Democracy and participation
Electoral systems in the USA
Presidential elections and their significance
The main USA, fixed term 4 year elections, if president dies, VP becomes president until
processes term ends
to elect a Every 4 years is laid down in Article II of the constitution
president Federal law states election held on the Tuesday after first Monday of November
– between 2nd and 8th November
Stages
Constitutio Must be natural born US citizen
nal Must be at least 35 years old
requiremen Residency qualification of 14 years
t 1951 – limited to two terms in office
The - The period between candidates declaring an intention to run for presidency and
invisible the first primaries and caucuses.
primary - Candidates chosen by ordinary voters in primaries.
- Preparation, fundraising, recognition must be gained.
- High correlation between who is leading in the polls at the end of the invisible
primary and who wins the nomination.
- Increasingly candidates target media representation.
- Targets want to be mentioned in media e.g. Washington Post
- 2016 – Jeb Bush was 2nd to Trump for Republican candidate, he dropped out
Candidate announcements:
- Formal announcements.
- Incumbents make this usually half-way through their term. Trump filed for his
re-election campaign with the Federal Election Commission on his first day in
office.
- 25th April 2019, 29 democrat candidates declared their candidate declaration.
- Head to head match-ups ran by polls throughout the invisible primary.
- Most candidates challenging incumbent announce roughly a year before the 1 st
primaries
- Support for candidate is demonstrated by opinion polls
Televised TV debates:
- Inter-party debates between candidates highlights differences between
progressive and moderate wings of the parties.
- Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders – she refused to shake his hand and they
quarrelled over his statement that a woman could not win the presidency.
Fundraising:
- Money = more campaigning = higher poll ratings = more money.
- Biden spent $116 million.
- Michael Bloomberg spent $409 million and didn’t make final two.
Front runners:
- Traditionally the candidate leading in the polls.
, - Trump had 16-point lead over Ted Cruz.
- This invisible primary was critical in predicting who likely presidential
candidates would be
Primaries Primaries – a state-based election to choose a party’s candidate for the
and presidency. Shows support for candidates among ordinary voters.
caucuses Caucuses – a series of state-based meetings of party supporters to choose a
party’s candidate for the presidency. They attract unrepresentative and low
turnouts.
Caucuses:
- Geographically large but thinly populated e.g. Iowa
- 2016 – caucuses held by democrats in 14 states but only 4 in 2020
- 2016 – republicans held caucuses in 10 states. Democrats in 14 states.
- Caucuses tend to favour more ideological candidates due to high turnout among
the more ideological voters.
- Longer process, long meetings, debates, more engagement, less people
involved compared to primaries
Primaries:
- Show popularity of candidates and choose delegates to go to the national party
conventions.
- Run under state law = lots of variation
- Timing of primaries - States decide when to hold primaries, parties publish
after and before dates.
- New Hampshire have contest early and have no clashes in hopes their results
with influence other states.
- Some states deliberately arrange primaries to coincide with other states =
regional primary
- First Tuesday in March 2020 – 14 states arranged their primaries together –
dubbed as Super Tuesday.
- Super Tuesday – a Tuesday in February or early march where many states
coincide their primaries and caucuses to try and gain influence.
- Front loading – states schedule presidential primaries and caucuses earlier in
nomination cycle in an attempt to increase their importance.
Types of primaries:
- 1st primaries divided into closed and open primaries
- Some states make you register your party affiliation
- Closed primaries – primary which only registered voters can vote in their
registered party primaries.
- Open primaries – any registered voter can vote in either party primary. Allow
cross-over voting.
- Modified primaries – allow those who have registered as independents to vote in
either party’s primary.
- Proportional primaries – classified according to how delegates to the national
party conventions are chosen, candidates win delegates in proportion to the
votes they get. Theres a minimum percentage of votes that a candidate must
receive
- When an incumbent president is running for re-election e.g. Trump 2020, the
primaries for the presidents party go on with little/no coverage
- Some states don’t bother with a primary under such circumstances e.g. 2020
Arizona dispensed a republican presidential party
- Incumbent presidents are usually renominated by their parties without any
serious opposition
- Trump only faced token republican challengers in 2020 e.g. Mark Sanford who
barley registered with either the public or party and weren’t that serious
National - Meeting held every 4 years by each of the two major parties to select
party presidential and vice-presidential candidates and agree the party platform.
convention - July, august or early September, 3 to 4 days
s - Smaller scale in 2020 due to COVID e.g. Charlotte North Carolina republican
convention was moved as they didn’t want big crowds
Formal functions:
, Choosing the party’s presidential candidate:
- In theory, conventions choose party’s presidential candidate in a roll call vote –
each states delegates amount which candidate they want to vote for
- Vast majority of delegates arrive at the convention as ‘committed delegates’ to
vote for a particular candidate in the 1st ballot if that candidate is still in the race
- The number of committed delegates is known beforehand as its decided by
each state primary or caucus so the result of the convention ballot to chose
presidential candidate is already known
- Needs absolute majority to win. 2020, Biden had support of 2,687 delegates –
exceeded the 1,991 needed for majority.
- The convention confirms, rather than choses the parties candidate
- Never been any doubt since 1976 when it was unknown between Ford and
Reagan
- If no one receives absolute majority on 1st ballot, the balloting continues until
one does in a brokered convention
- In these ballots, delegates become free agents, not committed to a singular
candidate, these can cause intra-party warfare and factions as parties
nowadays want unity
Choosing the party’s vice-presidential candidate:
- Convention now lost, announced before convention e.g. Harris announced days
before convention
Deciding the party platform:
- Document containing policies it will peruse if elected (like a manifesto).
- Put together by the platform committee under the direction of the party’s
national committee
- The draft platform is presented to delegates, some times the delegates debate
but want to avoid heated debates as the media portrays this as divided party
- 2016 – debate over sexuality in republican convention, very conservative
platform presented, wanted to overturn Obergefell ruling
- Democratic covered policy areas, put together by progressive and moderate
wings, pledges associated with COVID e.g. increased funding, more aid, more
contract tracing. Healthcare ‘Medicare for all’, finding citizenship for
undocumented immigrants
- Significant differences on certain policies e.g. abortion
- 2020, democrat platform was 90 pages.
Informal functions:
- Formal functions of national party conventions are questionable, little point
holding them
Promoting party unity
- Most important function, primaries can turn to bitter personal battles but its key
that divisions are healed before general election campaign
- Divided parties rarely win
- 2016 republican convention was less successful of promoting party unity as it
was split due to Trump with leading republicans e.g. Mitt Romney staying away,
Ted Cruz called for people to ‘vote for your conscience’ instead of vote for
‘trump’
- Trump however was unchallenged in 2020 which avoided divisions
- 2020 Democrat primary some division between Harris and Biden e.g. he said
‘go easy on me kid’ which was patronising
- They did however show unity and praised each other
Enthusing the party faithful
- General election campaign lots of hard work and the party faithful need to be
enthusiastic to fight for their party during 9 week campaign
- Meetings, calls, literature, voters to transport to polls
- Provides opportunity to enthuse party faithful through speeches and
appearances
- 2012 Michelle Obama inspirational speech attracted publicity where she
attacked Trump
Enthusing ordinary voters.
- Done through televisions as they aren’t at convention
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