legacies. The
constitution also has nothing to say about political parties and provides no guidance on how nominations could or should be done. </p>
<p>There may be widespread dissatisfaction with the length and expense of primary campaigns, the outsized influence of early states and the ugly conflicts primaries cause before the real election even begins. </p>
<p>But major reforms are unlikely in the near future. As a result, those who want to succeed must master an arcane system, not try to change it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129759/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Americans didn’t always have primaries and caucuses to choose presidential candidates. The system was meant to be more democratic, but it places too much attention on largely white, small states.David Smith, Senior Lecturer in American Politics and Foreign Policy, US Studies Centre, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1297372020-01-15T05:46:28Z2020-01-15T05:46:28Z3 quotes that defined the first Democratic debate of 2020<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310138/original/file-20200115-151839-surg81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders shake hands before the debate on Jan. 14.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Election-2020-Debate/b56197b74eda469c8ae4704f6caff838/28/0">AP Photo/Patrick Semansky</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/us/politics/democratic-debate-lineup.html">Six Democrats</a> qualified for the final debate before the Iowa caucus on Feb. 3. We asked three scholars to watch the Jan. 14 debate, held at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and pick a quote from one of the candidates to highlight and analyze.</em></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310148/original/file-20200115-151844-1h62ril.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310148/original/file-20200115-151844-1h62ril.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310148/original/file-20200115-151844-1h62ril.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310148/original/file-20200115-151844-1h62ril.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310148/original/file-20200115-151844-1h62ril.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310148/original/file-20200115-151844-1h62ril.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310148/original/file-20200115-151844-1h62ril.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joe Biden touched on the Iran nuclear deal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Election-2020-Debate/1ddbb4d5be9846de9731047635d80120/4/0">AP Photo/Patrick Semansky</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Dennis Jett, Pennsylvania State University</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I was part of that deal to get the nuclear agreement with Iran, bringing together the rest of the world, including some of the folks who aren’t friendly to us. And it was working.” - Joe Biden</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Iran nuclear deal took two years to negotiate and <a href="https://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/world/full-text-of-the-iran-nuclear-deal/1651/">runs to over 20,000 words</a>.</p>
<p>Joe Biden no doubt had a part in selling the agreement, as it was one of the <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/issues/foreign-policy/iran-deal">Obama administration’s top foreign policy</a> objectives. The agreement placed strict and verifiable limits on Iran’s nuclear program and even Trump, during his first year in office, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/08/trump-to-announce-he-will-withdraw-us-from-iran-nuclear-deal.html">certified Iran was complying</a> before he came up with <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/key-moments-in-the-unraveling-of-the-iran-nuclear-deal">additional demands</a>. He then <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/world/middleeast/trump-iran-nuclear-deal.html">withdrew from the deal</a>.</p>
<p>That move convinced American allies that U.S. leadership had <a href="https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/06/05/the-trump-effect-in-europe/">become as erratic as it was unreliable</a>. It also removed the incentive for Iran to limit its ability to develop nuclear weapons and relied on sanctions to force Iran to capitulate. </p>
<p>Since the U.S. withdrew, Iran has responded by continuing to develop its nuclear capability, making the time it would need to construct a bomb increasingly shorter. The recent killing <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/08/soleimani-killing-assassination-legitimate-act-war-terror/2831498001/">of senior Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani</a> by U.S. drone strike will only encourage Iran to reconsider the steps it must take to defend itself. That <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/israel-heading-towards-preventive-war-against-iran-98987">may prompt Israel</a> to again contemplate a preemptive strike.</p>
<p>In his speech on Jan. 8, Trump explained his rationale for killing Soleimani – a speech that included <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/01/factchecking-trumps-iran-address/">several dubious claims</a>. I predict that his effort to force Iran to its knees will have no more success than his attempt to negotiate with North Korea to get them to give up their weapons.</p>
<p>If Trump then resorts to military action against Iran, he will likely find it impossible to convince anyone that his justification for acting is either credible or legitimate.</p>
<p>And if Biden – or any of the others on the stage tonight – become president a year from now, putting the deal back together again will be difficult if not impossible.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310143/original/file-20200115-151848-bfeghd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310143/original/file-20200115-151848-bfeghd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310143/original/file-20200115-151848-bfeghd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310143/original/file-20200115-151848-bfeghd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310143/original/file-20200115-151848-bfeghd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310143/original/file-20200115-151848-bfeghd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310143/original/file-20200115-151848-bfeghd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Elizabeth Warren spoke about the American military presence in the Middle East.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Election-2020-Debate/53372abdc01d4eb7bccd94c66c1abd3b/8/0">AP Photo/Patrick Semansky</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Amy K. Dacey, American University</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We should stop asking our military to solve problems that cannot be solved militarily.” - Elizabeth Warren</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The final debate before the Iowa caucus is a challenging one for candidates. The strategic question at hand is: Do they fight with other primary candidates – or deescalate the differences that exist between them, even if small?</p>
<p>While the first six debates focused on domestic policy, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/iran-news-rouhani-says-us-caused-plane-strike-today-over-donald-trump-killing-qassem-soleimani-2020-01-14/">the recent conflict between the U.S. and Iran</a> was at the forefront of voters’ and candidates’ minds on Jan. 15. </p>
<p>This debate shined a light on the candidates’ foreign policy experience, in contrast with the policies of the sitting president. Most recently, Biden has been seen by Democratic primary voters as <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/democrats-trust-biden-sanders-on-foreign-policy-amid-iran-tensions.html">the candidate most trustworthy on foreign policy</a>. </p>
<p>President Donald Trump’s administration has <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-12-03/trump-didnt-shrink-us-military-commitments-abroad-he-expanded-them">expanded U.S. military commitments abroad</a>. Even after declaring <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-cabinet-meeting-15/">“I got elected on bringing our soldiers back home,”</a> <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-12-03/trump-didnt-shrink-us-military-commitments-abroad-he-expanded-them">Trump has kept 174,000</a> active military deployed overseas. </p>
<p>The focus on foreign policy in the early minutes of the debate opened a door for candidates to remind voters that their positions reinforce the Obama administration’s commitment to only send troops into harm’s way when it was necessary and with <a href="https://time.com/4622417/president-obama-armed-forces-speech-transcript/">a strategy and defined goals</a>, while at the same time openly questioning the military decisions of the Trump administration, especially in recent days.</p>
<p>Warren’s comments sent a clear message that diplomacy and other means, such as international alliances and negotiation, are to be considered. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310159/original/file-20200115-151839-13knw7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310159/original/file-20200115-151839-13knw7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310159/original/file-20200115-151839-13knw7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310159/original/file-20200115-151839-13knw7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310159/original/file-20200115-151839-13knw7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310159/original/file-20200115-151839-13knw7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310159/original/file-20200115-151839-13knw7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amy Klobuchar spoke at the Jan. 14 Democratic presidential primary debate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Election-2020-Debate/2f0e2668275a4c70b030a11543810870/13/0">AP Photo/Patrick Semansky</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Pearl K. Dowe, Oxford College, Emory University</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We are not going to have a shortage of MBAs, we are going to have a shortage of plumbers.” - Amy Klobuchar</p>
</blockquote>
<p>During the debate, moderators raised the question about Pete Buttigieg’s opposition to free public college access for the wealthiest 20% in the country. </p>
