Talk:Primary election
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Aren't US primary election the Post in each state and only the party nominating convention a run-off ballot? Rmhermen 19:44 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I know most votes the political parties hold are not first-past-the-post. The closed primaries are never plurality. I think the open ones usually are. It's a bit of a scandal, IMO.
My question is, does the running president automatically win his primary? What if he doesn't? Daelin 1:26 16 Jan 2004 (EST)
- With a very, very few exceptions, all elections in the United States are FPTP. Most Americans aren't even aware that there's another way to vote.
- The party conventions do use run-offs, but by the time the conventions take place, all fifty state primaries have already been held, so the conventions are basically a show-piece - all the delegates have been committed, based on the primary results, so it's clear going in who's going to win.
- The incumbent President doesn't get a "free pass", but they are not often challenged in their party, as they have a huge advantage, and the party is more concerned with "unity" against the other party than with settling any intra-party political scores. The last time I remember a sitting President facing a serious challenge in the Primary was 1980, when Edward Kennedy ran against Jimmy Carter.
- If the President - or anyone else - loses in the Primaries, they can still run for President, but not as a member of that party. So, for example, if Carter lost in 1980, then Kennedy would be the Democratic nominee, , Reagan would have been the Republican, and Carter would have had to run as an independent, or form his own party. I can't recall either of these things ever happening in U.S. history. - Scooter 04:34, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)
- I don't think there has been a case of the president going with his own party, but there is Theodore Roosevelt fighting the 1912 election for the Progressive party after failing to get the republican nomination against president Howard Taft. He got more votes than Taft, but the split he caused in the Republican camp gave Democrat Woodrow Wilson an easy win. Andre Engels 21:28, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)