The Imperfect Primary

Oddities, Biases, and Strengths of U.S. Presidential Nomination Politics

Barbara Norrander

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000113587
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Campaigns & Elections
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The complex and ever-changing rules governing American presidential nomination contests are continuously up for criticism, but there is little to no consensus on exactly what the problems are or on how to fix them. The evolving system is hardly rational because it was never carefully planned. So, how are we to make sense of the myriad complexities in the primary process and how it affects the general election and calls for change?

In this thoroughly updated third edition of The Imperfect Primary, political scientist Barbara Norrander explores how presidential candidates are nominated and how that process bridges to the general election campaign; discusses past and current proposals for reform; and examines the possibility for more practical, incremental changes to the electoral rules. Norrander reminds us to be careful what we wish for – reforming the presidential nomination process is as complex as the current system. Through the modeling of empirical research to demonstrate how questions of biases can be systematically addressed, students can better see the advantages, disadvantages, and potential for unintended consequences in a whole host of reform proposals.

New to the Third Edition

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• Fully updated through the 2016 elections with an eye toward 2020.

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• Tracks the changing role of key primary features, including superdelegates, political action committees, debates, rule changes, open and closed primaries, caucuses, and the electoral calendar.

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• Includes new discussions of the impact of multicandidate contests and "The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Social Media."

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• Continues the discussion of Electoral College challenges and reforms.

Chapter 1

Happenstance and Reforms

In the summer of 2015, almost no one believed that Donald Trump would become the Republican nominee for the U.S. president. Trump did not act like a typical nominee. He used blunt language. His rallies were boisterous and sometimes unruly. He campaigned more by Twitter than by engaging in a traditional ground game of courting activists and voters. Most Americans knew Trump as a flamboyant television celebrity, and while he was a billionaire, he also had a record of business failures. Further, he lacked any prior campaign or governing experience. In recent decades, the two parties nominated vice presidents, governors, and senators for the presidency. Candidates without political experience did not fare well, even if they had well-funded campaigns, as Steve Forbes’s failed campaigns illustrate. In addition, Trump faced 16 promising presidential candidates with solid Republican credentials. So, how did Trump end up as the nominee? How did he overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to become the Republican candidate for the U.S. president?

One reason Trump won the nomination is because he found his niche of the party early. He tapped into an anti-establishment sentiment among voters who felt they were ignored by the political, economic, and cultural elite. These voters saw economic globalism as robbing Americans of good working class jobs. They viewed Hollywood and the news media as hostile to traditional American values. These voters also viewed politicians, from both parties, as catering more to Wall Street and corporate America than enacting policies to help out the working and middle class. In addition, many of them had grown up in the middle of the 20th century, when immigration was at a low point, and immigration laws until the 1960s favored European immigrant. As such, many middle-aged voters felt uneasy about the changing demographics of America in the 21st century. Trump gave a voice to these voters by putting together a populist package focused on economic and cultural protectionism, but the main message of his populist theme was a rant against a government that was rigged against the interests of Middle America.¹ Trump promised to “Make American Great Again” if elected president.

A second reason that Trump won the nomination, or at least got an early lead in the national polls, was the extensive, mostly positive coverage of him in the media. Trump’s oversized personality, freewheeling campaign rallies, and provocative Twitter posts provided the media with the fodder needed to keep readers and viewers coming back for more.² Television, print media, and news internet sites all need an audience to view their content and provide advertisers with potential buyers. The news media across the entire political spectrum survives on a profit motive. Trump presented the media with the most attention grabbing stories. The media always covers the presidential nomination contest as a horse race, focusing in on poll standings; candidate strategies; and which candidates are, or are not, living up to expectations about their chances of winning the nomination. This horse-race focus of media coverage meshed with Trump’s style such that the media coverage he received in 2015 was the equivalent of $55 million in paid advertisements. Meanwhile, his major competitors each averaged around $30 million of free media coverage.³ The extensive and mostly positive early coverage of Trump’s campaign gave him a lead in the national polls and an edge going into the early primaries and caucuses.

A third reason that Trump won the nomination is that the other 16 candidates competed against one another for the same pieces of the Republican pie. Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio both took moderate to conservative issue positions and even hailed from the same home state of Florida. Courting the religiously conservative wing were Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, and Mike Huckabee. Chris Christie and John Kasich shared a record of being more moderate governors from large states. In 2015 and the early days of 2016, these candidates often competed against one another rather than challenging Trump, who they presumed would fade from the race once actual votes were taken.