<p>Klobuchar attempted to pivot the conversation to the economic value of education, saying that there should be an emphasis on filling blue collar jobs that are currently vacant. </p>
<p>This statement echoes a question in today’s society about the value of higher education and who should be able to access it. This <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/opinion/college-useful-cost-jobs.html">public debate</a> has resulted from rising tuition costs, increased student loan debt and stagnation of wages. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2018/data-on-display/education-pays.htm">Bureau of Labor Statistics data</a> confirms that, in every state, those with college degrees earn more than those without degrees. College graduates average a weekly income of US$1,173, compared to $712 for those with only a high school diploma. A high school diploma no longer offers a career path that can lead to a middle-class life. </p>
<p>Key members of the Democratic voting block – <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2017/12/04/black-women-are-earning-more-college-degrees-but-that-alone-wont-close-race-gaps/">women and people of color</a> – face significant barriers to closing the income and wealth gap with white men. </p>
<p>In my view as <a href="https://app.oxford.emory.edu/WebApps/Directory/index.cfm/view/9635">someone who studies African American political behavior</a>, Klobuchar was correct that the conversation about jobs should be broader. But careers with limited mobility and low wages do not offer an effective avenue to economic prosperity. Her comments did not fully acknowledge why people are willing to go into debt in order to receive education beyond high school. </p>
<p>African Americans often view education not only as an avenue to a career that allows for the potential of upward mobility, but also to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/07/30/stop-blaming-black-parents-for-underachieving-kids/">a greater sense of freedom for oneself and one’s family</a>. Klobuchar’s comment dismisses this long history of deep commitment to earning a freer life.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129737/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>At the Jan. 14 debate, held at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, six candidates clashed on jobs, Iran and more.Dennis Jett, Professor of International Affairs, Penn StateAmy Dacey, Executive Director of the Sine Institute of Policy and Politics, American UniversityPearl Dowe, Acting Professor of Political Science and African American Studies at Oxford College, Emory UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1212982019-08-01T20:08:49Z2019-08-01T20:08:49ZVital Signs: the battle for the soul of the US Democrats that’s taking place before our eyes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286675/original/file-20190802-169692-5s2b68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C198%2C1879%2C834&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ten presidential candidates debate on July 30. Marianne Williamson, Tim Ryan, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O'Rourke, John Hickenlooper, John Delaney, Steve Bullock. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/30/politics/gallery/cnn-democratic-debates-detroit/index.html">Mark Peterson/Redux for CNN</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past two days the 20 leading contenders for the role of the US Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential candidate have faced off in two debates.</p>
<p>The exchanges between them – sometimes sharp – revealed a stark divide on economic matters. In many ways, the party’s core economic narrative is up for grabs for the first time since Bill Clinton reshaped it in the early 1990s.</p>
<p>There were so many contenders that there had to be two rounds, each with 10 candidates, over two nights.</p>
<p>But it was debate 1 in Detroit that was perhaps the most revealing about the distinct economic philosophies.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/two-dozen-candidates-one-big-target-in-a-crowded-democratic-field-who-can-beat-trump-119295">Two dozen candidates, one big target: in a crowded Democratic field, who can beat Trump?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>(Aside: debate 2 also had big names and serious contenders like <a href="https://www.harris.senate.gov/">Kamala Harris</a> and <a href="https://joebiden.com/">Joe Biden</a>, so it was also important, but it didn’t add much that would illustrate the economic divide.)</p>
<p>Debate 1 featured self-avowed “democratic socialist” <a href="https://www.sanders.senate.gov/">Bernie Sanders</a>, the man who was Hillary Clinton’s bete-noire in the 2016 primaries. In addition, Massachusetts Senator <a href="https://elizabethwarren.com/">Elizabeth Warren</a>, South Bend Indiana Mayor <a href="https://peteforamerica.com/meet-pete/">Pete Buttigieg</a>, and Congressman <a href="https://betoorourke.com/">Beto O'Rourke</a> – all names even ordinary Americans might be familiar with.</p>
<p>Less well known, but critical, players in the opposing economic philosophies are Senator <a href="https://amyklobuchar.com/">Amy Klobuchar</a> and Congressman <a href="https://www.johndelaney.com/">John Delaney</a>.</p>
<p>You really don’t need to focus much on the other participants like the quirky but entertaining self-help guru <a href="https://marianne.com/">Marianne Williamson</a>, and the very likeable and reasonable <a href="https://timryanforamerica.com/">Tim Ryan</a> and <a href="https://www.hickenlooper.com/">John Hickenlooper</a>.</p>
<h2>The biggest battle line</h2>
<p>The biggest distinction is between those candidates who believe in markets and those who basically don’t.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sanders.senate.gov/">Sanders</a> and <a href="https://elizabethwarren.com/">Warren</a> basically don’t. They want the US government to rail against corporations making lots of money. They think those companies make that money by corrupting politics. They want to aggressively tax the wealthy.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.johndelaney.com/">Delaney</a> has a lot more faith in markets and free enterprise. He was an entrepreneur who took two companies public before the age of 40 and has a net worth of US$65 million.</p>
<p><a href="https://amyklobuchar.com/">Klobuchar</a> doesn’t have the same background (she was a prosecutor before entering politics) but also doesn’t think government should do everything.</p>
<p><a href="https://peteforamerica.com/meet-pete/">Buttigieg</a> (or “Mayor Pete” as he is commonly known) was a McKinsey consultant (and Afghanistan War veteran) who is more technocratic, thinking that a good Excel spreadsheet piloted by smart folks can solve a lot of problems.</p>
<p>The two main issues that illustrate the big divide healthcare and taxation.</p>
<h2>Medicare makes the difference stark</h2>
<p>On healthcare there is no dispute that it should be universal, that every American should be covered. </p>
<p>The divide is between those who want there to be <em>only</em> government-provided health insurance, and those who want there to be a mix of government and privately-provided insurance.</p>
<p>A little background. “Medicare” in the US is a government-provided free plan for those 65-years and older. Other Americans get their health insurance either through their employer, don’t have health insurance, or since the advent of “Obamacare” (the Affordable Care Act) buy it themselves with a subsidy.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-us-could-learn-from-thailand-about-health-care-coverage-108644">What the US could learn from Thailand about health care coverage</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<hr>
<p>Sanders and Warren want what they call “Medicare for all”. By that they mean a single-payer system with no private insurance, everyone on Medicare.</p>
<p>Delaney, Klobuchar and others (especially Joe Biden from debate 2) think that’s nuts. That’s because it implies that the millions of Americans who have and value private insurance would lose it, either because bit was made illegal or because Medicare would price it out of the market.</p>
<p>They say they want a mere public “option”: if you like your insurance you can use it instead of Medicare, otherwise otherwise you use Medicare.</p>
<p>That’s a pretty stark distinction: between banning private commerce and not.</p>
<h2>Over tax, the differences are just as stark</h2>
<p>On taxation, again there is some agreement. All the candidates agree that wealthy Americans should pay more. What’s in dispute is how, and how much.</p>
<p>Warren wants a wealth tax that would take 2% of people’s wealth (not income) in excess of US$50 million (and take 3% of wealth in excess of US$1 billion). </p>
<p>The idea has been <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/28/be-very-skeptical-about-how-much-revenue-elizabeth-warrens-wealth-tax-could-generate/">heavily criticised</a> by luminaries such as former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers who say it won’t raise much money and will dampen incentive. They are pushing for laws which will <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/03/28/broader-tax-base-that-closes-loopholes-would-raise-more-money-than-plans-ocasio-cortez-and-warren/Bv16zhTAkuEx08SiNrjx9J/story.html">close loopholes and tax shelters</a> instead. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/so-you-want-to-tax-the-rich-heres-which-candidates-plan-makes-the-most-sense-111945">So you want to tax the rich – here's which candidate's plan makes the most sense</a>
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<p>The idea has also been sharply opposed in the debate by John Delaney, who wants instead to increase the rate of capital gains tax (which, as in Australia, is lower than the income tax rate) and reverse <a href="https://www.thebalance.com/trump-s-tax-plan-how-it-affects-you-4113968">Donald Trump’s tax cuts</a>.</p>
<p>Here again, the contrast is between candidates trying to get more money from the wealthy while preserving incentives and candidates who see significant wealth as essentially immoral.</p>
<h2>For years to come, the winner will take all</h2>
<p>In essence the 2020 candidates are arguing about whether the third-way, market-oriented approach that Bill Clinton brought to the Democratic Party will endure, or be replaced with democratic socialism that “soaks the rich” and views private enterprise with scepticism.</p>
