Public evaluations of the presidential nomination process

Following the Rules? Candidate Strategy in Presidential Primaries*

“…Long‐shot candidates are found to succeed more under proportional rules (Hammond, 1980), but frontrunners are more likely to seek out big winner‐take‐all states to maximize delegates (Wayne, 2008). Sour feelings have prompted calls for reform (Traugott and Petrella, 1989), especially in the 2008 race where these rules created intraparty conflict on the Democratic side between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (J. M. Broder, 2008).…”