10.3: Presidential Primaries

Although most American elections follow a similar pattern, presidential elections are exceptional in a number of ways. Firstly, whereas most primary elections are held on a single day, the presidential primary process stretches over several months, with each state (as well as the District of Columbia and several U.S. territories) holding its own primary. Usually the first primaries are held in January or February of the election year, although the primary campaign itself begins long before that. (The first candidate to join the 2020 Democratic presidential primary announced his candidacy in July 2017, more than three years before Election Day.)

Presidential candidates who win or place highly in presidential primaries earn delegates to their party’s national convention, where the nominee will be determined by a vote of delegates. Finishing strong in the early states is a top priority for candidates striving to prove they have what it takes to compete. This is why, every four years, politicians from all over the country have traditionally flocked to the early-primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire to lay the groundwork for their campaigns. The elongated primary calendar helps a party whittle down a large list of presidential hopefuls until a single nominee emerges. In 2016, 17 Republicans embarked on presidential campaigns, but by February when the first actual votes were cast only 12 were still running, and by early May only Donald Trump remained in the race. In 2020, of the 29 Democrats competing for their party’s presidential nomination, only 11 made it to the first state contest in early February and only Joe Biden was left standing by early April.

As with other aspects of American elections, states differ in their approach to presidential primaries. Most hold a normal election (simply called a primary) in which voters show up at a polling place, wait in line, and cast their ballots. A minority of states instead hold a caucus, a group meeting at which campaign representatives (and voters themselves) attempt to recruit supporters for their preferred candidates before a vote is held. Caucuses require a greater time investment from would-be participants and are more complicated to administer. The 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses, in fact, were so convoluted that the caucus organizers themselves struggled to overcome numerous mathematical errors and technical glitches, causing the results to be delayed for three days. Following this debacle, the Democratic Party announced in 2022 it was considering revisions to its primaries for the 2024 cycle, likely ending Iowa’s traditional ”first-in-the-nation” status in the Democratic primary calendar.

The term primary is commonly used to refer to both primaries and caucuses. It can also be used to refer to all of a party’s presidential primary elections combined: politicians and journalists might claim that a presidential candidate “won the primary” when what they mean is that he or she earned the party’s nomination after winning multiple state primaries.