Andrew E. Busch - The Rules and Politics of American Primaries

The Rules and Politics of American Primaries

The Rules and Politics of American
Primaries

A State-by-State Guide to Republican and Democratic Primaries and Caucuses

Andrew E. Busch, Editor

Copyright 2020 by ABC-CLIO, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Busch, Andrew, editor.

Title: The rules and politics of American primaries : a state-by-state guide to Republican and Democratic primaries and caucuses / Andrew E. Busch, Editor.

Description: Santa Barbara : ABC-CLIO, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019026778 (print) | LCCN 2019026779 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440859038 (cloth) | ISBN 9781440859045 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: PrimariesUnited StatesStates.

Classification: LCC JK2071 .R85 2019 (print) | LCC JK2071 (ebook) | DDC 324.273/154dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026778

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026779

ISBN: 978-1-4408-5903-8 (print)

978-1-4408-5904-5 (ebook)

24 23 22 21 20 1 2 3 4 5

This book is also available as an eBook.

ABC-CLIO

An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC

ABC-CLIO, LLC

147 Castilian Drive

Santa Barbara, California 93117

www.abc-clio.com

This book is printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

To Jim, who could not have been a better teacher, mentor, and friend,
and whose fault it is that I study presidential primaries

Contents

Introduction

This volume aims to provide a wide-ranging overview of the presidential nominating process in the United States. The presidential nominating process, unlike the general election, is almost entirely extraconstitutional. It has developed in several stages since the formation of political parties in the 1790s and consists of elements found in state law, federal law, national party rules, state party rules, and federal court decisions. Despite its extraconstitutional status, as a practical matter no one can become president without being nominated first by the Democratic or Republican Party or (at least in theory) by a third party or independent movement of citizens.

features the following framework:

provides a historical summary of the development of the process in broad strokes.

explores more closely the crucial distinction between open and closed primaries and caucuses.

.

The next set of chapters focuses on important aspects of the politics of the nomination race. explores voting behavior in presidential primaries.

Then follows a series of chapters on delegates and the national convention..

catalogues the wide range of proposals for reforming the presidential nominating process, from establishment of a national primary or regional primaries to more incremental steps designed to extend the nomination race.

Finally, surveys a variety of nonmajor party forces and the mechanisms they have used to nominate candidates for president, from the Dixiecrats of 1948 to the Libertarians and Greens of 2016.

provides entries detailing primary or caucus processes used by Democrats and Republicans in each state. Each entry contains the following components:

A brief overview of the states political culture, political history, and recent voting tendencies;

An overview of how delegate selection has evolved in the state since 1912, when the first presidential primaries were held, including the states choices about when to schedule its event and whether to use caucuses or primaries;

A catalogue and summary of notable primaries or caucuses held in the state over time, as well as (in caucus states) key votes cast by the states delegations to the national convention;

Detailed election results of the states primaries or caucuses from 2000 to 2016, including all candidates who received at least 1 percent of the vote;

Information about delegate selection in that state in 2020, including primary or caucus dates (as of September 1, 2019) and the key rules governing the contest in each party.

Finally, an appendix provides a chronological calendar of key primary, caucus, and national convention dates.

A note about sources is in order at this point. Many sources are utilized in the state entries, but a few stand out as helpful beyond what specific citations may indicate. Attempts to provide general background on each state frequently leaned on observations found in the invaluable Almanac of American Politics, especially its 2014, 2016, and 2018 editions. Information regarding primary dates was harvested from the Congressional Quarterly Guide to U.S. Elections, 7th edition (Volume I). Because caucuses are more informal, party-run affairs, the results of which are usually not certified by state officials, information on caucus dates and results are not as easy to come by. As noted in the results section, much information on the 20002016 caucuses can be located in the online source The Green Papers, which also served as the main source for data on the 2020 nominating process.

Accounts of historical primary and caucus results depended on The Guide to U.S. Elections, a number of historical and journalistic sources that are cited, and, not infrequently, 30 years of my own study of presidential nominations and elections, which have produced authored or co-authored books on the elections of 1948, 1980, and 19922016.

A word of caution is also in order. Everything that is possible has been done to provide the best information regarding the 2020 process, but last-minute changes of event date or even mode of delegate selection after publication cannot be ruled out.

Finally, a word about the students who assisted on this project. My co-authors, Richard C. (Skip) Wiltshire-Gordon, Jacob S. Leischner, and Nandeeni K. Patel, student research assistants at the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College, were deeply involved in , Skip and Caroline Peck assisted with research on several chapters. It was a pleasure working with them all, and they deserve the credit that goes with their contributions, which are noted at the end of entries.

It is our hope that you will find this volume both interesting and useful.

PART 1

Foundations of the
Presidential Nominating
System

CHAPTER ONE

Historical Overview

The system for nominating presidential candidates in the United States is one of the most important features of the American political system, yet it is almost entirely extraconstitutional in nature. It is not quite accurate to even call it a system, as if it were deliberately designed to form a coherent whole. Rather, the American way of nominating presidential candidates is better understood as an agglomeration of features arrived at more or less independently by the national political parties, state parties, state legislators, and federal legislators, with some federal court decisions added to the mix. Sometimes, these actors truly proceed as disconnected forces; sometimes they operate in greater concert, moved by broad trends in public sentiment, intellectual direction, and policy experimentation. But they always represent separate institutions.

The party nominating system is extraconstitutional for the simple reason that the parties are extraconstitutional. While provisions in the Bill of Rights guaranteeing freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right to assemble and petition government for the redress of grievances made possible the existence of parties, they are nowhere explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. Fearing that political parties could divide the nation, distract officeholders from pursuing the common good, and perhaps even lead to civil conflict, the Founders were not inclined to build them into the constitutional structure. George Washington famously included a warning against the spirit of party in his Farewell Address, and not until the 1830s did the argument gain currency that a competitive two-party system was good for the country (Washington 1796; Ceaser 1979).