73
votes
Accepted
What are the arguments for California’s nonpartisan blanket (jungle) primaries?
It would seem a reasonable assumption that the Democratic-controlled California legislature would have implemented this system in order to help elect more Democrats. There are few things more ...
- 729
66
votes
Accepted
Why do primaries contestants (usually) announce that they are "suspending" their campaign when they exit it?
There are a couple of reasons why candidates do this. Firstly, because the Federal Election Commission only considers a campaign as "closed down" for good after a winding down process is complete; ...
CDJB♦
- 105k
54
votes
Accepted
What benefit is there to pulling out of the presidential race before Super Tuesday?
At least in the case of Pete Buttigieg, his recent statements seem to make pretty clear that he's stopped to provide room for Biden to overtake Sanders.
CNN coverage
"When I ran for president we ...
- 23.9k
47
votes
Accepted
How did Alaska "change its primary system recently" and was it "to dilute the possibility of a conservative or Trump-inspired challenger"?
Alaska Ballot Measure 2 made two big changes to elections, both of which are expected to reduce the power of the main parties:
Party-run primary elections are replaced with non-partisan primary ...
- 25.9k
44
votes
Accepted
Why are candidates expected to win their home state?
In their article, Localism in Presidential Elections: The Home State Advantage [1] published in the American Journal of Political Science, Lewis-Beck & Rice (1983) investigate the home state ...
CDJB♦
- 105k
41
votes
What benefit is there to pulling out of the presidential race before Super Tuesday?
Most of the answers are good ones, but they fail to acknowledge the political/tactical reason for dropping out BEFORE Super Tuesday.
That reason? The 15% threshold.
Democratic primary rules ...
- 17.2k
39
votes
Why do betting odds give Michael Bloomberg 10% chance of winning the Democratic nomination?
The important thing to understand is that betting odds are not a prediction of an outcome.
They are a simply a balancing act that aims to ensure the bookmaker will make a profit - no matter what the ...
- 515
37
votes
Accepted
Has a sitting US president ever been denied their party's nomination for a second term?
In terms of not achieving the nomination of their party due to losing the primary contests directly, no. However, there have been times when the incumbent president seeking re-election has pulled out ...
CDJB♦
- 105k
30
votes
Why run for president if you have no chance to be elected?
Did you know who Jim Gilmore and George Pataki were before they ran for president? Unless you happen to be living in Virginia or New York or are a huge politics buff, you likely haven't. But now you ...
- 74.8k
29
votes
Accepted
In the US, why does the government have the right to regulate how political parties hold their primaries?
A substantial factor were white primaries during the defining civil right struggles and the case law that followed from that. From a law paper on the topic "Developments in the State Regulation ...
- 144k
26
votes
Accepted
What would happen if every state had a law requiring it hold the nations first primary?
For the purposes of this answer I’ll only look at the rules for the democratic party (mostly because they were easier to find).
In short, the DNC will not recognize any primary or caucus held before ...
- 2,717
24
votes
Why are candidates expected to win their home state?
I'd like to add an additional possible factor to CDJB's excellent answer.
Assuming that the candidate actually holds (or held) office in their home state (such as being a current or former ...
- 1,058
23
votes
Accepted
What happens in a brokered convention? Why is the prospect of one seen as a threat to Sanders' presidential hopes?
First things first. In the U.S., each party writes its own rules for nominating candidates (and each state writes its own rules for how it's elections are run). This makes for a bizarre primary system ...
- 16.1k
22
votes
What are the arguments for California’s nonpartisan blanket (jungle) primaries?
Why nonpartisan blanket primaries
The seats where the Republicans do not have at least one candidate are generally the seats where the Republicans weren't going to win. Taking the example from the ...
- 89.3k
22
votes
Why do betting odds give Michael Bloomberg 10% chance of winning the Democratic nomination?
Betting markets are not necessarily more accurate than polls. For example, during the Brexit referendum:
The political betting markets were far less equivocal, showing a wide lead for remain. In the ...
- 144k
22
votes
Accepted
Why don't presidential candidates announce their running mates before achieving their party's nomination?
It's an interesting question you're raising. In many cases, the V.P. candidate gets chosen from among the other competitors for the party's nomination of a candidate for President who most helped the ...
- 401
20
votes
What benefit is there to pulling out of the presidential race before Super Tuesday?
In addition to wanting to consolidate the "moderate" field, there is the fact that this is also a political favor to the rest of the field that may pay dividends later. Both Biden and Sanders will ...
- 45.6k
19
votes
Has a sitting US president ever been denied their party's nomination for a second term?
No incumbent president has lost his primary race, but you have to keep in mind that primaries are a 20th century invention basically.
The 1976 campaign season was the year in which primaries ...
- 144k
17
votes
Accepted
Why is winning the NYC Democratic mayoral primary currently widely seen as tantamount to election?
The real question is why were there Republican mayors at all? In the last century, exactly four men have been elected Mayor of New York City as a Republican.
It's worth noting that party politics in ...
- 4,528
15
votes
Why are big tech companies Bernie Sanders' top donors?
The donations you cite are made to the DNC, not to a Bernie SuperPac. He doesn't have one. They are for the purpose of obtaining special favors from the DNC:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
- 385
14
votes
Could a Party Choose Not to Nominate an Incumbent?
Absolutely, it happens all the time. An incumbent losing to a challenger in their own party's primary election is sometimes called "getting primaried".
Search for "getting primaried" or "primaried ...
- 6,492
14
votes
Why do betting odds give Michael Bloomberg 10% chance of winning the Democratic nomination?
What you are seeing are probabilities implied by people placing bets on a particular result, and reflects how much people who place bets expect to receive if they win.
On BetFair exchange, if you ...
- 27.8k
12
votes
Who voted for Arthur J. Jones the neo-Nazi Republican candidate for Illinois's 3rd congressional district?
Everyone
Or to be more accurate, everyone who voted, as your own link suggests, Mr Jones was the ONLY candidate in the Republican primary.
This Article from the New York Times may put it in more ...
- 8,437
12
votes
What benefit is there to pulling out of the presidential race before Super Tuesday?
The benefit of dropping out is that senators don't want to be seen
losing their home states. It is seen as very humiliating. However,
that is not the full story. Both Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth ...
- 7,803
12
votes
How are Presidential candidates, who run for the party ticket in Primaries and Caucuses, shortlisted?
It varies from State to State, and even within a State, the rules might be different for different parties.
Generally candidates will either petition (collect signatures), pay a filing fee, or be ...
- 115k
11
votes
Accepted
Has a presidential candidate ever lost his home state and went on to win the presidential election?
Yes. James K Polk, from North Carolina, lost his home state but won the election of 1844. He was also the only president to have served as Speaker of the House.
For other interesting (and/or ...
- 1,052
10
votes
How was PredictWise so certain that Ted Cruz had absolutely no chance to win the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries and caucuses?
A common problem when trying to handicap the Republican race is to place too much reliance on a single statistic: first place votes for each candidate. The problem that Cruz has is that he doesn't ...
- 89.3k
10
votes
Accepted
What happens to delegates when a candidate withdraws or suspends their campaign
It depends. Some states may force delegates to defer to the dropped out candidates endorsement but other states may let their delegates vote freely at the national conventions. Usually the delegates ...
- 494
10
votes
Has some candidate won the Democratic ticket without winning either Iowa or New Hampshire?
According to fivethirtyeight it only happened once, in 1992, i.e. Bill Clinton won without winning either state, but...
the circumstances were unusual.
Iowa wasn’t really contested due to the “...
- 144k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible