Modern primaries are a joke

[Pres Mike]

Donald Trump is basically the presumptive nominee. He won the first two states in a landslide. Will most likely win every remaining state with even larger margins. Never debated once.

So what was the point of those 5 debates? Ridiculous. 7 were scheduled! I wouldn't blame the RNC cancelling all future contests. What a waste of time and money.

Look at 2020. President Biden was the front runner just about the entire time (except for the brief moment Warren took the lead in November 2019). President Biden got 5th place in NH, won the nomination basically in a landslide. What was the point of having a 20 person debate with John Delaney???

There needs to be a better way to nominate a president. Not 6 month long primary. Not 20 people debates. No debates without the front runner. No IA/NH going first.

The entire process is a joke

[Redban]

Trump 2024 is a unique case of a former president running again. He basically has incumbent support from the base because he built up so much loyalty over 8 years, and he has a presidential record to run on (e.g. a ton of Iowa GOP voters cited the overturning of Roe v. Wade for their support of Trump)

In ordinary cycles, the frontrunner would debate, and the race would be more competitive throughout the cycle . The primary system seemed odd and useless this cycle, but in other cycles, the primaries have worked

[jojoju1998]

Donald Trump is basically the presumptive nominee. He won the first two states in a landslide. Will most likely win every remaining state with even larger margins. Never debated once.

So what was the point of those 5 debates? Ridiculous. 7 were scheduled! I wouldn't blame the RNC cancelling all future contests. What a waste of time and money.

Look at 2020. President Biden was the front runner just about the entire time (except for the brief moment Warren took the lead in November 2019). President Biden got 5th place in NH, won the nomination basically in a landslide. What was the point of having a 20 person debate with John Delaney???

There needs to be a better way to nominate a president. Not 6 month long primary. Not 20 people debates. No debates without the front runner. No IA/NH going first.

The entire process is a joke

Presidential Primaries in the US are not a nationalized contest like in France, Mexico. The parties would still have to choose delegates. from each state to go to the convention and officially nominate a presidential canidate.


Everything in this country is decentralized, for better or worse.

[Pres Mike]

Trump 2024 is a unique case of a former president running again. He basically has incumbent support from the base because he built up so much loyalty over 8 years, and he has a presidential record to run on (e.g. a ton of Iowa GOP voters cited the overturning of Roe v. Wade for their support of Trump)

In ordinary cycles, the frontrunner would debate, and the race would be more competitive throughout the cycle . The primary system seemed odd and useless this cycle, but in other cycles, the primaries have worked

What about the 2020 Democratic primaries? It all seemed so trivial in hindsight. Why was John Delaney ever on the same stage as Biden, Bernie and Warren

[jojoju1998]

Trump 2024 is a unique case of a former president running again. He basically has incumbent support from the base because he built up so much loyalty over 8 years, and he has a presidential record to run on (e.g. a ton of Iowa GOP voters cited the overturning of Roe v. Wade for their support of Trump)

In ordinary cycles, the frontrunner would debate, and the race would be more competitive throughout the cycle . The primary system seemed odd and useless this cycle, but in other cycles, the primaries have worked

What about the 2020 Democratic primaries? It all seemed so trivial in hindsight. Why was John Delaney ever on the same stage as Biden, Bernie and Warren

Because he filed as a canidate. Anyone in this country can file as a canidate. Anyone. And since Delaney is/was a congressman, he just had a higher profile, that magically allowed him to be on the debate stage.



That's America.

It's very very decentralized.

Contrast this with the French System.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_The_Republicans_(France)_presidential_primary#Validated_candidates

The party controls from the top, who gets to even be a contender. In order to be a viable contender in a major party's primary, you have to have in France, "  the support of 20 members of the National Assembly, 2,500 party members and 250 elected representatives to participate."

That's very regulated. Very controlled.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Modern primaries are a joke I agree. I would extend it also to races beyond just President. It's pretty clear neither party cares for having them other than it allows them to shirk paying the cost of their own nomination activities and pass it on to taxpayers.

The party controls from the top, who gets to even be a contender. In order to be a viable contender in a major party's primary, you have to have in France, "  the support of 20 members of the National Assembly, 2,500 party members and 250 elected representatives to participate."

That's very regulated. Very controlled.

The great lie is our process is likewise very controlled, it's just the paeans don't know about it. Josh Putnam at Frontloading HQ has long coined this process the Invisible Primary which largely occurs the year in between the midterms and the presidential election year. It's a fight over getting support from party bigwigs, campaign resources, and donors to support you.

If you want to run for President and can't get say 20 of a combination of Governors, Congressmen, Senators, state legislative house leaders to support you, you have no business running for the nomination of that party other than out of personal vanity. If you still want to run and a party completely ignores you, go Ross Perot. There needs to be a method to completely remove the people that have no real intention of running for President and instead waste everyone's time using the platform to sell a book, get a Cabinet position, or just want a cable/radio job. You could hold a National Convention a year before where people can hawk themselves and then have a private vote where everyone above a certain threshold (5% 10%) are then who can run for office. You can require candidates to buy their spot in the field which foots the costs of running the leadership race.

[President Johnson]

As I said before, I would support having a nationwide primary in May or June. If no candidate clears 50%, there would be a runoff two or three weeks later. This would not only bring balance to the states, it would also shorten the campaigns as a whole. Candidates wouldn't have to announce before the fall of the previous later, or even wait to January/February of the election year. Conventions would be just a formality and for nominating a running mate as well as voting on a party platform.

Ideally, such a reform would go on pair with abolishing the Electoral College and switching to a popular vote election. Also with a runoff, or as an alternative up for debate, ranked-choice voting.

[Pericles]

Democratic nominees need to compete in the invisible primary, Republican ones don't because from the early 2010s their voters actively hate their elected officials and want a wrecker of a candidate.