Presidential Elections
pols100/U.S. Government
The Presidential Drama
Presidential elections are different from all other elections in the United States.
The main reason for this is that all other elections take place within a single state
or territory (Washington D.C. is a territory).
Indeed most elections for the House of
Representatives, and most elections for state
legislature, take place in districts carved out
within a state. Only in choosing the president do
people of different states participate in the same
election.
2007
A president is elected to a term of four years,
with a maximum of two terms. Almost two
years are occupied with preparing for running
and running for office. In the year before election
year, candidates spend time fund raising and
putting together an organization. That sounds
like two different tasks, but it is largely the same
one: many members of your campaign
organization will be people who have money to
give, or can easily get others to give.
Money is crucial, because running for President is
very expensive. A large campaign staff has to be
paid, and campaign activities in every state have
to be paid for. The candidate must move
constantly around the country, and he or she
must buy spend money on TV, radio, and newspapers adds, campaign signs,
shirts, hats and buttons, renting space for speeches, etc. Today, hundreds of
millions will be spent on a major presidential campaign.
The candidate will find that his or her ability to raise money depends on name
recognition, popular support, and the backing of powerful persons. In turn, the
more money the candidate raises, the more she will be noticed and the more
people will jump on her bandwagon. Often a candidate begins with a presumption
that she will be a strong candidate for president. This happens mostly or entirely
because people have been talking about the possibility for a long time before she
actually runs. This was obviously the case with Hillary Clinton, who, as a
former first lady and current United States Senator, has been consider a likely
candidate for a long time.
It was likely true with John Edwards. In the American system, the candidate for
vice president and the candidate for president run together, as a single ticket. We
often refer to the vice presidential candidate as the running mate. John
Edwards was John Kerry’s running mate in 2004, and so he had instant name
recognition.
Occasionally circumstances create an opening for someone new to break into the
race. Senator Hillary Clinton was a strong candidate because her husband has
been a popular, if controversial, president. But Senator Clinton had baggage, as
they say. Many people considered the Clintons to be cynical and corrupt. Senator
Clinton began her race with high negatives, meaning that a lot of people would
describe her unfavorably in opinion polls. Moreover, a lot of Democrats, and
especially Democratic Party activists, believed that the Clintons would always be
more interested in their own fame and gain than in pushing the Party’s real
political agenda.
In 2007, dissatisfaction with Senator Clinton settled on Barack Obama, a first term
United States Senator from Illinois, as an alternative. Obama was very fresh with
little experience on the national stage. Just as Ms. Clinton would have been the
first Woman elected president, Barack Obama would be the first African American
president. Obama was as an attractive and articulate candidate on the stump, and
he rapidly assembled an efficient national organization. Ms. Clinton did not take
the challenge from Obama seriously enough soon enough, which allowed Obama
to get a lot of the money that was available from big Democratic donors. By the
time the election year began, Obama was in much stronger position than anyone
had anticipated.
2008: The Primary and Caucus
system
The way presidential candidates are nominated is rather complicated, compared to
other elections. Beginning in January, each party in each state (along with the
several territories) hold contests in which the various candidates compete. These
contests choose delegates who in turn go on to the national conventions late in the
summer. The national conventions are large meetings, held in major cities.
These bodies officially nominate the parties candidate, depending on which
candidate won enough delegates. In the Democratic Party 2118 delegates were
needed to win nomination. In the Republican Party, 1504 were needed to win
nomination.
Primary Elections
Some parties in some states choose their delegates by holding a primary election.
As described earlier, this is just like the election in the fall except that its purpose
is to nominate a candidate rather than to choose a candidate for office. Here is a
sample Democratic primary ballot from California.
Under the Democratic National Committee rules, delegates are distributed by
proportional representation on the basis of primary votes. This means that if
a candidate gets 50% of the popular votes in a Democratic primary, she will get
about 50% of the delegates.
To see how this works, consider California, which held its primary on Feb. 5th.You
will notice that Sen. Clinton received 2,608,184 votes, which was a majority
(51.5%) of the ballots cases by California Democrats in their primary. For this, she
was awarded 204 delegates out of 441 total delegates that California sends to the
national convention, which comes to 46.3%. One reason for her delegate
percentage is lower than her popular vote percentage is that 71 of the delegates
from California are unallocated superdelegates.
The difference between the two kinds of delegates is this: most of the delegates are
pledged delegates. In effect, the more than two and a half million Californians
who voted for Sen. Clinton elected 204 delegates to the National Convention who
were pledged to vote for her on a first ballot. We will get back around to what
that means.
Superdelegates are party officials and activists who are free to cast their vote
as they please at the convention. There were 852 superdelegates in 2008. The
reason the superdelegates are there is to decide the nomination if no candidate
gets enough delegates to win nomination. The hope is that these superdelegates,
being politically savvy, will choose the candidate who has the best chance of
winning in the fall.
