Clearing the Field: How do Presidential Primary Candidates Win Big on Super Tuesday?

Authors

  • Colin Swearingen John Carroll University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-779X.2020.37.2.1-28

Keywords:

Campaigns, elections, presidential primaries, public attention, Google Trends, media attention, polling, fundraising, endorsements

Abstract

In presidential primaries, Super Tuesday elections play a significant role in winnowing candidate fields and establishing nomination frontrunners.  Despite their importance, scholars know little about why and how candidates win or lose the states comprising these events.  This study explores which factors help explain candidate performance in Super Tuesday primaries between 2008 and 2016.  Using pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis, the results indicate three key drivers of Super Tuesday success: candidate viability, public attention, and media attention.  These findings imply that presidential campaigns continue to be complex electoral events beyond the early primary states and suggest that underdog candidates can still win states under the right conditions.  Future research should explore the interrelatedness of these three critical factors.

Author Biography

Colin Swearingen, John Carroll University

Associate Professor

Department of Political Science

References

Abramson, Paul R., John H. Aldrich, Phil Paolino, and David W. Rohde. 1992. “‘Sophisticated’ Voting in the 1988 Presidential Primaries.” The American Political Science Review 86 (1): 55. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1964015

Adkins, R. E., and A. J. Dowdle. 2001. “How Important Are Iowa and New Hampshire to Winning Post-Reform Presidential Nominations?” Political Research Quarterly 54 (2): 431–44. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/106591290105400210

Adkins, Randall E., and Andrew J. Dowdle. 2005. “Do Early Birds Get the Worm? Improving Timeliness of Presidential Nomination Forecasts.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 35 (4): 646–60. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-5705.2005.00270.x

Adkins, Randall E., and Andrews J. Dowdle. 2002. “The Money Primary: What Influences the Outcome of Pre-Primary Presidential Nomination Fundraising?” Presidential Studies Quarterly 32 (2): 256–75. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0360-4918.2002.00220.x

Aldrich, John Herbert. 1980. Before the Convention: Strategies and Choices in Presidential Nomination Campaigns. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226922447.001.0001

Bartels, Larry M. 1985. “Resource Allocation In a Presidential Campaign.” The Journal of Politics 47 (3): 928–36. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2131218

———. 1988. Presidential Primaries and the Dynamics of Public Choice. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.

———. 1989. “After Iowa: Momentum in Presidential Primaries.” In The Iowa Caucuses and the Presidential Nominating Process, 121–48. Boulder: Westview Press.

Bradner, Eric. 2016. “Your Guide to Super Tuesday 3.” CNN, March 15, 2016. http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/14/politics/super-tuesday-march-15-guide-florida-illinois-ohio/.

Church, George. 1984. “A Big Bicoastal Finale.” Time, June 4, 1984. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,951132-1,00.html.

Cohen, Marty, David Karol, Hans Noel, and John Zaller. 2008. The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations before and after Reform. Chicago Studies in American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226112381.001.0001

Collinson, Stephen. 2016. “Trump, Clinton Score Major Victories.” CNN, April 27, 2016. http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/26/politics/primary-results-highlights/.

Donovan, Todd, and Rob Hunsaker. 2009. “Beyond Expectations: Effects of Early Elections in U.S. Presidential Nomination Contests.” PS: Political Science & Politics 42 (01): 45. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096509090040

Ellis, William Curtis, Joseph T. Ripberger, and C. Douglas Swearingen. 2017. “Public Attention and Head-to-Head Campaign Fundraising: An Examination of U.S. Senate Elections.” American Review of Politics 36 (1): 30–53. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-779X.2017.36.1.30-53

Fei Shen. 2008. “Staying Alive: The Impact of Media Momentum on Candidacy Attrition in the 1980--2004 Primaries.” The International Journal of Press/Politics 13 (4): 429–50. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161208323550

Goff, Michael J. 2004. The Money Primary: The New Politics of the Early Presidential Nomination Process. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Gurian, Paul-Henri. 1993. “The Distribution of News Coverage in Presidential Primaries.” Journalism Quarterly 70 (2): 336–44. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/107769909307000209

Hadley, Charles D., and Harold W. Stanley. 1989. “Super Tuesday 1988: Regional Results and National Implications.” Publius 19 (3): 19–37. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3330481

Haynes, A. A., J. F. Flowers, and P.-H. Gurian. 2002. “Getting the Message Out: Candidate Communication Strategy During the Invisible Primary.” Political Research Quarterly 55 (3): 633–52.

Haynes, Audrey A., Paul-Henri Gurian, Michael H. Crespin, and Christopher Zorn. 2004. “The Calculus of Concession: Media Coverage and the Dynamics of Winnowing in Presidential Nominations.” American Politics Research 32 (3): 310–37. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X03260353

Hinckley, K. A., and J. C. Green. 1996. “Fund-Raising in Presidential Nomination Campaigns: The Primary Lessons of 1988.” Political Research Quarterly 49 (4): 693–718. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/106591299604900401

Mayer, William G. 1996. “Forecasting Nominations.” In In Pursuit of the White House: How We Choose Our Presidential Nominees, 44–71. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers.

———. , ed. 2000. In Pursuit of the White House 2000: How We Choose Our Presidential Nominees. New York: Chatham House Publishers.

———. 2003. “Forecasting Presidential Nominations or, My Model Worked Just Fine, Thank You.” Political Science and Politics 36 (02): 153–57. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096503001999

Mayer, William G., and Andrew Busch. 2004. The Front-Loading Problem in Presidential Nominations. Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press.

