Why do political parties nominate candidates

Over the years, Democrats and Republicans have moved further apart in their beliefs about the role of government. In , Republican and Democratic answers to forty-eight values questions differed by an average of only 10 percent, but that difference has grown to 18 percent over the last twenty-five years. According to some scholars, shifts led partisanship to become more polarized than in previous decades, as more citizens began thinking of themselves as conservative or liberal rather than moderate.

They serve to organize faction , to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party , often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties , to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion […].

Election outcomes would probably be based on the way voters compared the parties on the most important events of the day rather than on electoral strategy. There are many reasons we would be wrong in these expectations, however. First, the electorate is not entirely stable. Each generation of voters has been a bit different from the last. It sometimes happens that over a series of elections, parties may be unable or unwilling to adapt their positions to broader socio-demographic or economic forces.

Parties need to be aware when society changes. If leaders refuse to recognize that public opinion has changed, the party is unlikely to win in the next election.

Groups that have felt that the party has served their causes in the past may decide to look elsewhere if they feel their needs are no longer being met. Either way, the party system will be upended as a result of a party realignment, or a shifting of party allegiances within the electorate. The election is considered an example of a critical election , one that represents a sudden, clear, and long-term shift in voter allegiances.

Those who favor stability of the current political and economic system tended to vote Republican, whereas those who would most benefit from changing the system usually favored Democrat candidates. Based on this alignment, the Democratic Party won the nixt 5 consecutive presidential elections and was able to build a political coalition that dominated Congress into the s, including holding an uninterrupted majority in the House of Representatives from to A look at the presidential election shows how the opinions of different demographic groups vary.

For instance, 55 percent of women voted for Barack Obama and 52 percent of men voted for Mitt Romney. Age mattered as well—60 percent of voters under thirty voted for Obama, whereas 56 percent of those over sixty-five voted for Romney. Racial groups also varied in their support of the candidates. Ninety-three percent of African Americans and 71 percent of Hispanics voted for Obama instead of Romney. Breaking down voters by demographic groups may reveal very different levels of support for particular candidates or policies among the groups.

The election results show clear advantages for Democratic candidates among women, indicating a gender gap between the parties. In , those with the least education and those with the most education post-graduate study tended to vote democratic. This pattern also existed among the least educated and those with the least yearly income. Over time, the United States has become more socially liberal, especially on topics related to race and gender, and millennials—those aged 18—34—are more liberal than members of older generations and have shown a pattern of voting democratic.

Also, as young Latinos reach voting age, they seem more inclined to vote than do their parents, which may raise the traditionally low voting rates among this ethnic group. Based upon data from the National Exit Poll, the election showed both continuity and change in voting among socio-economic groups.

It is obviously way too early to determine whether the changes are permanent leading to a new voting coalition for the Republican Party or rather an exception to normal voting patterns. If anything, the losing gap among males has widened for Democrats. One of the most significant changes occurred when comparing voting by educational background.

Democrats continued, in fact increased, their positive margins with those having post-graduate study; but, they also increased among the college educated.

When the data is differentiated by both race and education, the Trump support among those without a college degree was shocking to most analysts. Also, Democrats maintained their majority among union households, but by a significantly reduced margin. Winning elections and implementing policy would be hard enough in simple political systems, but in a country as complex as the United States, political parties must take on great responsibilities to win elections across the many local, state, and national governing bodies.

Indeed, political differences between states and local areas can contribute much complexity. If a party stakes out issue positions on which few people agree and therefore builds too narrow a coalition of voter support, that party may find itself marginalized.

But if the party takes too broad a position on issues, it might find itself in a situation where the members of the party disagree with one another, making it difficult to pass legislation, even if the party can secure victory. Throughout the history of the United States, the political arena has been dominated by a series of two main parties with a periphery of third parties also involved in the process. In order for that influence to be meaningful, citizens must send clear signals to their leaders about what they wish the government to do.

It only makes sense, then, that voters have several clearly differentiated options available to them at the polls on Election Day.

Having these options means voters can select a candidate who more closely represents their own preferences on the important issues of the day. It also gives individuals who are considering voting a reason to participate. After all, you are more likely to vote if you care about who wins and who loses. The existence of two major parties, especially in our present era of strong parties, leads to sharp distinctions between the candidates and between the party organizations.

The two-party system came into being because the structure of U. Even when there are other options on the ballot, most voters understand that minor parties have no real chance of winning even a single office. Hence, they vote for one candidate of the two major parties in order to support a potential winner.

Of the members of the House and Senate, only a handful identify as something other than Republican or Democrat. Third parties have fared no better in presidential elections. No third-party candidate has ever won the presidency.

A number of reasons have been suggested to explain why the structure of U. The most frequent explanation has been the process used to select its representatives. First, most elections at the state and national levels are winner-take-all: The candidate who receives the greatest overall number of votes wins.

