Elections Essay
Primary Elections
The Presidential Primaries play a huge role in who will become the nominee of the two
major parties in our political system: the republicans and the democrats. Unfortunately, it
seems that the importance of these primary elections is not completely understood or
appreciated by the American people because the percentage of people who participate in
them is not very high. In the history of our government, is has proven very difficult, if not
impossible, for someone outside of either the republican or democratic party to run a
successful campaign for the presidency. This means that these primary elections essentially
result in the two candidates the American people will have to choose from for their next
president.
The importance of the primaries has created a competitive approach of many of the states
who are trying to make their primary votes more influential. The idea is earlier the state
holds its primary, the more influence their primary results will hold in the nomination of
the party candidate. This eagerness to be more influential poses some complications when
it comes to campaigning for the candidates. By prolonging the period prior to the actual
elections, the candidates not only have to spend more money on campaigning, but they
also “attack” their opponent(s) for more extended periods of time leaving whoever does
become the candidate more publically damaged, and giving their opponent in the
presidential race ammunition against them.
The Republican National Committee has changes in place for the 2016 primaries to try to
address some of the issues with the current process. They plan to set the date for the
