The American presidential primary and caucus elections are almost half over and although two leading candidates have emerged from both parties, the parties’ eventual nominee is not yet certain.
Before looking at how the presidential race is going, perhaps it is useful to first look at how the caucus and primary system works. A caucus, which is organised by the state’s political parties, is an election where voters meet in designated areas such as schools, churches and assembly halls and vote, through a show of hands, for their preferred candidate. A primary, which is run by the state government, is where people cast their ballot in secret, just like a normal election.
The vast majority of states use primaries to nominate a candidate and there are several types of primaries. ‘Open’ primaries are open to all registered voters in that particular state who can vote for any candidate; in other words a Republican can vote in the state’s Democratic primary and vice versa, but voters can only vote in one primary. In ‘closed’ primaries, only registered voters affiliated with each party in that state can vote. And in ‘semi-closed’ primaries voting is closed to registered members of the other party, but open to independents. In caucuses only registered voters affiliated with that specific party can take part.
At the heart of the US electoral process is the system of delegates who are elected through the states’ primaries and caucuses and who then go to their party’s national convention to officially select a presidential candidate. The situation so far is as follows: on the Republican side Donald Trump is leading the race with 743 delegates, followed by the two other candidates left in the contest, Ted Cruz with 517 delegates and John Kasich with 143 delegates.
The way Republican primary and caucus delegates are allocated depends on the particular state. Some are proportionally allocated, meaning their distribution is based on the percentage of votes received by each candidate, others allocate all delegates to the winner of the contest, (‘Winner Takes All’), while a few states reserve some delegates for the winner and some may be divided proportionally (‘Winner Takes Most).
To win the Republican nomination, a simple majority of 1,237 delegates is needed. With a number of states still to hold their elections, it is mathematically possible for Trump or Cruz (who won last Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary) to reach this magic figure while Kasich has no chance of getting a majority. However, it is now looking like no one candidate will win a majority of delegates, which means that the Republican convention being held in Cleveland, Ohio, in July will be a contested one.
A contested convention occurs when the primary process does not produce a presidential candidate by the time the party convention opens. As the convention begins delegates have to vote for the candidate they are pledged to, meaning that in this case no one candidate will secure a majority of votes. This will lead to a brokered Republican convention, where delegates are now free to vote for whoever they like, including outside candidates. The last time the Republican party had a brokered convention was in 1976 when Ronald Reagan challenged, unsuccessfully, President Gerald Ford for the party nomination.
The election of either of them [Trump or Cruz] would be a disaster for both America and the world
On the Democratic side Hillary Clinton continues as the frontrunner although Bernie Sanders has picked up momentum and can now boast four wins in a row and victories in six of the last seven Democratic party contests, including Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary. Clinton so far has 1,279 pledged delegates and 469 unpledged delegates, totalling 1,748. Sanders has 1,027 pledged delegates and 31 unpledged delegates, totalling 1,058. Unlike the Republican party, all Democratic primary/caucus delegates are proportionally allocated.
Unpledged delegates are those ‘super delegates’ that the Democratic party sends to its national convention, 712 in all, who are not elected in the primary process. These are usually state party leaders and officials, they are free to support any candidate and their vote is not official until the national convention in July. However, many of them have already publicly stated which candidate they are supporting, which is why a large number of them are included in Clinton’s and Sanders’ delegate count.
To win the Democratic nomination a total of 2,383 delegates are needed and although it is possible for Sanders to win – he would need more than 70 per cent of the remaining pledged delegates – it is more likely that Clinton will be the nominee by the time the Democratic party convention is held in Philadelphia in July. A lot will depend on the upcoming Democratic primaries in the large delegate-rich states of New York and Pennsylvania.
I believe that both Clinton and Sanders are good candidates and that either of them would make a good President. Clinton has the necessary experience while Sanders has managed to influence the Democratic party agenda for the better with a strong emphasis on social justice. In foreign policy both candidates are firmly committed to multilateralism and US global engagement, which is so crucial considering today’s delicate international situation.
I can’t say the same for the two leading Republican candidates, Trump – whose policies are dangerously populist and irresponsible, and Cruz – whose policies are the most right-wing since Barry Goldwater in 1964.
The election of either of them would be a disaster for both America and the world; their ascendency within the party is the result of the Republicans’ ferocious, unreasonable and exaggerated opposition to President Barack Obama ever since he entered the White House, as well as their right-wing populist drift over the years.
It looks like the Republican ‘establishment’ has now realised that Trump is unelectable and that Cruz will have a very difficult task to beat the Democratic nominee. The national polls are consistently showing that either Clinton or Sanders would beat either Trump or Cruz in November’s election and the Republicans are now in a state of panic about what to do, even though they have only themselves to blame about this state of affairs.
Since it looks like no Republican candidate will have a majority of delegates by the time the party convention opens in July, the only logical option left to the party would be to switch its support towards a third candidate, who is a moderate and who stands a good chance of defeating either Clinton or Sanders. (For this to happen, the Republicans would have to change Rule 40 which mandates that the party nominee must have won the majority of delegates from at least eight separate states.)
That candidate could well be John Kasich who has a good record as Governor of Ohio and who has a broad national appeal. The party could even go for an outsider such as Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, although he is probably too right-wing to appeal to moderates and independents.
A Trump or Cruz nomination, however, would severely damage the Republicans and likely result in a landslide defeat for the party in November. The nomination of somebody like Kasich, on the other hand, would restore some sanity to the party and hopefully lead to a dignified presidential election where real issues are properly debated.