<p>At this stage there’s no telling which side will prevail. The result will have profound consequences for Americans for years to come.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-democratic-presidential-primaries-biden-leading-followed-by-sanders-warren-harris-and-will-trump-be-beaten-120340">US Democratic presidential primaries: Biden leading, followed by Sanders, Warren, Harris; and will Trump be beaten?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121298/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Holden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The winner will set the course of America for years to come.Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1188842019-06-20T11:21:42Z2019-06-20T11:21:42ZMath explains why the Democrats may have trouble picking a candidate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316931/original/file-20200224-24685-1aohtz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Democratic field started with more than two dozen candidates.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Election-2020-Immigration/86e621f21689497e9e6d84c4c46f0015/9/0">AP Photo/John Locher</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/us/politics/2020-presidential-candidates.html">From 28 declared candidates for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination</a> down to just eight, many Americans are likely wondering how the party will ultimately make up its mind and settle on the best candidate.</p>
<p><a href="https://mathstats.case.edu/student/alexander-strang/">As</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5ctD7qIAAAAJ&hl=en">mathematicians</a>, we wondered whether there might not even be a best candidate. In fact, this is an established mathematical paradox. The more candidates there are, the greater the chance there is no clear favorite. </p>
<p>Here’s what we mean.</p>
<p>Suppose there were only two candidates for some office, and that each voter preferred one or the other. Barring a perfect tie, one candidate will end up with the most votes. Ignoring complications like the Electoral College or voter turnout, the election process provides a way to measure the “will of the people.”</p>
<p>Now imagine there were three candidates instead of just two.</p>
<p>Three friends and a pollster walk into a bar and discuss the upcoming election. The first friend thinks that candidate A is better than B, and that C is the worst of all. The next agrees that B is better than C, but she thinks that B and C are both better than A. The final friend partially agrees with both of them: He thinks C is the best candidate, followed by A and then B.</p>
<p>The pollster cannot say which is the best candidate, since, for these voters, there is no best candidate! Their ranked preferences are inconsistent with each other.</p>
<p>This situation is an example of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257651659_Condorcet's_Paradox_and_the_Condorcet_Efficiency_of_Voting_Rules">Condorcet’s paradox</a>. It was named for the French Enlightenment philosopher and mathematician Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, marquis of Condorcet, an advocate of democratic reforms who perished in 1794, a victim of the French Revolution.</p>
<p>To Condorcet, a winner is a candidate who would win a one-on-one election against any other candidate. But, a paradox arises when there is no candidate who wins head-to-head against all opponents – which implies that voters’ ranked preferences contradict one another.</p>
<p>How likely is a situation like Condorcet’s paradox to arise in practice? It depends on how many candidates there are, and how evenly distributed the voters’ preferences are.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-013-0133-3">Relatively few</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-013-0133-3">studies</a> have shown conclusive evidence for the Condorcet paradox in real life. But it has been <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257651659_Condorcet's_Paradox_and_the_Condorcet_Efficiency_of_Voting_Rules">observed in a number of elections</a>, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010304729545">the 2006 Danish elections for prime minister</a>.</p>
<p>The possibility is not as abstract as it may seem. For example, <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-5565.html">some Americans</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/sanders-says-he-would-have-beaten-trump-in-2016-if-hed-been-the-nominee">including Bernie Sanders</a>, believe that, had Sanders won the Democratic primary in 2016, he would have beaten Trump in the general election. This implies an underlying rock/paper/scissors inconsistency: Trump beats Clinton; Clinton beats Sanders; but, somehow, Sanders beats Trump.</p>
<p>In a three-candidate race, there are six possible ways of ranking them. There is about a 9% chance the electorate as a whole has no clear preference. </p>
<p>With 24 different candidates running, there are 620 billion trillion possible rankings. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257651659_Condorcet%27s_Paradox_and_the_Condorcet_Efficiency_of_Voting_Rules">A study by</a> University of Delaware researcher William V. Gehrlein calculated the probability that there is no Condorcet winner, a candidate who would win a one-on-one election against any other candidate. With two dozen candidates, there will be no Condorcet winner 70% of the time. </p>
<p>That means that, about two-thirds of the time, there will be at least three candidates who end up in a winnerless rock-paper-scissors situation. </p>
<p><iframe id="4mPR1" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/4mPR1/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Condorcet’s paradox assumes a worst-case scenario, where the candidates are statistically indistinguishable from one another. In this situation, each voter arrives at their rank order randomly and independently – as if each voter secretly rolls the dice to rank the candidates. </p>
<p>It is unlikely that voters’ preferences are actually chosen in this random way. For example, Joe Biden might take affront to the notion that he is equally likely to be ranked first or last across all Democrats’ ballots.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, if Democrats appear to be having difficulty making up their collective mind this election season, it is possible that this apparent indecision is because there is no well-defined will of the people to be discerned at all.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a story that originally ran on June 20, 2019.</em></p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118884/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Strang receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Thomas receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>The more candidates that there are, the likelier it is that voters cannot come to a consensus on the best candidate.Alexander Strang, Ph.D Candidate in Mathematics, Case Western Reserve UniversityPeter Thomas, Professor of Mathematics, Case Western Reserve UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1165712019-05-16T10:42:56Z2019-05-16T10:42:56ZWhy are there so many candidates for president?<p>Seven Democratic presidential candidates gathered on national television early in the 1988 campaign to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/02/us/debates-to-play-bigger-role-in-88.html?searchResultPosition=3">debate each other</a>. </p>
<p>The field of candidates, derided by Republicans as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/06/opinion/the-seven-dwarfs.html">“Seven Dwarfs</a>,” pales in comparison to the 24 Democratic candidates who have – at last count – declared their candidacy for president. </p>
<p>The seven Democrats on the stage in 1988 represented an unprecedented number of candidates vying in a presidential primary. Now, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/us/politics/democratic-debates-candidates.html">17 of the 24 declared Democratic presidential candidates have currently met the standards</a> set by the Democratic National Committee to qualify for participation in this election cycle’s debates. </p>
<p>And in 2016 the GOP used <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/another-kids-table-debate-only-much-smaller/405664/">two debate stages</a> to accommodate the 17 declared candidates. </p>
<p>I study <a href="http://myweb.fsu.edu/hanhassell4/">political parties and their role in electoral politics</a>. And I believe the rise in the number of presidential candidates in recent years results from divisions within the party coalitions and from easier access to vital campaign resources – money and media – that were not present in previous election cycles. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274507/original/file-20190515-60570-e6z5aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274507/original/file-20190515-60570-e6z5aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274507/original/file-20190515-60570-e6z5aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274507/original/file-20190515-60570-e6z5aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274507/original/file-20190515-60570-e6z5aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274507/original/file-20190515-60570-e6z5aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274507/original/file-20190515-60570-e6z5aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274507/original/file-20190515-60570-e6z5aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nine of the 17 Republican presidential candidates on stage with debate moderator Wolf Blitzer during the fifth Republican presidential debate on CNN, Dec. 15, 2015, in Las Vegas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/GOP-2016-Debate/5c37e54225bf4c4caabf9ae53a9c3593/100/0">AP/John Locher</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The old way</h2>
<p>Political parties are not monolithic organizations. Parties consist of a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/theory-of-political-parties-groups-policy-demands-and-nominations-in-american-politics/2F7996D5365C105C3B91CD56E6A1FAA3">network of groups with different policy interests who work together</a>. </p>
<p>For example, within the Democratic Party there are labor organizations, environmentalists and civil rights groups, each with different priorities. Each group would ideally prefer a candidate who will champion their ideas and strongly support their policy preferences. </p>