They know exactly whom to blame, or thank, for the actions of that government. Since voters do not like to waste votes, third parties must convince voters they have a real chance of winning races before voters will take them seriously. This is a tall order given the vast resources and mobilization tools available to the existing parties. In a system in which individual candidates compete for individual seats representing unique geographic districts, a candidate must receive a fairly large number of votes in order to win.

A political party that appeals to only a small percentage of voters will always lose to a party that is more popular. Winner-take-all systems of electing candidates to office, which exist in several countries other than the United States, can require that the winner receive either the majority of votes or a plurality of the votes. Plurality voting , commonly referred to as first-past-the-post, is based on the principle that the individual candidate with the most votes wins, whether or not he or she gains a majority 51 percent or greater of the total votes cast.

Plurality voting has been justified as the simplest and most cost-effective method for identifying a victor in a democracy. A single election can be held on a single day, and the victor of the competition is easily selected. Abandoning plurality voting , even if the winner-take-all election were kept, would almost certainly increase the number of parties from which voters could choose. The easiest switch would be to a majoritarian voting scheme, in which a candidate wins only if he or she enjoys the support of a majority of voters.

If no candidate wins a majority in the first round of voting, a run-off election is held among the top contenders.

Some states conduct their primary elections within the two major political parties in this way. Because second-place or lower finishers will receive no reward for their efforts, those parties that do not attract enough supporters to finish first at least some of the time will eventually disappear because their supporters realize they have no hope of achieving success at the polls.

This has been the fate of all U. Third parties, often born of frustration with the current system, attract supporters from one or both of the existing parties during an election but fail to attract enough votes to win.

After the election is over, supporters experience remorse when their least-favorite candidate wins instead. For example, in the election, Ralph Nader ran for president as the candidate of the Green Party. Nader, a longtime consumer activist concerned with environmental issues and social justice, attracted many votes from people who usually voted for Democratic candidates. Bush, because Nader won Democratic votes in Florida that might otherwise have gone to Gore.

Ralph Nader, a longtime consumer advocate and crusader for social justice and the environment, campaigned as an independent in a. North Dakota. Rhode Island. South Carolina. South Dakota. State law establishes that candidates for the following offices are to be nominated at political party conventions: lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state auditor, state treasurer, commissioner of school and public lands, and public utilities commissioner.

State law allows for parties to nominate candidates for all offices except the following via alternative means: governor, state legislators, U. State law provides that the "duly constituted authorities of the state political party shall have the right to determine the method by which a party nomination for a member of the United States Senate or for any statewide office shall be made.

West Virginia. Electoral systems policy. Primary elections policy. Redistricting policy. Recount laws. Ballot access for political candidates.

Ballot access for presidential candidates. The original electoral process established in Article II included the Electoral College and a complicated set of rules by which these electors cast their votes.

The increasing role of parties had led to complicated election results in and , so by Americans passed the 12th Amendment which loosened the rules to allow political parties to play a much greater role in presidential elections. The broad rules of the nomination process are set by the national committee of each party, which means the candidate selection processes can vary between different political parties. Nomination processes consist of two main types of elections held at the state level: primaries and caucuses.

The party committee in each state determines the rules that will govern their particular election contest. Primaries and caucuses can be binding or non-binding, winner-take-all or proportional, and open or closed. Read the glossary below to see what these terms mean in the context of an election.

Upcoming Events Explore our upcoming webinars, events and programs. View All Events. Invest In Our Future The most effective way to secure a freer America with more opportunity for all is through engaging, educating, and empowering our youth. Lots of people dream of becoming President of the United States. But to officially run for office, a person needs to meet three basic requirements established by the U. Constitution Article 2, Section 1. People with similar ideas usually belong to the same political party.

The two main parties in the U. Many people want to be President. In caucuses, party members meet, discuss, and vote for who they think would be the best party candidate. In primaries, party members vote in a state election for the candidate they want to represent them in the general election. After the primaries and caucuses, each major party, Democrat and Republican, holds a national convention to select a Presidential nominee.

The Presidential candidates campaign throughout the country to win the support of the general population. When people cast their vote, they are actually voting for a group of people called electors. The number of electors each state gets is equal to its total number of Senators and Representatives in Congress. A total of electors form the Electoral College.

Each elector casts one vote following the general election. The candidate who gets votes or more wins. An election for president of the United States happens every four years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

The most recent presidential election was November 3, The election process begins with primary elections and caucuses. These are two methods that states use to select a potential presidential nominee Nominee: the final candidate chosen by a party to represent them in an election.

In general, primaries use secret ballots for voting. Caucuses are local gatherings of voters who vote at the end of the meeting for a particular candidate. Then it moves to nominating conventions , during which political parties each select a nominee to unite behind. During a political party convention, each presidential nominee also announces a vice presidential running mate. The candidates then campaign across the country to explain their views and plans to voters.