Caucuses
Some states do not use primaries at all, but use caucuses instead. Caucuses,
described earlier, are essentially party meetings. In case of presidential elections,
some state parties convene a special caucus or series of caucuses to award
delegates to the various candidates.
The caucus system can be extraordinarily complex. In the case of Iowa, for
example, meetings are held in each one of the state’s 1784 precincts on “the day of
the Iowa caucus.” Delegates are chosen for county conventions (99 of them),
which choose delegates to a state convention. The state convention chooses the 23
delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Wow. But the first day of
conventions largely determines the outcome, and that is really all you need to
know.
Caucuses are much more intense and intimate affairs than primaries. They go on
for hours, and involve a much smaller number of people than primaries. For that
reason, some people regard caucuses as less democratic. Caucus participants tend
to be more politically involved and aware than primary voters, and often they are
further to the left (Democratic caucuses) or the right (Republican caucuses) than
the larger groups of primary voters.
States that use both means of choosing
delegates
Some a state party will hold both a primary election and a caucus, each selecting a
portion of the delegates. The Texas Democratic Party is an example.
Differences between the parties
In the same state, the two parties will often have very different systems for
choosing convention delegates. In Texas, the Republicans have a primary but no
caucus. In Washington, the Republicans hold both.
There is one big difference between the Democratic nomination process and the
Republican process. The Republicans favor a winner take all system. The
candidate who wins a plurality in a Republican primary wins a very large share or
all of the delegates. In Florida, for example, John McCain won 36% of the primary
vote, but won all 56 of the states delegates. This system makes it easier for one
candidate to knock out all the weaker competitors and capture the nomination,
and probably makes it easier for the party to unify for the coming election.
The Democrats favor proportional representation, believing that the outcome
should more closely mirror the actual voter preferences. But this has often made it
hard for a single candidate to win nomination, and a strong second candidate with
little chance of winning in November can often ride into the convention with a lot
of power behind him. Jesse Jackson was an example. This is one of the reasons
that the Democrats created the superdelegates.
The Nomination Schedule
The two party nomination processes begin in January of election year, and ends
around June. Between that time, all the state contests are held.
Monday, January 16, 2012: Iowa caucuses*
Tuesday, January 24: New Hampshire*
Saturday, January 28: Nevada caucuses*, South Carolina*
Tuesday, January 31: Florida
Tuesday, February 7 (Super Tuesday): Alabama, Arkansas, California,
Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York,
Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah
Saturday, February 11: Louisiana primary
Tuesday, February 14: Maryland, Virginia
Tuesday, February 21: Wisconsin
Tuesday, February 28: Arizona**, Michigan***
Tuesday, March 6: Minnesota caucuses, Massachusetts***, Ohio, Rhode
Island, Texas and Vermont
Tuesday, March 13: Mississippi
Tuesday, March 20: Colorado caucuses****
Tuesday, April 24: Pennsylvania
Tuesday, May 8: Indiana, North Carolina and West Virginia
Tuesday, May 15: Nebraska, Oregon
Tuesday, May 22: Idaho, Kentucky
Tuesday, June 5: Montana, New Mexico and South Dakota
Iowa and New Hampshire
For many decades, Iowa and New Hampshire have gone first, and those states
have come to regard this as a sacred right. But this has come to make the two
contests disproportionately important in the action. Whoever wins Iowa becomes
the first front runner. This means that he or she is perceived to be ahead in the
nominating process.
Because both these states are small in area and modest in population, it is
relatively easy for a new candidate to do well here. That is especially true in Iowa,
where
Here we can see the difference between caucus states and primary states. In 2008,
Mike Huckabee, former Governor of Arkansas, won the Iowa caucus. Huckabee
was a big surprise, but he was very charismatic and was able to win over the small
population that decided the caucus. This made Huckabee the strongest challenger
to McCain. Barack Obama won the Iowa Democratic caucus, and would win every
caucus during the season. Obama was clearly the favorite of party activists, and
those are the people who show up on caucus day. Hillary Clinton’s campaign
briefly recovered when she won New Hampshire, but the recovery was short lived.
Super Tuesday
On February 5th, 2008, 24 states held their nominating contests. This titanic
event known as Super Tuesday can easily determine the outcome of the process.
No candidate can spend much time in all these places, nor can many campaigns
afford to spend much on advertising in all 24 states. Consequently, all candidates
have to pick and choose where they will invest resources, and how much.
This event is in many ways the opposite of Iowa and New Hampshire: it favors the
candidates who have lots of name recognition and big war chests (which means
lots of money to spend). Such candidates can spend a little bit of money and show
up once or twice just about everywhere, but they will concentrate their resources
on a number of states where they think they can make a big difference. Candidates
who are still in the race but who are seen as long shots will probably be very low on
funds at this point. They will try to pick out a handful of states and spend all their
time and money there.