Seventeen candidates was a higher than normal number. One reason for the large number is that 2016 looked like a potentially good year for a Republican nominee as voters rarely support a party’s “third-term” by electing a presidential candidate from the same party as a sitting two-term president. In addition, in May of 2015, 72 percent of Americans expressed concern over the direction of the country,⁴ suggesting that they might be looking for a president from the opposition party. Third, no potential Republican candidate was viewed as a strong frontrunner that would dissuade others from running.⁵ Finally, in recent years, a polarized American public has voiced divergent views on the president: Democrats and Republicans held widely different views about President Barack Obama, just as they had for President George W. Bush.⁶ Many Republican voters were eager to support any nominee who could retake the presidency.

In recent decades, six, seven, or more candidates began the quest for their party’s nomination, but most do not survive for long.⁷ The same was true for most of the 17 Republican candidates in 2016. Five Republican candidates never made it to 2016: Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham, and George Pataki. Each dropped out in 2015 as they failed to make a dent in the national public opinion polls or were unable to raise sufficient funds for a viable campaign. In 2016, the early caucuses and primaries eliminated more candidates. These candidates failed to win, or even place in the top tier, in any of the early contests. Leaving the Republican race after the Iowa caucuses were Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, and Rick Santorum. Falling from Republican ranks after the New Hampshire primary were Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, and Jim Gilmore. Jeb Bush’s fortunes were faltering, and he badly needed a win in South Carolina’s primary. Bush finished in fourth place in South Carolina and withdrew from the Republican contest. Ben Carson made it to the March 4 Super Tuesday contests but dropped out afterward, never having won a primary. The Republican field narrowed down to four main contenders.

Trump won nine of the first eleven primaries, losing to Cruz in Oklahoma and Texas. Yet Trump’s winning totals averaged 38 percent in these early contests, potentially leaving room for another candidate to emerge as a single, competitive alternative. Yet this did not happen. Rubio, Cruz, and Kasich won an occasional primary and traded places finishing second. Each of these alternatives had strengths and weaknesses. Kasich was the favorite of the moderate wing of the Republican Party, but this wing had shrunk in recent decades. Rubio had uneven performances in the debates and more often was voters’ second choice rather than their top choice.⁸ Cruz was the most conservative of the final four and was disliked by less conservative Republican voters. None of these candidates could figure out the best way to counter Trump’s bombastic style. Would it be better to trade barbs with Trump or to try to switch focus to their policy and personal qualifications? Neither strategy seemed to work. Meanwhile, Trump’s string of early primary victories gave him momentum. In addition, he was able to win votes beyond his base because his policy positions were often fuzzy enough that most Republican voters could find something they liked.⁹

The remaining Republican battles played out from the middle of March to the first week of May. Rubio was the first to be eliminated when he failed to win the Florida primary on March 14. Cruz won the Wisconsin primary and narrowly lost in Missouri to Trump: 40.8 to 40.6 percent. Cruz placed second to Trump in five other contests. Kasich only won his home state of Ohio and finished second in primaries in five eastern states. Neither was gaining ground on Trump, but they held out hope that they could at least prevent Trump from gaining the support of the 50 percent of convention delegates needed to secure the nomination. Cruz and Kasich tried a short-lived alliance where Cruz would concentrate on winning in Indiana, and Kasich would focus on Oregon and New Mexico. The alliance floundered from the beginning. Cruz tried another tactic by naming Carly Fiorina as his potential vice presidential running mate. Such announcements typically come from a presumptive presidential nominee in the week before the national convention. While Cruz’s announcement garnered media attention, it did nothing to stem Trump’s march to victory. As Cruz and Kasich fought to stay relevant, Trump’s winning percentages in the primaries moved over the 50 percent margin. When Cruz lost to Trump in the May 3 Indiana primary, Cruz withdrew from the race. Kasich did likewise the following day. The 2016 Republican presidential nomination contest ended the same way as most late 20th- and early 21st-century battles. All but one of the candidates withdraw before the last primaries are held. The last surviving candidate becomes the party’s presumptive nominee and waits for the official nomination to be bestowed at the party’s national convention held in the summer.