Norpoth, Helmut, and David F. Perkins. 2011. “War and Momentum: The 2008 Presidential Nominations.” PS: Political Science & Politics 44 (03): 536–43. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096511000631

Norrander, Barbara. 1992. Super Tuesday: Regional Politics & Presidential Primaries. Lexington, Ky: University Press of Kentucky.

———. 1993. “Nomination Choices: Caucus and Primary Outcomes, 1976-88.” American Journal of Political Science 37 (2): 343. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2111376

———. 2000. “The End Game in Post-Reform Presidential Nominations.” The Journal of Politics 62 (04). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-3816.00043

———. 2006. “The Attrition Game: Initial Resources, Initial Contests and the Exit of Candidates During the US Presidential Primary Season.” British Journal of Political Science 36 (03): 487. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123406000251

———. 2010. The Imperfect Primary: Oddities, Biases, and Strengths of U.S. Presidential Nomination Politics. Controversies in Electoral Democracy and Representation. New York: Routledge.

Rapoport, Ronald B., Walter J. Stone, and Alan I. Abramowitz. 1991. “Do Endorsements Matter? Group Influence in the 1984 Democratic Caucuses.” The American Political Science Review 85 (1): 193. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1962885

Redlawsk, David P., Caroline J. Tolbert, and Todd Donovan. 2011. Why Iowa?: How Caucuses and Sequential Elections Improve the Presidential Nominating Process. Chicago ; London: University of Chicago Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226706979.001.0001

Reuning, Kevin, and Nick Dietrich. 2016. “The Effect of the Media on the Invisible Primary.” http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2709208. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2709208

Ridout, Travis N., and Brandon Rottinghaus. 2008. “The Importance of Being Early: Presidential Primary Front-Loading and the Impact of the Proposed Western Regional Primary.” PS: Political Science & Politics 41 (01): 123–28. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096508080190

Schneider, Bill. 2007. “It Could All Be over after ‘Super Duper Tuesday,’” February 7, 2007. http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/02/05/schneider.superduper.tuesday/index.html.

Silver, Nate. 2014. “Is The Polling Industry Is Statis Or In Crisis?” FiveThirtyEight (blog). August 25, 2014. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-the-polling-industry-in-stasis-or-in-crisis/.

Stanley, Harold W., and Charles D. Hadley. 1987. “The Southern Presidential Primary: Regional Intentions With National Implications.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 17 (3): 83–100. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3330056

Steger, Wayne. 2013. “Polls and Elections: Two Paradigms of Presidential Nominations.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 43 (2): 377–87. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12028

Steger, Wayne P. 2007. “Who Wins Nominations and Why?: An Updated Forecast of the Presidential Primary Vote.” Political Research Quarterly 60 (1): 91–99. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912906298597

———. 2008. “Forecasting the Presidential Primary Vote: Viability, Ideology and Momentum.” International Journal of Forecasting 24 (2): 193–208. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijforecast.2008.02.006

———. 2015. A Citizen’s Guide to Presidential Nominations: The Competition for Leadership. Citizen Guides to Politics and Public Affairs. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Sullivan, John, and Michael Luo. 2008. “Romney Exits, Saying He Has to ‘Stand Aside for Our Party.’” The New York Times, February 7, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/us/politics/07cnd-repubs.html.

Summary, B. 2010. “The Endorsement Effect: An Examination of Statewide Political Endorsements in the 2008 Democratic Caucus and Primary Season.” American Behavioral Scientist 54 (3): 284–97. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764210381709

Swearingen, C. Douglas. 2017. “Public Attention and Fundraising in the Invisible Primary.” In Midwest Political Science Association. Chicago, IL.

Swearingen, C. Douglas, Elizabeth Stiles, and Kate Finneran. Forthcoming. “Here’s Looking at You: Public Attention in Presidential Primaries.” Social Science Quarterly.

UPI. 1976. “Ford, Carter Head into Crucial Super Tuesday.” Lodi News-Sentinel, June 3, 1976. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Oe1fAAAAIBAJ&sjid=YzIHAAAAIBAJ&pg=6816,3038734&dq=super-tuesday&hl=en.

Washington Post. 2016. “Super Tuesday State Results,” March 1, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/2016-election-results/super-tuesday/?utm_term=.947e18d4b6d8.

Whitby, Kenny J. 2014. Strategic Decision-Making in Presidential Nominations: When and Why Party Elites Decide to Support a Candidate. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Zukin, Cliff. 2015. “What’s the Matter With Polling?” The New York Times, June 20, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/opinion/sunday/whats-the-matter-with-polling.html.

Downloads

Published

2020-12-22

Issue

Vol. 37 No. 2 (2020)

Section

Articles

License

Authors who publish with American Review of Politics agree to the following terms:

  1. The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.

  2. Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.

  3. The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:

    1. Attribution: other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;

    2. Non-Commercial: the materials may not be used for commercial purposes;

    3. Share Alike: If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

with the understanding that the above condition can be waived with permission from the Author and that where the Work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.

  1. The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

  2. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a pre-publication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (see The Effect of Open Access). Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.

  3. Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.

  1. The Author represents and warrants that:

    1. the Work is the Author’s original work;

    2. the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;

    3. the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;

    4. the Work has not previously been published;

    5. the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and

    6. the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.

  2. The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.