Caucuses
A political caucus is a meeting of party members to act on official business, chiefly the nomination of candidates. In the PRIMARY -dominated era of presidential politics, however, caucuses have survived almost as an anachronism in the nominating process. As the number of primaries has grown, caucuses have lost much of their former significance.
As late as 1968, candidates sought to run well in primary states mainly to gain a bargaining chip with which to deal with powerful leaders in the caucus states. Republicans Barry M. Goldwater in 1964 and Richard Nixon in 1968 and Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey in 1968 all built up solid majorities among caucus-state DELEGATES that carried them to their parties´ nominations. Humphrey did not even enter a primary in 1968.
In subsequent presidential elections, candidates placed their principal emphasis on primaries. Democratic candidate George S. McGovern in 1972 and both Republican president Gerald R. Ford and Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter in 1976 won nomination by securing large majorities of the primary-state DELEGATES . McGovern´s campaign benefited from a surprise win in the IOWA CAUCUS, but neither he nor Ford won a majority of the caucus-state delegates . Carter was able to win a delegate majority only after his opponents´ primary campaigns collapsed.
Carter´s victory in Iowa transformed caucuses into the means of attracting national publicity. Later DARK-HORSE candidates—Republicans George Bush in 1980 and Marion G. “Pat” Robertson in 1988 and Democrats Gary Hart in 1984 and Richard Gephardt in 1988—attracted attention because of their wins or surprisingly strong showings in the Iowa contests.
Complex Method
Compared with a primary, the caucus system is complicated. Instead of focusing on a single primary election ballot, the caucus presents a multitiered system that involves meetings scheduled over several weeks, sometimes even months. There is mass participation only at the first level (the so-called first-round caucuses), with meetings often lasting several hours and attracting only the most enthusiastic and dedicated party members.
Operation of the caucus varies from state to state, and each party has its own set of rules. Most begin with PRECINCT caucuses or some other type of local mass meeting open to all party voters. Participants, often publicly declaring their votes, elect delegates to the next stage in the process. In smaller states, such as Delaware and Hawaii, delegates are elected directly to a state convention, where the NATIONAL PARTY CONVENTION delegates are chosen. In larger states, such as Iowa, there is at least one intermediate step. Most frequently, precinct caucuses elect delegates to county conventions, which then choose the national convention delegates .
Voter participation, even at the first level of the caucus process, is much lower than in primaries. Caucus participants usually are local party leaders and activists. Many rank-and-file voters find a caucus complex, confusing, time-consuming, even intimidating.
In a caucus state the focus is on one-on-one campaigning. Time, not money, is the most valuable resource. Because organization and personal campaigning are so important, an early start is far more crucial in a caucus state than in a primary. And because only a small segment of the electorate is targeted in most caucus states, candidates tend to use POLITICAL ADVERTISING sparingly.
Iowa, New Hampshire, and Beyond
Following is a list of the Iowa and New Hampshire winners since 1980 and the eventual nominee. In most cases, that nominee has been the winner in New Hampshire, not Iowa, although for the Democrats in 1992 it was neither.

Year Party Iowa Winner N.H. Winner Nominee
2000 Democrats Gore Gore Gore
Republicans Bush, G.W. McCain Bush, G.W.
1996 Democrats Clinton Clinton Clinton
Republicans Dole Buchanan Dole
1992 Democrats Harkin Tsongas Clinton
Republicans No vote Bush, G. Bush, G.
1988 Democrats Gephardt Dukakis Dukakis
Republicans Dole Bush, G. Bush, G.
1984 Democrats Mondale Hart Mondale
Republicans No vote Reagan Reagan
1980 Democrats Carter Carter Carter
Republicans Bush Reagan Reagan
Source: Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, February 17, 1996, 403 (updated after nominees were chosen); various issues of CQ Weekly.
Although the basic steps in the caucus process are the same for both parties, the rules that govern them are vastly different. Democratic rules have been revamped substantially since 1968, establishing national standards for grass-roots participation. Republican rules have remained largely unchanged, with the states given wide latitude in drawing up their delegate-selection plans.
In some states, one party holds caucuses while the other holds primaries. Even if both parties hold caucuses, they might not be on the same date. In 1996 Democrats in Texas and Republicans in Louisiana and Washington used both a primary and caucus to elect delegates .