<p>But a primary filled with many candidates who attack one another risks harming the eventual nominee’s standing with voters. </p>
<p>Likewise, these divisive primaries may cause supporters of a candidate who fails to win the nomination to withhold their support of the nominee. </p>
<p>So to avoid <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-016-9332-1">the problems created by a divisive primary</a>, these groups must coordinate behind a single candidate who may not be everyone’s – or anyone’s – first choice.</p>
<p>This requires the groups within the party to compromise, subordinating their group’s interests in favor of a win for the party. </p>
<p>In previous election cycles, where the average number of candidates who declared their candidacy and campaigned actively through the first primaries and caucuses was much smaller, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Party-Decides-Presidential-Nominations-American/dp/0226112373">these groups have worked together effectively to stand behind one candidate</a>. </p>
<h2>Money, media and staff</h2>
<p>As <a href="https://newbooksnetwork.com/hans-hassell-the-partys-primary-control-of-congressional-nominations-cambridge-up-2018/">my research shows</a>, unified parties are able to discourage candidates from running or encourage them to drop out. </p>
<p>They do this by making it difficult for the candidates they don’t prefer to acquire the vital electoral resources that are necessary to win the nomination: media coverage, campaign funds and quality campaign staff. </p>
<p>Donors, staff and the media take cues from party elites about which candidates are the party’s choice. They are less likely to support, work for or cover those lacking the party’s support.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/05/12/everything-you-need-to-know-about-how-the-presidential-primary-works/">Reforms to the presidential nomination</a> process in the early 1970s took choosing a nominee out of smoke-filled back rooms. But <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-03/political-parties-must-respond-to-disruption">parties have continued</a> to influence the outcome through their control of the money and other campaign resources necessary to win the nomination. </p>
<p>While these resources are available in abundance within the party network, they were previously harder to find outside of that network. In previous years, candidates who realized it would be hard to amass the necessary resources through party support ultimately declined to run or dropped out quickly, resulting in much smaller presidential fields. </p>
<h2>Declining party influence</h2>
<p>In recent years, things have changed. </p>
<p>Parties may still have the ability to push a candidate through the nomination <a href="https://www.vox.com/mischiefs-of-faction/2016/1/26/10834512/party-decides-establishment">when they are united</a>. But I believe party unification and power over electoral resources has also declined in these four areas:</p>
<h2>1. Media control</h2>
<p>In the past, candidates were <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/not-your-father-s-campaign-trail-what-might-have-happened-n989201">reliant on the media to publicize their candidacy</a> and get their message to voters. Party leaders and elites consistently have better connections with the media establishment and use those connections to promote preferred candidates. </p>
<p>But today’s media environment allows candidates to bring their message directly to voters. Social media <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/changing-media-changing-politics/6DDE422850CA74994BF4C512284C0C45">bypasses reporters and editors</a> and those who have connections to them so more candidates have easier access to this key campaign resource. </p>
<h2>2. Candidate ambitions</h2>
<p>Before, running for president was almost entirely about advancing one’s political career. As <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=NuZXHrSmy3UC&q=just+as+good+as+they+are#v=snippet&q=just%20as%20good%20as%20they%20are&f=false">Paul Tsongas, the former senator and presidential candidate, once said</a>, “When you get to the Senate, half the people around you are running for president. You see them and you think you are just as good as they are…So you start to think about running yourself.” </p>
<p>Now, a run for higher office can be a <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/mike-pence-donald-jr-and-melania-never-thought-trump-would-become-president-769701">means to other opportunities outside of politics</a>. Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, a presidential candidate in 2016 and 2012, <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/17/rick-santorum-joins-cnn-as-senior-political-commen/">became a pundit on CNN</a>. Another candidate, the GOP’s 2008 vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, ended up with a <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/a-tv-leap-wannabe-veep160160-121714">show on cable news</a>. </p>
<p>While parties still pressure candidates to withdraw, candidates may be less responsive than in the past. That’s because they care less about the desires of party elites since they may not be as interested in a career in party politics.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274514/original/file-20190515-60554-1f4b71t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274514/original/file-20190515-60554-1f4b71t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274514/original/file-20190515-60554-1f4b71t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274514/original/file-20190515-60554-1f4b71t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274514/original/file-20190515-60554-1f4b71t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274514/original/file-20190515-60554-1f4b71t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274514/original/file-20190515-60554-1f4b71t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274514/original/file-20190515-60554-1f4b71t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Until recently, parties played a large role in choosing presidential nominees. Here, delegates to the Republican National Convention in Chicago, July 8, 1952.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/GOP-Convention-1952/9e40aca83c4d43ef889c1d81ead8dd95/61/0">AP//William Smith</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Fundraising</h2>
<p>Changes in campaign finance have also helped candidates find sufficient money outside of the party network to launch their campaign. </p>
<p>The rise of super PACs and other independent political entities has allowed candidates to gain access to large sums of money <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/us/politics/as-carly-fiorina-surges-so-does-the-work-of-her-super-pac.html">from a small number of donors</a>. Campaign finance rules previously encouraged candidates to rely on a larger base of wealthy donors – many of whom took cues from party elites. </p>
<p>At the same time, the internet and social media have also expanded the role of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/19/politics/2020-democrats-small-donations/index.html">small donors who are not traditionally involved in party politics</a>. Small dollar donations have taken a <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/small-dollar-donors-2020-democrats-president-money">more important role in campaign funding</a>. </p>
<h2>4. Party disunity</h2>
<p>Lastly, party coalitions have also become more divided. </p>
<p>Divisions within the Republican Party coalition <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2014/05/07/politics/gop-establishment-tea-party-fights-ahead/index.html">became more evident</a> during the Tea Party movement. <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/02/04/the-insurgents-behind-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-224542">Similar ideological divisions</a> have emerged in the last two election cycles <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/27/dccc-cheri-bustos-progressives-1241010">between Democratic Party leaders and the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party</a>. The rise of differences and divisions within the parties makes it harder for the groups within the party network to coordinate on a single candidate.</p>
<h2>Here to stay</h2>
<p>While the number of candidates running for president in 2020 may be unprecedented, a crowded debate stage is unlikely to be a strange sight in the future. </p>
<p>The divisions within parties and the availability of money and media coverage outside of the traditional party network mean that potential candidates will continue to see – and take – opportunities where previously they did not.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116571/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hans J.G. Hassell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The number of candidates in presidential primaries has skyrocketed since the 2016 election. Divisions inside political parties and easy ways for candidates to raise money are among the reasons why.Hans J.G. Hassell, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Florida State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/667572016-11-03T19:05:37Z2016-11-03T19:05:37ZThe risk of reading too much into the rise of Donald Trump<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141551/original/image-20161013-16222-2juqf4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Trump on the campaign trail. His rise may have less real meaning than many analysts suggest.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mike Segar</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We are fast approaching what is perhaps the most fascinating US presidential election in recent memory. </p>
<p>Our interpretations of the election might proceed along two quite different tracks. </p>
<p>First, we might focus on its functions in the American democratic system. Its winner can claim to represent “the American people” in a way that nobody else can. And their victory will be an important barometer of political forces and public opinion. </p>
<p>Alternatively, we might focus on the mechanics of the election process — or how the winner was “generated.” </p>
<p>Under the spotlight would be the quirks of the Electoral College, the fairness of media coverage and campaign financing, and the ups and downs of the candidates’ campaigns.</p>
<p>When it comes to the election, both perspectives carry important truths.