Hillary Clinton is also an unconventional nominee in that she is the first woman nominated for the presidency by a major American party. The rest of Clinton’s credentials, however, are quite traditional. She was elected twice as a U.S. Senator from New York, serving between 2001 and 2009. She held the position of Secretary of State in President Barack Obama’s administration. She also had long connections to the Democratic Party. The 2016 nomination contest was her second try at the Democratic presidential nomination, after she lost a close contest to Obama in 2008. Having previously run for the nomination, she had an established network of supporters and campaign contributors. A number of 21st-century nominees won the nomination on their second attempt: John McCain (2000, 2008), Mitt Romney (2008, 2012), and Al Gore (1988, 2000).¹⁰

In both 2008 and 2016, Hillary Clinton started out as the frontrunner. Her advantages, however, were not insurmountable. In the 2007 national polls, Clinton was favored by between 30 and 40 percent of Democrats, leaving enough room for another candidate to find favor with the other half of the Democratic electorate. Clinton made a strategic mistake in 2008 by not preparing for a long campaign as she, and many others, thought the Democratic contest would be over after the February 5 Super Duper Tuesday, in which 24 states held primaries or caucuses. Instead, Super Tuesday 2008 resulted in a split decision between her and then Senator Barack Obama. Obama knew his only chance for victory was to fight for every last delegate, so he prepared for a longer contest and campaigned in the often overlooked caucus states. Obama’s slight post-Super Tuesday edge in committed delegates lasted throughout the rest of the 2008 contest, and he received the last of the needed delegates on the final day of the primary season.

In 2016, Clinton was a much stronger frontrunner. In 2015, Clinton’s polling numbers among Democrats generally fell above 50 percent. She had almost universal support from the party’s establishment, with endorsements from numerous Democratic governors, senators, and U.S. House members.¹¹ Most potential competitors, such as Senator Elizabeth Warren and Vice President Joe Biden, did not even enter the contest. Only Vermont senator Bernie Sanders made a strong bid as Clinton’s rival. He moved up in the national polls in 2015, though he never caught up to Clinton’s numbers. Sanders, however, did raise nearly as much early money as Clinton. Yet he had scant support from the party’s elite or core groups of Democratic voters. Instead, Sanders won the hearts of many young voters and older white liberals with a leftwing version of populism. His populism blamed banks and corporations for the woes of working and middle class Americans. Thus, he espoused support for increased regulation of banks, universal health care paid for by the government, an increase in the minimum wage, and tuition-free college.¹² While Clinton had many strengths as a frontrunner in 2016, she faced challenges due to the controversies of using a private email server while she was Secretary of State and whether the State Department under her tenure reacted appropriately to the terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. Some in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party also saw Clinton as too moderate and too tied to corporate America.

On February 1, 2016, Clinton and Sanders split the vote in the Iowa caucuses: 49.8 to 49.6 percent. Caucuses, with their low turnout levels, are dominated by political activists who tend to be more politically extreme than primary or general election voters. Sanders followed up with a win in New Hampshire, which was expected as it was next door to his home state of Vermont. Clinton won the third event – the Nevada caucuses – in part because she started her efforts in the state months before Sanders did, and she courted traditional bastions of Democratic support. The final front-four event was in South Carolina. Southern states in 2016 would provide Clinton with some of her best victories. With strong support from African American and church attending voters, Clinton posted lopsided victories and lopsided delegate totals in southern states. In South Carolina, she won with 73 percent of the vote. In Super Tuesday contests on March 1, she won Alabama with 78 percent; Georgia with 71 percent; and vote totals over 60 percent in Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. After Super Tuesday, Clinton led Sanders in delegates won through primaries and caucuses by 606 to 405. Although Sanders subsequently had significant victories in Michigan and Wisconsin, he never caught up to Clinton in these pledged delegates. Still, the Democratic nomination race extended to the last major primaries on June 7, when Clinton amassed a majority of both all delegates and all pledged delegates. The 2016 Democratic contest lasted throughout the primary season because it was a two-person race. Political scientist John Aldrich argues that only these two-person contests, where momentum shifts back and forth, will endure until the last primary.¹³ These long, two-person contests are also rare, despite back-to-back, two-person battles in the 2008 and 2016 Democratic nomination race. Next, we turn our focus to the characteristics of the current presidential nomination process and how it evolved from earlier methods.

Presidential Nominations in the 21st Century

Modern presidential nominations are secured by winning the support of the American electorate in primaries and caucuses. But the process is twofold. At one level, it is a national contest between competing candidates. Every candidate wants to win as many ...