Delegate Selection Calendar for 2000
January 24 Iowa
Alaska (R)
February 1 New Hampshire
February 5 Delaware (D)
February 7 Hawaii (R)
February 8 Delaware (R)
February 19 South Carolina (R)
February 22 Michigan (R)
Arizona (R)
February 29 Virginia (R)
Washington
March 7 California
Connecticut
Georgia
Hawaii (D)
Idaho (D)
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Minnesota (R)
Missouri
New York
North Dakota (D)
Ohio
Rhode Island
Vermont
March 9 South Carolina (D)
March 10 Colorado
Utah
Wyoming (R)
March 11 Arizona (D)
Michigan (D)
Minnesota (D)
March 12 Nevada (D)
March 14 Florida
Louisiana
Mississippi
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Texas
March 21 Illinois
March 25 Wyoming (D)
February–March Nevada (R)
April 4 Pennsylvania
Wisconsin
April 15 Virginia (D)
April 22 Alaska (D)
April Montana (R)
May 2 Indiana
North Carolina
District of Columbia
May 6 Kansas (D)
May 9 Nebraska
West Virginia
May 16 Oregon
May 23 Arkansas
Idaho (R)
Kentucky
May 25 Kansas (R)
June 6 Alabama
Montana (D)
New Jersey
New Mexico
South Dakota
July 28–August 3 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia
August 11–17 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles
Source: Richard M. Scammon, Alice V. McGillivray, and Rhodes Cook, America Votes 24: A Handbook of Contemporary American Election Statistics (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2001).
Note: States that selected Democratic and Republican delegates on different dates in 2000 are designated by a “D” or an “R.” States listed in normal type held caucuses; states listed in bold type held primaries
Caucuses 1980–2000
For both the Republican and Democratic Parties, the percentage of delegates elected from caucus states declined sharply throughout the 1970s. But the Democrats temporarily broke the downward trend and elected more delegates by the caucus process in 1980 than in 1976. Between 1980 and 1984 six states switched from a primary to a caucus system; none went the other way.
Since 1984 the trend has turned back toward primaries. In 2000 primaries were held by one or both parties in forty-four states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The Democrats elected 64.4 percent of their national convention delegates in primaries, against only 18.1 percent in caucuses. (Most of the remaining 17.5 percent were SUPERDELEGATE party and elected officials. In addition, twenty-two delegates from South Dakota were chosen through a meeting of state party leaders.) The Republicans in 2000 chose 88.0 percent of delegates in primaries and the rest in caucuses, with no superdelegates.
Events in 1984 and 1988 pointed up weaknesses in the caucus system. A strong caucus-states showing by Walter F. Mondale in 1984 led many Democrats to conclude that caucuses were inherently unfair. More than primaries, the complicated, low-visibility world of caucuses is open to takeover by insiders. In Mondale´s case, a mainstream Democratic coalition of party activists, labor union members, and teachers had dominated the caucuses in his behalf.
In 1988 the Iowa Democratic caucus was seen as an unrepresentative test dominated by liberal INTEREST GROUPS. And the credibility of the caucus was shaken by the withdrawal from the race of the two winners—Democrat Richard Gephardt and Republican Robert J. Dole—within a month after the caucus was held. Furthermore, several other state caucuses were marked by vicious infighting between supporters of various candidates.
In 1992 the presence of a FAVORITE SON candidate, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, among the leading Democratic candidates for president further diminished the Iowa caucus´s significance as a rival to the NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY in predicting the parties´ eventual nominees. Harkin easily won the caucus, but he soon dropped out after fading in the primaries.
With the field for the GOP nomination wide open in 1996 for the first time since 1980, Senator Dole again prevailed in Iowa, winning 26.3 percent of the vote. But he subsequently lost the New Hampshire primary to his chief Iowa opponent, Patrick J. Buchanan, before eventually winning the nomination.
In 2000 both eventual presidential nominees struggled in New Hampshire after crushing their opponents in the Iowa caucus. Democratic FRONT-RUNNER Al Gore narrowly edged former senator Bill Bradley by 4 percent in the New Hampshire primary; Republican front-runner Texas governor George W. Bush was upset by Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
Caucus Pros and Cons
Besides its complexity and tendency toward domination by party professionals, a major complaint about the caucus process is that it does not involve enough voters. The low turnouts are thought to be less representative of voter sentiment than a higher-turnout primary.
