Presidential Election Process

PRESIDENTIAL

ELECTION
PROCESS

How does our President get elected?

U.S.A

.

SWBAT…

Understand the process necessary to be a Presidential candidate

OBJECTIVE

• More than ¾ of all delegates to both parties conventions come from States that hold presidential primaries

• Serious contenders in both Democratic & Republican parties must make the best possible showing in at least most of them

• Presidential Primary - election in which a party’s voters (1) choose some or all of a State party organizations delegates to their party’s national convention & (2) express a preference among various contenders for their party’s presidential nomination

PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES

• Besides the basic definition, this system is different on a state-by-state basis

• Recall that in New Hampshire, being the first primary makes them important because it sets the pace for who is gaining support

• Many states have grown to want to do their primary early so they can ensure their supported candidate will stay in the game

• 2008, 16 states held their primaries on the same day, known as “Super Tuesday”

• Only 9 states held primaries on Super Tuesday in 2016

• Name recognition & money have always been important factors in the primary process, & front-loading multiplied their importance

A SYSTEM OF VARIABLES

PRESIDENTIAL CAUCUSES

• In states that do not hold presidential primaries, delegates to the national convention are selected in a system of local caucuses & district or State conventions

• Caucus - closed meeting of members of a political party who gather to select delegates to the national convention

• Details vary from state to state

• At the caucus, party voters meet to express preference among the contenders for the party’s presidential nomination & select delegates to a local or district convention, where delegates to a state convention are elected 

• At the state level, delegates to the national convention are chosen

Open Ended

What is the purpose of primaries and caucuses?

• The caucus-convention process dates back to the 1840s & is the oldest method for choosing national convention delegates

• Its use has declined significantly over the years

• 2016, only ¼ of all delegates to either party’s national convention came from States that still use this method of delegate choice

• Iowa caucus gets the most attention because they are the first delegate selection event held in every presidential election season

• 2016, it was held on February 1st, one week before New Hampshire held its first-in-the-nation presidential primary

DECLINE IN POPULARITY

THE

NATIONAL

CONVENTION

• Once all the primaries & caucus have been held & all of the delegates have been chosen, the National Convention is the next event

• Two major parties hold their national conventions, & those delegates select their presidential & vice-presidential candidates

CONVENTION ARRANGEMENTS

• The constitution says nothing about Presidential Elections & there is almost no State or Federal law that regulates it

• This process has been built over the years almost entirely by the two major parties

• Each political party picks the location of their convention

APPORTIONING DELEGATES

• By tradition, each party gives each State party a certain number of delegates based on that State’s electoral vote

• Recently, both conventions have developed complicated formulas to determine delegate number

• Democratic convention also includes a large number of “superdelegates” mostly party officers & democrats who hold major elective public offices & other party activists

• Historically, conventions were dramatic, chaotic affairs where it would take days to bargain an agreed upon candidate

• Now, it is much less chaotic because the parties largely know who will be the candidate that will be chosen

• The leading contender normally wins enough delegates in the primaries & caucuses to lock up the nomination long before the convention meets

COMMON
GOALS

• The conventions have three major goals

1. Naming the party’s presidential & vice-presidential candidates

2. Bringing the various factions & the leading personalities in the party together in one place for a common purpose

3. Adopting the party’s platform, it’s formal statement of basic principles, stands on major policy matters, & objectives for the campaign & beyond

• Both parties hope that their convention will do a number of other things as well

  • Promote party unity, capture interest & attention of the country at large, & generate support for the party’s ticket in the upcoming campaign

COMMON
GOALS

Multiple Select

Which of the following are the three major goals of the National Convention? Select all that apply.

• Naming the part's presidential and vice-presidential candidates

• Raising funds for the party's campaign efforts

• Bringing the various factions and leading personalities in the party together for a common purpose

• Adopting the party's platform

• Developing a strategy to defeat the opposing party in the general election

and illustrations by Stories

SHOWCASING
THE PLATFORM

& THE PARTY

• Platform is a report by the committee on platform & resolutions

• Important campaign document aimed at appealing to as many people & as many groups as possible

• Parties produce generalized comments on some of the hard questions facing the nation at the time

• Keynote address, delivered by one of the party’s most accomplished orators, glorifies the party, its history, its leaders, & its programs, blisters the other party, & predicts a victory in November

• Once nominating speeches are made, the delegates vote

• Convention secretary calls the states in alphabetical order, & the head of each state delegation announces their vote

• The presidential candidate gives a speech that ends the convention & launches the party’s general election campaign

NOMINATING
THE PRESIDENT

What qualities do

you think of

when you think
of the President?

Word Cloud

What qualities do you think of when you think of the President?

WHO IS

NOMINATED?

• If a sitting president is running for a 2nd term, they are almost guaranteed to gain the convention vote for their party

• If the President is not involved, up to a dozen or more contenders may surface in the pre-convention period, with two or three at most surviving to contest the prize at the national convention

• The contender who is most electable will win

• Both parties want candidates who can win, those with the broadest appeal

• Most candidates have substantial, well-known records in public office

• However, 2012, Republicans picked Mitt Romney, who only served one term as governor of Massachusetts

• His opponent, Barack Obama had only served four years in the Senate before being elected in 2008

• 2016, Donald Trump, a wealthy businessman with no prior experience in government became another exception, winning the Republican nomination

• The only other major party nominee to have no experience in government or military was Republican Wendell Wilkie in 1940

POLITICAL EXPERIENCE

PROMINENCE AT HOME

• Governors have produced the largest number of Presidential candidates

• Democrats & Republicans nominate governors or former governors 27 times out of the 60 presidential nominations made during that time period

• For a time, the Senate was a prime source of presidential candidates

OTHER CHARACTERISTICS

• Most leading contenders for the nomination have been Protestants

• With some exceptions in Alfred E. Smith (1928), John F. Kennedy (1960), & John Kerry (2004), all Catholics & Republican Mitt Romney (2012) a Mormon

• They usually have a pleasant & healthy appearance, seem to be happily married, & have an attractive family 

• Only 6 have ever been divorced

SHATTERING BARRIERS

• Last 20 years, several barriers to the presidency have been broken

• Until 2008, neither major party had ever nominated a member of any minority group as a candidate

  • Senator Barack Obama, the child of a white mother from Kansas & a black father from Kenya, was nominated to the Democratic party

• In the same election, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton tried to become the first woman presidential candidate in the nation’s history

• She lost to Obama, but in 2016, she became the first woman presidential candidate in the country’s history by winning the Democratic nomination

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE
PROCESS

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

OPEN

PRIMARY

SEMI-OPEN

PRIMARY

OPEN

CAUCUSES

CLOSED

CAUCUSES

NATIONAL CONVENTION

CLOSED
PRIMARY

SEMI-CLOSED

PRIMARY

ANYONE CAN VOTE

ANYONE CAN VOTE
ON PARTY SPECIFIC

BALLOT

PARTY

MEMBERS &

UNAFFILIATED

CAN VOTE

PARTY

MEMBERS ONLY

CAN VOTE

ANYONE CAN

ATTEND

MEMBERS ONLY

CAN ATTEND

REGARDLESS OF HOW
THE CANDIDATES ARE
NOMINATED, EACH
STATES SENDS
DELEGATES TOO…

DELEGATES FROM
EACH STATE VOTE
TO CHOOSE A…

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