The Republican Contest: Tradition
and Momentum
Major contenders for the Republican nomination included:
John McCain/Senator/Arizona
Mike Huckabee/Governor/Arkansas
Mit Romney/Governor/Massachusetts
Ron Paul/Congressman/14th District, Texas
Rudy Giuliani/Mayor/New York City
Fred Thompson/Senator/Tennessee
In the Summer of 2007, the McCain campaign all but collapsed. The Senator was
down in the polls, and he fired most of his staff. Rudy Giuliani was the front
runner, mostly due to his role in running NYC after the 9/11 attack. Fred
Thompson looked competitive, mostly due to his name recognition from the Law
and Order TV show, and movie roles.
But Giuliani and Thompson largely ignored Iowa and New Hampshire, believing
they could win big in more important states later. In fact, their support
evaporated as the public eye focused on the top three candidates there. As noted
above, Mike Huckabee surprised everyone by finishing first. Huckabee’s appeal
was largely to religious conservatives, though he certain struck a lot of Republicans
as a fresh voice. Huckabee was a former pastor, and was very vocal about his
traditional religious beliefs. But he was not known for conservative policies as
Governor of Arkasnas. His first place finish supercharged his campaign. Money
began to role in, allowing him to compete in further contests.
This illustrates a dynamic process in political campaigns which is known as
momentum, or “the big MO.” When a candidate wins, people begin to think of
him or her as a winner. When people think of a candidate as a winner, they are
more likely to vote for that candidate. In the presidential nomination process,
winning one contest builds support, which helps you win the next. This is how one
candidate will usually pull away from the others to seize the nomination.
However, most candidates tend to be strong in some regions and weak in others.
Some are very competitive in caucuses, but do not do so well in primaries. Losses
in areas where the candidate is not strong can arrest his momentum. After Iowa,
Mike Huckabee was competitive only in the deep South and in his home state of
Arkansas. Likewise, Mitt Romney was competitive in caucuses, but won only two
primaries: one in his home state. It would seem that primaries matter more in
building momentum, for the simple reason that they are better tests of a
candidates overall popularity, and therefore of his chances of winning in
November.
It was John McCain who was able to build and maintain momentum. He followed
his fourth place loss in Iowa with a victory over Romney in New Hampshire.
Victories in the South Carolina and Florida primaries gave him the status of front
runner, which he never lost. On Super Tuesday, McCain won nine contests;
Huckabee and Romney, seven each. But McCain was perceived as the candidate
with the most widespread support, and his momentum became irresistible.
Romney dropped out of the race on February 7th, two days after Super Tuesday.
Huckabee stayed in until March 4th. At that point it was clear that McCain would
be the nominee.
Why McCain? Several reasons: one is that he ran for President in 2000, lost the
nomination struggle to George W. Bush, but served as a loyal Republican since
then. Republicans tend to nominate someone if they think it is his turn. Second,
McCain had a reputation as an independent minded Republican, which turned a
lot of Republican voters off. But more thought that he was the one with the chance
to win in a year when the Republican Party was not very popular. Finally, McCain
just seemed to have more will power and better judgment, day to day, than his
rivals. He won the nomination the old fashioned way: he earned it.
The Democratic Contest: A Party
Evenly Divided
The major contenders for the Democratic nomination include:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Barack Obama/Senator/Illinois
Hillary Clinton/Senator/New York
John Edwards/Senator/North Carolina
Bill Richardson/Governor/New Mexico
Joe Biden/Senator/Delaware
Dennis Kucinich/Representative/Ohio
In 2007 it looked all but certain that Senator Hillary Clinton would be the
Democratic nominee for President. She had been First Lady and had had a hand
in national policy making. She had successfully established herself in New York, a
major Democratic stronghold, and had won and defended a U.S. Senate seat. She
and her husband were still formidable forces in the Democratic Party, and both
were very effective fund raisers. But Senator Clinton was never able to exercise
effective leadership over her campaign staff, and her organization made a number
of strategic errors. For one thing, she failed to take Barack Obama seriously early
in the race, when it would have mattered. As a consequence, she largely failed to
compete with him in Iowa.
Barack Obama’s first place finish in Iowa revealed a level of support and
enthusiasm for the newcomer that almost no one had anticipated. It finally
became undeniable, even to the Clinton campaign, that a large portion of
Democrats were looking for an alternative to Senator Clinton. This was especially
true of Democratic activists and party officials. One by one important figures in
the Party came out to endorse Obama.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign briefly recovered when she won New Hampshire, but
the recovery was short lived. After Iowa, African Americans, a strong part of the
Democratic Party coalition, swung dramatically in Obama’s direction. He crushed
Clinton in South Carolina 55-27%, almost solely on the strength of Black voters.
On Super Tuesday, Clinton won nine states, Obama fourteen. But the Clinton
campaign badly mismanaged it’s funds, and after Super Tuesday she had no
money to compete with. Between Super Tuesday and March 4th, Obama won eight
straight state contests. After that point, it was mathematically difficult, if not
impossible, for Clinton to catch up. By the last contests on June 3rd, Obama had
enough pledged delegates and super delegates to secure the nomination. Senator
Clinton’s presidential ambitions were over for 2008.