Staunch defenders, however, believe a caucus has party-building attributes a primary cannot match. They note that several hours at a caucus can involve voters in a way that quickly casting a primary ballot does not. The state party comes away from caucus meetings with lists of thousands of voters who can be tapped to volunteer time or money, or even to run for local office. And while the multitiered caucus process is often a chore for the state party to organize, a primary is substantially more expensive.

Presidential Primaries
Woodrow Wilson, the first president elected in the era of presidential primaries, foresaw their potential to replace the NATIONAL PARTY CONVENTIONS and give voters a more direct role in choosing candidates for the nation´s highest office. Elected in 1912, the first year that a substantial number of states (thirteen) held primaries, Wilson promptly asked Congress to establish a system of primary elections throughout the country at which the voters of several parties may choose their nominees for the presidency without the intervention of nominating conventions. Wilson proposed keeping the conventions as a means to declare the results of the primaries and adopt the parties´ PLATFORMS.
Although Congress never enacted a national primary law, the U.S. political system in effect adopted Wilson´s idea. Every major-party nominee since 1976 has gone to the convention with the nomination in his pocket, having won at least a plurality in the party´s primaries. Following that established pattern, most states in 2000 held presidential primaries, and the conventions simply formulated party platforms and formalized the nominations.

Although Woodrow Wilson favored the primary system, he owed his election in 1912 to the nominating convention, where he outmaneuvered many other candidates. (Source: Library of Congress.)
Wilson himself owed his election in part to the inequities of the old nominating convention system. Then the governor of New Jersey, he had entered primaries in twelve states and won only five of them. Nevertheless, he won the Democratic nomination for president on the forty-sixth ballot. On the Republican side in the same election, former president Theodore Roosevelt won nine of twelve primaries but lost the nomination to President William Howard Taft in a bruising convention fight. Roosevelt then formed his own PROGRESSIVE BULL MOOSE Party to challenge both Taft and Wilson. The GOP split helped to ensure Wilson´s election.
The Progressive fervor had spurred the spread of primaries, which originated with a Florida law in 1901. But after Wilson´s election that spirit began to die out. Not until after World War II, when widespread pressures for change touched both parties but especially the Democratic, was there a rapid growth in presidential primaries.
That growth was steady, except for a brief period in the 1980s when some states reverted to the CAUCUS method of DELEGATE selection. In the 2000 elections, primary states far outnumbered caucus states.
Impact of Progressives
In the early twentieth century, Progressives, populists, and reformers in general objected to the links between political bosses and big business. They advocated returning the government to the people.
Part of this “return to the people” was a turn away from boss-dominated conventions. It was only a matter of time before the primary idea spread from state and local elections to presidential contests. Because there was no provision for a nationwide primary, state primaries were initiated to choose delegates to the national party conventions (delegate-selection primaries) and to register voters´ preferences on their parties´ eventual presidential nominees (preference primaries). (See PRIMARY TYPES.)
Florida´s 1901 primary gave party officials an option of holding a party primary to choose any party candidate for public office, as well as delegates to the national conventions. There was no provision, however, for placing names of presidential candidates on the ballot—either in the form of a preference vote or with information indicating the preference of the candidates for convention delegates .
Wisconsin´s Progressive Republican politician, Gov. Robert M. La Follette, gave a major boost to the presidential primary following the 1904 Republican National Convention. There the credentials of La Follette´s Progressive delegation had been rejected and a regular Republican delegation from Wisconsin seated. Angered, La Follette returned to his home state and began pushing for a presidential primary law. The result was a 1905 Wisconsin law mandating the DIRECT ELECTION of national convention delegates , but making no provision for indicating the delegates ´ presidential preference.
In 1906 Pennsylvania followed Wisconsin with a statute providing that candidates for delegate could have their names printed on the official ballot beside the name of the presidential candidate the delegate would support at the national convention. However, no member of either party exercised this option in the 1908 primary.
The next step in presidential primaries—the preferential vote for president—took place in Oregon. In 1910 Sen. Jonathan Bourne, a Progressive Republican colleague of La Follette (by then a U.S. senator), sponsored a referendum to establish a presidential preference primary, with delegates legally bound to support the winner of the preference primary. By 1912, with Oregon in the lead, twelve states had enacted presidential primary laws that provided for either direct election of delegates , a preferential vote, or both. The number had expanded to twenty-six states by 1916.