The winner — likely to be Hillary Clinton, despite her <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-30/us-election-hillary-clinton-fbi-email-probe-saga-explained/7978206">recent troubles</a> — will probably be more representative of the state of the nation at this point in time. </p>
<p>How did we get to this point? How is it that Clinton is vying with Donald Trump for arguably the most powerful job in the world?</p>
<p>To answer this, we should look at the quirkiness of the nomination process, and why Republican voters chose Trump over other, more traditional GOP candidates. </p>
<p>Trump’s rise has been interpreted as a sign of important trends in the Republican Party and America more generally. In particular, his rise has been explained as a reaction to economic stagnation and evidence of growing insecurity about multiculturalism and immigration. </p>
<p>Given the eccentricities of the nomination processes, these are risky interpretations. </p>
<p>Below I present a brief (and somewhat crude) test of the idea that Trump’s rise represents a “phenomenon” of some kind, rather than a quirky victory.</p>
<h2>The geography of Trump’s rise</h2>
<p>Trump ended up winning the Republican nomination by a comfortable margin. But the size of his victories (and depth of his occasional defeats) varied across the states. </p>
<p>The figure below <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries,2016">presents data</a> on the size of Trump’s victories in the primaries. The redder the red, the bigger the Trump win; the deeper the blue, the larger the Trump defeat. </p>
<p>For example, Trump won big in New Jersey and West Virginia. But he suffered big defeats in DC and Wyoming.</p>
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<p>If Trump’s rise represents a phenomenon of some kind, we might expect a tight relationship between the size of Trump’s victory (or defeat) in a state and the characteristics of that state. </p>
<p>So, if Trump’s rise was due to economic stagnation, we might expect slow-growth states to provide his biggest victories. </p>
<p>If Trump’s rise was due to traditionalists feeling threatened by multiculturalism, we might expect states with large white populations to provide the biggest Trump victories. </p>
<p>If Trump’s rise was due to the threat of immigration from Mexico, we might expect states that border Mexico to provide the biggest Trump victories.</p>
<p>Is this what we observe? The short answer is “not really”. </p>
<h2>An economic phenomenon?</h2>
<p>The table below presents <a href="http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_state/2016/qgsp0716.htm">data</a> on the economic performance of the states since Obama became president (2009-15).</p>
<p>Overlaying this data is the colour coding of the previous table, indicating the size of Trump victories and defeats. </p>
<p>As this comparison suggests, Trump won big in some fast-growing states, but also in some slow-growing states. </p>
<p>More generally, there isn’t a strong correlation between the size of Trump’s victory and the economic performance of a state. </p>
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<h2>A sociological phenomenon?</h2>
<p>The table below presents <a href="http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution-by-raceethnicity/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D">demographic data</a>, indicating the proportion of the population that identifies as “white.” </p>
<p>Once again, I’ve overlaid the colour coding of Trump victories and defeats. Here too, his rise is not well explained by the size of the white population. </p>
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<p>Finally, did Trump’s biggest victories come in the states that border Mexico (Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas)? Trump did win comfortably in California and New Mexico, but not in Arizona or Texas – he lost both. </p>
<h2>The power of good timing</h2>
<p>In short, there are reasons to doubt “big” explanations of Trump’s rise, which argue it is indicative of a broader political movement. </p>
<p>As an alternative, we might focus on how Trump succeeded in a quirky process. The most important feature of the process is “momentum” – once a candidate starts winning, s/he becomes very difficult to stop.</p>
<p>So if you can win in a few early primaries – for whatever reason – you can sweep the nation.</p>
<p>The table below presents the primaries in their calendar sequence. As this table suggests, Trump’s performance in a state was closely related to when that state held its primary. </p>
<p>His early victories were marginal, but crucial because they got his campaign rolling.</p>
<p>His late victories were the really big ones. By this stage Trump had too much momentum to stop (as the Republican party establishment discovered). And this gave him an unrivalled platform in the media to make policy pronouncements. </p>
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<p>If, as this table suggests, Trump’s rise was fuelled mainly by his momentum, this suggests the importance of not over-interpreting what his nomination as Republican candidate means. </p>
<p>He won largely by succeeding in tightly-fought races early on. </p>
<p>The margins were close, and Trump’s successes in these primaries were due at least as much to his rivals’ mistakes and underestimations of his candidacy as they were to any groundswell of support in his favour.</p>
<p>Even if Trump loses the election, he will still win the votes of many millions of Americans (because they face what is effectively a two-horse race). We shouldn’t assume that his views are a good reflection of theirs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66757/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zim Nwokora does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There has been much analysis on the rise of Donald Trump as the result of widespread social and economic unrest, but a look at the primaries shows it to be more of a quirk of the system.Zim Nwokora, Lecturer in Politics and Policy, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/651582016-09-22T20:29:29Z2016-09-22T20:29:29ZEverything you wanted to know about US elections but were afraid to ask<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138714/original/image-20160922-19714-tc0ctp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's common for presidential candidates to announce their campaigns 18 months or more in advance of election day.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Carlos Barria</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>US presidential elections are more than politics: they are now part of global popular culture, gaining a place in the public’s diary of must-see events alongside those other two major quadrennial events – the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics.</p>
<p>As a result, global audiences have heard of terms like the primaries, the conventions and the Electoral College. But the history and exact meaning of these terms remains a mystery to many.</p>
<h2>The candidates</h2>
<p>The first two things people notice about US presidential elections is that they are very long, drawn-out processes, and that candidates are often running (and judged) on their biographies.</p>
<p>The length of the election season is partly because there is no official opposition leader in American politics. As a result, opponents only emerge when candidates announce they are running for the presidency.</p>
<p>With elections being held on a fixed date every four years, it has become common for candidates to <a href="https://theconversation.com/hillary-clinton-announces-presidential-campaign-expert-reaction-39831">officially announce their campaigns</a> 18 months before an election.</p>
<p>The election date is always on the first Tuesday in November that falls after the first Monday; the election this year is on November 8.</p>
<h2>The primaries and caucuses</h2>
<p>Once a candidate has announced, they prepare for the caucuses and primaries. These are preselection contests held by the two major parties – the Democrats and the Republicans.</p>
<p>By a tradition that dates back to 1972, the first caucus is <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-are-the-iowa-caucuses-53353">held in Iowa</a> at the beginning of the election year. The first primary by convention is <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-new-hampshire-primary-and-why-does-it-matter-53412">in New Hampshire</a>. Nevada and South Carolina are also traditionally early primary states.</p>
<p>The first large multi-state primary is called <a href="https://theconversation.com/super-tuesday-sees-trump-and-clinton-triumph-scholars-around-the-globe-react-55562">Super Tuesday</a>. The southern states originally organised this to have more influence on the process, but it now tends to include non-southern states.</p>
<p>The difference between a primary and a caucus is somewhat complex, as is who can vote in each variation. When you register to vote in the US (which, like voting itself, is not compulsory) in most states you register as one of three things: a Democrat, a Republican, or an independent.</p>
