Competing for Attention and Votes: The Role of State Parties in Setting Presidential Nomination Rules

A curious aspect of American politics is that while general election rules for Congress and the presidency are fixed and uniform, nominating rules are not. General elections are always held on the first Tuesday in November, and the winners must obtain either a district plurality (for Congress) or an Electoral College majority (for the presidency). There is no significant effort to change these rules from election to election to suit the needs of particular candidates or parties. The same cannot be said, however, of candidate nomination processes. In many states, nomination rules vary across parties and across elected offices. Constant change is a given, and political actors—candidates, political parties, and the states—strategically calculate the impact that proposed rule changes will have on their fortunes. By far, the most fluid electoral arena is the presidential nomination process, which is characterized by quadrennial shifts in the timing of state nomination contests, variations in whether states use caucuses or primaries, and important 1 differences in the criteria governing participation in primary elections. Two important factors have contributed to the diversity of the presidential nomination rules over time and across states: the relative high autonomy that the courts have accorded political parties in determining thei