Primaries and Conventions
As the 1912 election showed, victories in the presidential primaries did not ensure a candidate´s nomination. One of former president Theodore Roosevelt´s nine victories included a defeat of President Taft in Ohio, Taft´s home state. Roosevelt lost to Taft by a narrow margin in Massachusetts and to La Follette in North Dakota and Wisconsin. Despite this impressive string of primary victories, the convention rejected Roosevelt in favor of Taft.
Taft supporters dominated the REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE, which ran the convention, and the convention´s credentials committee, which ruled on contested delegates . Moreover, Taft was backed by many state organizations, especially in the South, where most delegates were chosen by caucuses or conventions dominated by party leaders.
On the Democratic side, the convention more closely reflected the results of the primaries. Governor Wilson of New Jersey and House Speaker Champ Clark of Missouri were closely matched in total primary votes, with Wilson only 29,632 votes ahead of Clark. Wilson emerged with the nomination after a long struggle with Clark at the convention.
Likewise, in 1916 Democratic primary results foreshadowed the winner of the nomination, although Wilson, the incumbent, had no major opposition for renomination. But once again Republican presidential primaries had little impact upon the nominating process at the convention. The eventual nominee, Supreme Court justice Charles Evans Hughes, had won only two primaries.
In 1920 presidential primaries did not play a major role in determining the winner of either party´s nomination. Democrat James M. Cox, the eventual nominee, ran in only one primary, his home state of Ohio. Most of the Democratic primaries featured FAVORITE-SON candidates or WRITE-IN votes. And at the convention Democrats took forty-four ballots to make their choice.
Similarly, the main entrants in the Republican presidential primaries that year failed to capture their party´s nomination. Sen. Warren G. Harding of Ohio, the compromise choice, won the primary in his home state but lost badly in Indiana and garnered only a handful of votes elsewhere. The three primary leaders—Sen. Hiram Johnson of California, Gen. Leonard Wood of New Hampshire, and Gov. Frank O. Lowden of Illinois—lost out in the end.
After the first wave of enthusiasm for presidential primaries in the early years of the century, interest waned. By 1935 eight states had repealed their presidential primary laws. The diminution of reform zeal during the 1920s and the preoccupation of the country with the Great Depression in the 1930s and war in the 1940s appeared to have been leading factors in the decline. Also, party leaders were ambivalent about primaries; the cost of conducting them was relatively high, both for the candidates and the states. Many presidential candidates ignored the primaries, and voter participation often was low.
But after World War II interest picked up again. Some politicians with presidential ambitions, knowing the party leadership was lukewarm about their candidacies, entered the primaries to try to generate a BANDWAGON EFFECT.
In 1948 Harold Stassen, Republican governor of Minnesota from 1939 to 1943, entered presidential primaries in opposition to the Republican organization and made some headway before losing in Oregon to Gov. Thomas E. Dewey of New York. And in 1952 Tennessee senator Estes Kefauver, riding a wave of public recognition as head of the Senate Organized Crime Investigating Committee, challenged Democratic Party leaders by winning several primaries, including an upset of President Harry S. Truman in New Hampshire. The Eisenhower-Taft struggle for the Republican Party nomination that year also stimulated interest in the primaries.
With the growing demand for political reform in the 1960s and early 1970s, the presidential primaries became more attractive as a path to the nomination. John F. Kennedy, then a relatively obscure U.S. senator from Massachusetts, helped to popularize that route with his successful uphill fight for the Democratic nomination in 1960. Kennedy used the primaries to prove to party leaders that he, a Roman Catholic, could be elected. An unbroken string of Kennedy victories persuaded his chief rival in the primaries, Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, to withdraw.
Republicans Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona in 1964 and former vice president Richard Nixon in 1968 and Democrat George S. McGovern of South Dakota in 1972—all party presidential nominees—were able to use the primaries to show their vote-getting and organizational abilities. Having failed to win the presidency in 1960 and the California governorship in 1962, Nixon needed a strong primary showing to overcome his “loser” image among GOP leaders. McGovern, too liberal for the Democratic establishment, won the nomination through the primaries.
Democratic Rules Changes
Despite the Progressive reforms, party leaders until 1968 remained in firm control of the nominating process. With only a handful of the fifteen to twenty primaries regularly contested, candidates could count on a short primary season. They began with the NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY in March, then tested their appeal during the spring in Wisconsin, Nebraska, Oregon, and California before resuming their courtship of party leaders.