<p>One of the reasons you choose one of these labels when registering is so you can vote in primaries and caucuses. In some states, only registered Democrats can vote in their party’s primaries; these are called closed primaries. Other states have open primaries where independents – and indeed anyone – can vote if the state treats everyone as unaffiliated when they register to vote.</p>
<p>There are also semi-open primaries with state-by-state variations. This makes it easy or difficult to change your registration (including on polling day) depending on where you are.</p>
<p>Even more complicated is how states allocate primary votes. The short answer is some states allocate votes proportionally and some on a winner-takes-all basis. The long answer is a multi-page rulebook with massive state variation.</p>
<p>This is one of the paradoxes of the primaries: they are one of the most open (populist) aspects of American democracy, but are governed by an incredibly complex set of rules that are mystifying to most voters.</p>
<p>Whereas a primary is pretty standard in terms of how one actually votes, the caucuses can feature speeches and voters persuading each other in non-secret votes (in the case of Democratic Party caucuses). Such caucuses can be very time-consuming. Therefore the percentage of eligible citizens who vote in caucuses is often very low.</p>
<p>A good deal of the reasoning behind caucuses and primaries in small and not particularly populous states, like New Hampshire, is to try to replicate the town-hall democratic practices of the early American townships.</p>
<p>The winner of each party’s primaries is officially nominated at a party convention, held this year in Cleveland by the Republicans and in Philadelphia by the Democrats.</p>
<p>What is remarkable about the American system is how weak the party leadership is in being able to move against a primary candidate they disapprove of. Republican candidate Donald Trump’s success in 2016 is a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/opinion/campaign-stops/why-republicans-wont-renounce-trump.html?_r=0">prime example of this</a>.</p>
<h2>The debates</h2>
<p>Lacking parliamentary question time, speeches and debates are the testing ground for America’s aspiring leaders.</p>
<p>The first-ever presidential debate was rather late, all things considered. <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/kennedy-and-nixon-square-off-in-a-televised-presidential-debate">It occurred</a> between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy on September 26, 1960; they debated three more times before election day.</p>
<p>Remarkably, given the TV audience presidential debates attract, there was not another round of presidential debates <a href="http://www.debates.org/index.php?page=1976-debates">until 1976</a>. It then became a permanent part of the election calendar.</p>
<p>Debates are run by an independent commission – not by the TV stations – which enforces strict rules, like no clapping or calling out from the audience, and equal speaking time. This differs from the primary debates, where the TV stations allow audience involvement and tend to focus on where the drama is.</p>
<p>The first debate between Trump and his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, is on September 26.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon face off in the first-ever US presidential debate.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The Electoral College</h2>
<p>Americans elect their presidents through a system called the Electoral College. This is a state-by-state voting system that has some of the complexity of the primary process. </p>
<p>In the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000">2000 election</a>, Al Gore received more of the popular vote than George W. Bush nationally, but Bush won the presidency because he got 271 Electoral College votes to Gore’s 266 (you need 270 to become president). </p>
<p>Each state is worth a certain number of Electoral College votes very roughly proportionate to population. For example, California is worth 55, Indiana 11 and Wyoming three. </p>
<p>Because three Electoral College votes is the minimum a state can be allocated, an individual’s vote in Wyoming (the least-populous state) is worth three times more than a single vote in California or New York. Electoral College votes are awarded on a winner-takes-all basis for every state apart from Nebraska and Maine.</p>
<p>The system was created to honour the US being a federation of states. However, this theory of valuing each state does not play out in practice, because the election is truly decided by a <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-nine-swing-states-that-will-decide-the-next-us-president-65464">handful of “swing” states</a>.</p>
<p>The US system is democracy in action with many flaws. State-level politicians can create rules to try to disenfranchise certain voters and sometimes influence the result. Some argue a system that awards victory on the basis of who receives the most votes nationally would be better, but don’t expect a change to the Electoral College system any time soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65158/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brendon O'Connor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Global audiences have heard of US election terms like the primaries, the conventions and the Electoral College. But the history and exact meaning of these terms remains a mystery to many.Brendon O'Connor, Associate Professor in American Politics at the United States Studies Centre, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/606762016-06-17T02:22:52Z2016-06-17T02:22:52ZDid Donald Trump kill the Tea Party?<p>Americans have been riveted by the 2016 presidential primaries and the media spectacle that has surrounded the Donald Trump campaign. </p>
<p>This excitement has not carried through to the down-ballot races. In fact, it has been a quiet primary season for candidates running for things other than president. </p>
<p>So far, 2016 has featured little national discussion of the Tea Party agenda that closed the federal government in 2013 and <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-we-can-learn-from-eric-cantors-defeat/">pushed House Majority Leader Eric Cantor</a> from office the following year. There’s been little talk this election year of threatened Republican moderates, a conservative legislative agenda, or of the sorts of ideological battles that have raged over the past years among Republican members of Congress and their would-be colleagues. </p>
<p>House and Senate candidates who object to “business as usual” have struggled to raise money, get their message across and win votes. </p>
<p>In my book <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/5181079/getting_primaried">“Getting Primaried,”</a> I argue that House and Senate primaries serve as an important indicator of the health of our political system. Political waves that will shape general election results can often be detected by looking at patterns of competition in primaries. </p>
<p>So what are this year’s primaries telling us? </p>
<p>Has presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump killed the Tea Party?</p>
<h2>Why primary challenges happen</h2>
<p>Over the past decade, Senate and House primaries have become a playground for ideological interest groups. This is an arena where groups can have an impact on Congress for a fraction of what it costs to influence a general election campaign. </p>
<p>If one group, or a small number of groups working together, focuses resources on two or three primary elections, a message is sent to moderate members of Congress that bipartisan compromise carries with it the risk of “getting primaried” – or being replaced by a more ideologically extreme candidate of your own party.</p>
<p>Even if such efforts are ultimately unsuccessful, they can generate enough media coverage to frighten other incumbents. This tactic has been used on both sides, but conservative groups, such as the <a href="https://morningconsult.com/alert/club-growth-north-carolina-primary/">Club for Growth</a> and the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/us/politics/15teaparty.html?_r=2&hp">various Tea Party</a> organizations, have been most successful at it. </p>
<p>Centrist Republicans such as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/richard-lugar-loses-primary-nomination-to-conservative-challenger-richard-mourdock/2012/05/08/gIQANcJjBU_story.html">Richard Lugar</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/us/politics/19elect.html">Arlen Specter</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/25/us/politics/thad-cochran-chris-mcdaniel-mississippi-senate-primary.html">Thad Cochran</a> and <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/weak-tea-party-candidates-lisa-murkowski-beats-joe-miller-alaska-213066">Lisa Murkowski</a>, as well as several lesser-known Republican House members, have been targets over the past decade.</p>
<p>While the conventional wisdom that contested primaries are becoming more frequent doesn’t bear out, I argue in my book that expensive, high-profile primaries have become more nationally visible.</p>
<h2>Only halfway through</h2>
<p>Although the presidential primaries have ended, we have just reached the halfway point for down-ballot primary races. </p>
