It’s hard to escape the news generated by the early stages of the 2024 presidential election – the succession of caucuses and primaries that happen between January and June of every presidential election year, as shown in the chart above. I thought it might be useful to talk a little about what’s actually happening in this process. This is the stage in which the political parties select the nominee to represent their party, and it’s important to understand that two entities are involved in this process – the political party organizations and the state election office. The following chart explains this process.
The political party organizations in each state determine whether they will use a caucus or a primary to choose their candidates, and they also determine the date of the event. So how does a caucus differ from a primary?
NOTE: The only purpose for a primary or a caucus is to select delegates who will attend the national nominating convention for the respective political parties. These events are held in the summer of a presidential election year. This year, 2,429 delegates will attend the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from July 15 through July 18. 3,926 delegates will attend the Democratic National Convention in Chicago a month later – August 19-22.
First, we have to acknowledge that states don’t all use the same process when people register to vote. In 31 states and the District of Columbia, voters have the opportunity to mark their party affiliation, or their unaffiliated status, on their voter registration form. In other states, the voter registration form does not include an option to declare political party preference. You’ll see that this plays a role in what happens next.
The state political party organizations get to decide whether they will use a primary or caucus system to choose their delegates to the national party convention. They then can decide whether they will have an open or closed process. In an open primary or caucus, any registered voter can participate in either party’s event; in a closed primary or caucus, participation is limited to voters who have registered their party affiliation when they registered to vote. There are a lot of variations in this process, but this is roughly what’s going on. In Iowa, for example, the caucus is defined as “partially open.” On the day of the caucus, voters not registered with either party could change their registration on the spot, participate in the caucus, and then change back before they left the event.
Open primaries or caucuses raise the possibility of the so-called “crossover” voters impacting the nomination on the other side by crossing over and voting for the worst candidate the other party has to offer. The data show that, although this happens in every election cycle, it is never sufficient to change the results of a nominating process. Voters are just not that organized.
I’ll use Virginia to explain how this works.
Virginia does not register voters by political party, so by necessity, we have an “open” nominating process. For the past couple of decades, this has been a primary for the presidential election) although both the Democrats and Republicans have held open caucuses for other races – most recently, the GOP chose its nominee for governor in 2021 through a caucus rather than a primary. This is because they were afraid the MAGA GOP voting base would select a far-right MAGA candidate rather than the oh-so-moderate Glenn Youngkin.
On the date of the primary election this year, a voter first has to tell the person working the polls (that has been me on several days in February) which ballot they want. This means that they have to say the word Republican or Democrat – which pisses some of them off because they want to keep their vote secret. Some voters need to be talked off the ledge over this issue – and still others ask if they have to vote in November for the party they chose during this primary. The answer to that is no. We don’t have any way to track how someone votes in an election.
Voters in a caucus state have to attend a public meeting to participate in the selection of a nominee. This tends to minimize participation – regular everyday voters don’t want to participate in this kind of event and often think that they’re not really invited to participate. Because of this, a political party that wants to remove its nominating process from direct public control will host a caucus rather than a primary in a given election cycle. Sometimes (like the GOP in Nevada this year), the party will be split, with one faction holding a caucus and the other holding a primary. Because that doesn’t confuse voters at all.
In case you’ve forgotten or never paid attention in the first place, Nikki Haley lost the non-binding Nevada primary on February 6 to “None of the Above,” while #P01135809 was not on the primary ballot, although he won the caucus two days later. Here’s how that happened: in 2021, the Democratic-controlled Nevada Legislature set a presidential primary for both parties to replace the previous party-organized caucuses. The Republicans in Nevada boycotted that state-sponsored event and chose to hold a caucus instead, on February 8. Because allocating delegates to a national party convention is a party (not state) function, Nevada Republicans chose to allocate their delegates based on the results of their primary. So Haley (although she lost to None of the Above) was named the winner of the Nevada primary (although she did not gain any delegates through this process). By winning the caucus two days later, #P01135809 won all of the Nevada delegates.
The number of delegates each state is selecting is determined by the national party according to a formula set forth by each party. This formula combines population figures with past voting behavior in the state – states that have supported the party’s candidates in the past get bonus delegates. Virginia will send 68 delegates to the Democratic National Convention and 28 delegates to the Republican National Convention.
This year’s primaries and caucuses have had unsurprising results. With essentially two incumbents running for their respective party nomination, President Biden and #P01135809 have swept the first events in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, South Carolina, and Nevada. This pattern is expected to continue through the next week or two before each candidate has won a majority of delegates that will go to the convention. March 5 (next week) will be the decisive date for this process – 16 states will hold their nominating contests on “Super Tuesday.” Fully 1/3 of the delegates on both sides are up for grabs that night. The GOP nomination is expected to be wrapped up within a week or so after Super Tuesday, whereas Biden will clinch the Democrat’s nomination by March 19.
Virginia’s 45-day early voting period will end this Saturday, and our official event for both parties is on Super Tuesday. Here’s what early voter turnout looked like through February 24. Some of these may be crossover voters, but there’s no way to tell. This is good news for Democrats: voting in primaries and early voting are indicators of voter enthusiasm, and the Dems need heavy turnout in this election cycle to defeat our MAGA opponents.
All of this means that the general election will begin in mid-March — long before the national nominating conventions confirm their candidates. The Democratic Party ticket will be Biden/Harris once again, but no one knows who the GOP VP nominee will be. It’s hard to imagine who would like to fill the shoes of Mike Pence for the job. You know, “Hang Mike Pence” and all that.
The general election this year will be as weird as the nominating process has been. Democratic voters are concerned about Biden’s age and his administration’s policies in Ukraine, Gaza, and the Southern border; GOP voters are worried about an increasingly batshit candidate, court schedules, immunity, and jail time. But yeah, both parties are totes the same.
Whoa! This is a great resource. Thanks! Your humorous remarks are the most informative of all, though. I won’t forget them! Happy weekend!!