But in 1968 the Democrats began tinkering with the nominating rules, resulting in presidential nominating campaigns that were predictable only in their unpredictability. The reforms were launched in an effort to reduce the alienation of liberals and minorities from the Democratic nominating system and to allow the people to choose their own leaders. The Republicans seldom made any changes in their rules. (See PRESIDENTIAL SELECTION REFORMS.)
The Democrats´ era of grass-roots control produced presidential candidates such as Senator McGovern, a liberal from South Dakota who lost in a LANDSLIDE to Nixon in 1972, and former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, who beat incumbent president Gerald R. Ford in 1976.
With a then-record high of thirty-seven primaries held in 1980, the opportunity for mass participation in the nominating process was greater than ever be-fore. President Carter and former California governor Ronald Reagan, the Republican nominee, were the clear winners of the long primary season. Carter amassed a plurality of nearly 2.7 million votes over his major rival, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. With no opposition in the late primary contests, Reagan emerged as a more one-sided choice of GOP primary voters. He finished nearly 4.6 million votes ahead of George Bush, who eventually withdrew.
Disheartened by Carter´s massive loss to Reagan in 1980, the Democrats revised their nominating rules for the 1984 election. The party created the so-called SUPERDELEGATES; that is, delegate seats were reserved for party leaders who were not formally committed to any presidential candidate. This reform had two main goals. First, Democratic leaders wanted to ensure that the party´s elected and appointed officials would participate at the convention. Second, they wanted to ensure that these uncommitted party leaders could play a major role in selecting the presidential nominee if no candidate was a clear FRONT-RUNNER.
While the reforms of the 1970s had been designed to give more influence to grass-roots activists and less to party regulars, the 1980s revisions were intended to bring about a deliberative process in which experienced party leaders could help select a consensus Democratic nominee with a strong chance to win the presidency and then govern effectively.
The Democrats´ new rules had some expected, as well as unexpected, results. For the first time since 1968, the number of primaries declined and the number of caucuses increased. The Democrats held only twenty-five primaries in 1984. Yet, like McGovern in 1972 and Carter in 1976, Colorado senator Gary Hart used the primaries to pull ahead (temporarily) of former vice president Walter F. Mondale, an early front-runner whose strongest ties were to the party leadership and its traditional core elements. In 1984 the presence of superdelegates was important because about four out of five backed Mondale.
Some critics regarded the seating of superdelegates as undemocratic, and there were calls for reducing their numbers. Instead, by adding seventy-five superdelegate seats, the DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE (DNC) increased their numbers from 14 percent of the delegates in 1984 to 15 percent for 1988. Moreover, another 150 new superdelegate seats were set aside for party leaders. All members of the DNC are guaranteed superdelegate seats, as are all Democratic governors and about 80 percent of the Democrats in Congress.
Still more seats were added to the various superdelegate categories in 1992, bringing the total to 772 or 18 percent of the 4,288 delegates to the Democratic convention in New York City. Having won 51.8 percent of the Democratic primary vote, Arkansas governor Bill Clinton went to the convention with the nomination virtually ensured. He was nominated by acclamation after receiving 3,372 votes on the first ballot. In 2000 both Texas governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore clinched their respective nominations months before the conventions. Bush came within seven votes of winning the nomination unanimously at the Republican convention. Vice President Al Gore, the only candidate whose name was placed in nomination at the Democratic convention, was declared the unanimous winner. That year, the Democrats had 802 superdelegates, which amounted to 18.4 percent of all delegates . (See DELEGATES .)
The Republican Party does not guarantee delegate seats to its leaders, nor has the party created superdelegates. Its rules, however, permit less rigid pledging of delegates and generally have led to substantial participation by Republican leaders, despite the absence of such guarantees.
Regional Primaries and Super Tuesday
Problems of presidential primaries included the length of the primary season (nearly twice as long as the general election campaign), the expense, the physical strain on the candidates, and the variations and complexities of state laws. Several states in 1974 and 1975 discussed the feasibility of creating regional primaries, to reduce the candidates´ expense and strain of travel and permit their concentration on regional issues. The idea achieved some limited success in 1976 when states in the West and South decided to organize regional primaries. Both groups, however, chose May 25 to hold their primaries, which defeated one of the main purposes of the plan by forcing candidates to shuttle across the country to cover both areas. The western states participating were Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon; the southern states were Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
Attempts also were made in New England to construct a regional primary. But New Hampshire did not want to take part and could not because its law requires the state to hold its primary at least one week before any other state. Hesitancy by the other New England state legislatures defeated the idea.