<p>In the House, primaries have been held so far in 265 seats out of 435. Almost all of these have been held in tandem with these states’ presidential primaries. Two Republican incumbents have lost their seats due to unusual, court-ordered mid-decade redistricting in North Carolina and Virginia. Excluding these races and California’s nonpartisan <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/california-top-two-open-primary/421557/">top two primaries</a>, only seven Republican incumbents have been held to less than 60 percent of the primary vote.</p>
<p>Three of these incumbents were running in Texas, a state that supported Ted Cruz in the primary. More so than in any other state, Texas Republican primary candidates had something to gain by tying their campaigns to Cruz’s since he was such a heavy favorite in the state.</p>
<p>If this trend continues, the House Republicans will have had fewer competitive primaries than in any year since 2008. This was not for want of good candidates. Anti-establishment Republicans emerged in House and Senate races in several states, including North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Alabama and Indiana, but they failed to attract money or interest group attention. </p>
<p>According the <a href="http://www.cfinst.org/Federal/election_2016/primaries.aspx">data collected by the Campaign Finance Institute</a>, no outside money at all was spent in the six close races. The candidates running against these incumbents each spent less than US$250,000. There have been a few races that wound up being less competitive than this, such as those of Representative John Shimkus (R-IL) and Representative David Joyce (R-OH), where money was spent on behalf of conservative challengers. In such cases, the money did not yield competitive races. </p>
<p>In the Senate, where five centrist Republicans (Pat Roberts, Lamar Alexander, Mitch McConnell, Thad Cochran and John Cornyn) fended off conservative primary opponents in 2014, there have not yet been any competitive races.</p>
<p>Primaries are not just about money, however, as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s defeat in 2014 <a href="http://cfinst.org/Federal/election_2014/Primaries/primaryRaces_h.aspx?State=VA-7">showed</a>. They also have to do with who shows up to vote. </p>
<p>Some House and Senate incumbents this year in early primary states such as <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/10/33-year-old-veteran-mounts-bid-against-alabamas-81-year-old-gop-senator/">Alabama</a> and <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2016/01/05/most-interesting-house-races/">Texas</a> worried that the competitive Republican presidential race would bring to the polls a number of nontraditional voters. One scenario held that such voters, possessed of little information about Congress, would merely opt for the name they knew – the incumbent. It was also plausible, however, that the anti-establishment tone of the leading Republican candidates might prompt their supporters to vote en masse against incumbents further down the ballot. </p>
<p>The former scenario seems to have held. Evidence is <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/evidence-uneven-for-claim-that-donald-trump-is-bringing-in-new-voters-1457898526">mixed</a> on the question of whether Trump did, in fact, expand the GOP primary electorate. Primary results to date suggest, however, that the people Trump inspired to show up do not seem to have taken an interest in races other than Trump’s.</p>
<h2>On the Democratic side</h2>
<p>Democrats have also seen their down-ballot primaries reshaped by the presidential race.</p>
<p>Democratic primaries have been less competitive than those of Republicans for the past three election cycles. Although some left-leaning groups such as MoveOn.org and the Service Employees’ International Union have sought to emulate the “primarying” strategy of conservative groups, they have failed to create an enduring narrative about any sort of ongoing movement in the party. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/23/can-bernie-sanders-help-knock-off-debbie-wasserman-schultz/">unhappiness</a> of Sanders supporters with DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has prompted some national support for her primary opponent Tim Canova in Florida. </p>
<p>Early in the election cycle, it appeared that the Democrats would have several exciting primary races. To date, however, what is most intriguing is the success “establishment” Democrats have had in resolving competitive open seat primaries. The <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/indexp.php?cmte=DSCC&cycle=2016">Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee</a> took the rare step of spending $600,000 on behalf of Pennsylvania’s Katie McGinty’s primary campaign, under the presumption that she would be the stronger general election opponent to vulnerable incumbent Republican Patrick Toomey. The party campaign committee did not get directly involved in other states, but outsider candidates in <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/public/2016/primary-election/US-Senate-primary-results-ohio.html">Ohio</a> and <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-illinois-senate-democrats-duckworth-zopp-harris-met-0309-20160308-story.html">Illinois</a> also failed to get traction.</p>
<p>While Toomey might have been threatened regardless of the outcome of the Republican presidential primaries, widespread beliefs that Trump might prove to be a drag on Republican Senate candidates have prompted increased attention by both parties to vulnerable general election candidates, and presumably to ensuring that the strongest nominees emerge from the primaries.</p>
<h2>What’s still to come</h2>
<p>There are still 170 House primaries and 15 Senate primaries to go, including those in Florida, New York, New England, and many midwestern and western states. These primaries will be held without a simultaneous presidential race on the ballot. For House and Senate candidates, this mean that the voters will be showing up because of them, not because of Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump. </p>
<p>It is possible that things will get more interesting. On the other hand, the public’s attention may be monopolized by the general election. Merely getting a campaign message across will be difficult in a media environment dominated by the presidential race and, in some states, by spending aimed at general election Senate races. It is always a mistake to assume that the story of one election season is bound up in a small number of races, many of which betray idiosyncratic local features. Nonetheless, the 2016 primaries so far, below the presidential level, are remarkable for their irrelevance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60676/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Boatright does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This primary cycle, few incumbents in the House and Senate are fighting off extremist challengers. Is that because the top of the ticket is taking up all the air?Robert Boatright, Associate Professor of Political Science, Clark UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/550072016-02-29T11:14:27Z2016-02-29T11:14:27ZHow not to wind up voting for a president you don’t actually agree with<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113120/original/image-20160226-26719-1h2pp27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">But did you vote for the candidate that best matches your beliefs?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jamelah/291750515">jamelah e.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When any American enters the voting booth, he (or she) is free to cast his private ballot for any candidate he favors. On the surface, this seems rather obvious, and easy. We each privately vote for the candidate we wish to support. We choose based on our preferences, so we vote correctly, right? </p>
<p>Well, maybe not. Over the past 10 presidential elections, an average of <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/american-government-politics-and-policy/how-voters-decide-information-processing-election-campaigns?format=PB">26 percent of voters admit to voting incorrectly</a> – that is, for a candidate who doesn’t actually match their political beliefs or expectations. In primaries, when candidates all share the same party affiliation, the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-012-9198-9">percentage of incorrect votes is far higher</a>. In primaries and elections, many people aren’t getting what they think they’re voting for.</p>
<p>Deeply concerned about inept government and the ugliness of the current presidential campaigns, former Senate leaders Republican Trent Lott and Democrat Tom Daschle have recently argued together that “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-way-out-of-our-partisan-gridlock/2015/12/31/67218892-ad63-11e5-9ab0-884d1cc4b33e_story.html">democracy requires engagement, mindfulness and tolerance</a>” and that the “only way to turn the spiral around is for the individual American to make a commitment to vote in the coming year.”</p>
<p>Voting is key, but it’s not simply the act of casting a ballot that matters: the critical question is which way people vote – and do they “vote right.”</p>
<h2>Your vote should reflect your beliefs</h2>