In 1988 the southern states´ goal of a regional primary finally was realized. Fourteen states below the Mason-Dixon line—Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia—held primaries on what came to be known as SUPER TUESDAY. Two northern states, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, also held their primaries that day (March 8).
The Democrats selected nearly 67 percent of their 1988 convention delegates through primaries. That figure was up from 52 percent in 1984, but nine percentage points less than the 76 percent set in 1976, the record to that time.
The Republicans chose 77 percent of their delegates via primaries, up six points from 1984. George Bush´s win in New Hampshire proved to be the turning point in his campaign, and because most Republican primaries were the winner-take-all kind, Bush had the Republican nomination all but locked up after Super Tuesday. He went over the top with the Pennsylvania primary, April 26. In contrast, the Democratic candidates were awarded delegates based on the proportion of votes cast for them in each primary. Democrat Michael S. Dukakis won enough delegates by June 7 to become his party´s nominee.
“March Madness”
By 1992 Super Tuesday had become part of a general rush among states to hold their primaries as early as possible and thus help to determine the ultimate nominees. Dubbed “March Madness,” the early clustering or FRONT-LOADING of primaries was viewed with dismay by some political analysts. They said it could lead to nominees being locked in before most voters knew what was happening, resulting in less informed and deliberative voting in the general election.
As winners in the eight Super Tuesday primaries March 10, President Bush and Governor Clinton were already well on their way to nomination. Bush had half the delegates he needed for renomination, and Clinton with 707 delegates held a commanding lead over his nearest rival, former senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts. In all, roughly half the states held their primaries before the end of March 1992.
In the wide-open Republican race in 1996, front-runner Robert J. Dole lost to conservative columnist Patrick J. Buchanan in the February 20 New Hampshire primary, but through victories in subsequent primaries Dole had the GOP nomination clinched by March 26. Only thirteen primaries were held after that date. Clinton faced no opposition.
The 1996 election saw the misnamed JUNIOR TUESDAY week surpassing Super Tuesday in the number of participating states. Fourteen states and Puerto Rico held Republican primaries or caucuses March 2 through March 9, compared with seven primaries on Super Tuesday, March 12.
The Republican contest followed a similar pattern in 2000. Front-runner George W. Bush lost the New Hampshire primary to Sen. John McCain of Arizona, but then Bush clinched the nomination in March. He routed McCain on March 7, when sixteen states from coast to coast held primaries and caucuses in the biggest event of the campaign season. On the Democratic side, Gore narrowly edged Bill Bradley in New Hampshire, then knocked him out of the race by winning every contest on March 7.
Approaches to Reform
In an effort to alleviate March Madness and reverse the bunching of primaries in the early months of presidential election years, the 1996 Republican National Convention approved rules changes that would reward states holding later primaries, beginning in 2000. States holding primaries after March 15 would receive 10 percent more delegates , with an additional 5 percent increase for each month of delay until May 15. But the effort failed, with even more states, including delegate-rich California, moving up their primaries in 2000. For their part, Democrats gave up on efforts to push back the primary calendar. Instead, they approved rules changes to move up the Iowa and New Hampshire contests to January in 2004, with other contests following soon after in February.
Since 1911 hundreds of bills have been introduced in Congress to reform the presidential primary system. Most of them appeared after the 1912, 1952, and 1968 nominating campaigns. These three campaigns produced the feeling among many voters that the will of the electorate, as expressed in the primaries, had been thwarted by national conventions. But since 1911 the only legislation of this type enacted by Congress concerned the presidential primary in the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
Various other suggestions for changing the primary system have been made. One would establish a direct national primary. But a Democratic study commission as well as several academic groups rejected the idea. The consensus was that such a process would strip the party leadership of any role in the nominating process, enable presidential candidates to run factional or regional campaigns, and increase the primacy of media “image” over serious discussion of the issues.
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Document Citation
"Presidential Primaries." CQ Electronic Library, CQ´s Elections A to Z Online Edition, elaz2d-156-7493-402856. Originally published in John L. Moore, Elections A to Z, 2nd ed. (Washington: CQ Press, 2003). http://library.cqpress.com/electionsaz/elaz2d-156-7493-402856 (accessed February 1, 2008).