<p>The country needs people to cast votes consistent with what their preferences would be if they were fully informed – that is, as if they really knew what they would be getting. We call this “voting correctly.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113121/original/image-20160226-26687-5i1tlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113121/original/image-20160226-26687-5i1tlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113121/original/image-20160226-26687-5i1tlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113121/original/image-20160226-26687-5i1tlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113121/original/image-20160226-26687-5i1tlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113121/original/image-20160226-26687-5i1tlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113121/original/image-20160226-26687-5i1tlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113121/original/image-20160226-26687-5i1tlv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">She seems confident….</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mharvey75/2951156944">Matt and Rachel (The Sparveys)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>So why do a quarter of voters end up picking candidates that don’t match up with their own opinions? When people end up voting incorrectly, it’s typically because they’ve made assumptions based on little information and/or faulty impressions.</p>
<p>Naturally enough, most people pay less attention to collecting and digesting information about politics than they do to their families, friends and careers. Moreover, we often decide quickly on our preferred candidate, and then don’t change opinions – in fact, we <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2010.00772.x">dig our heels in deeper</a> – even as new information and perspectives become available.</p>
<p>What then should a person do to vote correctly? You can start with some easy cognitive shortcuts – what <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-political-psychology-9780199760107?cc=us&lang=en&">researchers call political heuristics</a>.</p>
<h2>Figure out where candidates stand on issues</h2>
<p>The most obvious (and useful) shortcut is to start with party affiliation: these days, Democrats and Republicans almost universally take pretty different policy stands. Then, especially for same-party primary candidates, look to the endorsements of familiar and trusted interest groups – let someone else figure out what the candidates’ actual policy proposals are.</p>
<p>Furthermore, if you’re worrying about the electability of your party’s candidate, don’t pay attention to the most recent poll. <a href="https://www.learner.org/courses/againstallodds/unitpages/unit17.html">Even the best polls</a> have a fair amount of <a href="http://www.stats.org/presidential-pollings-margin-for-error/">uncertainty associated with their findings</a> – typically in the neighborhood of +/- 4 points in the percentages they report. The media tend to jump on small changes, which often are due to nothing more than chance.</p>
<p>Instead, go to poll aggregators such as <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/">Real Clear Politics</a> or <a href="http://www.270towin.com">270 to Win</a> to get more accurate readings on public opinion. Aggregators combine the results of a bunch of polls that asked pretty much the same question – whom are you going to vote for? – over the past month or so. That way the uncertainly associated with the findings shrinks rapidly.</p>
<p>If you want to put in a little more effort, go to the Internet sites of <a href="http://votesmart.org">Project Vote Smart</a> or <a href="http://www.ontheissues.org/default.htm">OntheIssues.org</a>. After you fill out a short questionnaire about your opinions on the issues, they will tell you which candidate’s opinions are closest to yours.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, do everything you can to ignore biased or unreliable information that happens to come your way. Sound bites, canned responses and <a href="http://doi.org/10.1080/15377857.2015.1074137">jokes from late-night talk show hosts</a> are not the best ways to form accurate, nuanced impressions of the candidates. (<a href="https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138125827">Candidates’ appearances on the talk show circuit</a> can help voters get a better sense of their personalities and stances on issues, though.)</p>
<h2>Think about their personal qualities</h2>
<p>Of course you can add your personal judgments about <a href="http://www.people.virginia.edu/%7Etsb3c/Leadergoals/LeaderGoalsCh.pdf">what matters to you most in leadership</a>. Leadership can be infinitely complex, but a helpful tactic is to assess potential elected officials on three broad criteria: competence, character and connection.</p>
<p>These cover a lot of important territory, including many more specific leadership skills – such as interpersonal, technical and problem-solving skills. The way these three factors translate into successful leadership is complicated – of course they all interact and have a number of qualifiers. But together they’re a starting point that can help organize our thoughts and bring a coherent framework to what otherwise can be frustratingly random discussions. </p>
<p>We should want <a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/ltl.427">sheer <em>competence</em> in our leaders</a>. A key question, though, is competence at what? Beating the opposition? Navigating a particular party into the future? Unifying the country? Leading nationally, or on the global stage as well? What problems do you most want your leaders to solve?</p>
<p>Consider evidence for candidates’ relevant competencies. What experiences do the candidates have, and what have they really accomplished and failed at? Useful questions to mull over could include:</p>
<ul>
<li>How well might a career in the private sector (Trump) or medicine (Carson) prepare a person for the presidency?</li>
<li>How does a long career in the public sector (Kasich, Sanders) help or hurt a candidate from seeing things in new and useful ways?</li>
<li>Does a first-term senator (Cruz, Rubio) have enough experience in either sector?</li>
<li>What do business bankruptcies (Trump), a mixed record of successes and mistakes in the global arena (Clinton) or a national debate championship (Cruz) say about a future president’s likely effectiveness?</li>
</ul>
<p>There’s no “right” answer to these questions. It’s more a matter of using the available information to figure out which candidate will best represent what’s important to you.</p>
<p><em>Character</em> is a second key factor. What do you know about candidates’ personal values? How ethical are their big-issue beliefs, from your perspective, and what methods (honesty, lies, insults, dirty tricks, negotiation, transparency, empty promises or promises plus a plan to pay for them) would they likely try in order to accomplish their goals? Again, facts and evidence are better than assumptions and the biased slants of many media sources.</p>
<p><em>Connection</em> may be the most complicated factor we weigh when considering a leader. Some of our own research has <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1379(200002)21:1%3C63::AID-JOB8%3E3.0.CO;2-J">identified particular behaviors</a> that make people see a potential leader as embodying the charisma that we like in our leaders. These include having a compelling vision and communicating it clearly and often; being proactive and change-oriented; appealing to followers’ personal values; conveying optimism about future possibilities; and treating followers as human beings rather than cynically and manipulatively.</p>
<h2>“Voting right” takes some work</h2>
<p>In striving to vote correctly, the most useful connection question is not “how much do I like or relate to the candidates’ personalities?” Instead, the very best question may be “what is each candidate’s vision for the future, and how will they work with others to achieve it?” </p>
<p>Senators Lott and Daschle have said that candidates who do little more than demonize their opponents are simply “scratching the basest itches of the electorate.” When considering the guidelines offered here, voters, and maybe even candidates, can rise above their basest itches. Voting correctly – using valid outside information plus our own personal standards of competence, character and connection – is the key to promoting our best possible leaders.</p>
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<p><a href="http://aom.org/">Thomas Bateman is a member of the Academy of Management</a></p>
<footer>The academy is a funding partner of The Conversation US.</footer>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Bateman is an Academy of Management scholar.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Much of this research was funded by the National Science Foundation. Richard Lau is a registered democrat.</span></em></p>Even with free, private ballots, a quarter of us still end up voting for the ‘wrong’ presidential candidate. Here’s how to make sure you vote for the one who best matches your beliefs and hopes.Thomas S. Bateman, Emeritus professor, University of VirginiaRichard Lau, Professor of Political Science, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.