Could the election season be shortened?

Politics & Elections
1

Kamala’s recent “anointing” and the recent elections in France and England made me wonder again why we go through the horribly protracted election circus here in the US. In this morning’s paper, an editoria said, “Why the rush to support Kamala? There hasn’t been enough time o ascertain her positions…” BS! She’s been an elected Senator, and never shied from public stances. She ran for Pres and has been a VP. She has PLENTY of a record to inform anyone who cares as to her position on nearly every issue. And MORE THAN ENOUGH to distinguish her from the other guy. Made me think the paper is just wishing more headlines…

So why do our elections last so long, and what could be done to shorten them? Who benefits from perpetual campaigns?

2

Sorry, this isn’t an answer or an opinion on the OP, but as an interested outside observer (British), it seems to me that about 90% of the time that US politics is talked about, is in the context of an election. When is there time to, you know, actually do some governmentin’?!

3

The political parties themselves benefit - it creates a reliance on the 2-party system (and these two parties, specifically).

4

There ya go!

Not to mention fundraising for the next election…

5

You will be interested in this:

I’m an American who transplanted to Europe many years ago. Political campaigns in my country of residence (Luxembourg) are strictly controlled in duration. The posters go up five weeks before election day, not a day earlier. (And any posters that remain up five days after voting day result in fines to the party.) That’s when you start getting mailers and seeing (limited) broadcast ads. And then you vote, and it’s over.

It’s amazing.

This is not in the top five reasons I will never return to the US, but it’s top twenty easy.

6

In a sense, the whole process of guvmentin is election campaigning in itself.

But the difference, in terms of formally setting up election campaigns, (at least in the UK) is that

(a) parties have standing campaign and policy development organisations (they don’t have to wait for a candidate to be selected and set up their own campaign)

(b) money - formally announcing that one’s a candidate triggers fairly stringent expenditure limits until polling day (and there are also tightish limits on what anyone campaign within or separately from the candidate and party can spend).

But I can see that with a massive country and population like yours could find that difficult.

7

At best, as long as we have state primaries that start in February, the presidential campaign will, perforce, last a year. That was bearable (one year out of four) back when I was a much younger person; now the actual election campaign gets going in earnest right after the mid-terms, so it’s two years out of four.

A binding national primary in the late summer to choose each state’s nominee and delegates, followed by conventions, and then the election, could help, and (unlike changing the electoral college) maybe it wouldn’t require a constitutional amendment, but you’d never get Congress to let such a bill get on the floor, let alone pass it.

8

Well, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak called for a general election on May 22 of this year and the election itself was held on July 4 so yeah…elections can be done more quickly.

9

The functional reason that the US presidential election is so long is that the selection process for the candidate is tied to the election itself. The primary system requires extensive campaigning to seek the nomination, and that has to occur before the presidential election, in the same year.

That’s not how it works in a parliamentary system. The party leaders are chosen well in advance of the election, often years in advance.

Here’s the breakdown for the current Canadian party leaders, who will be leading their parties in the 2025 election:

Justin Trudeau - Liberal leader since 2013
Jagmeet Singh - NDP leader since 2017
Yves-François Blanchet - Bloc Québécois since 2019
Pierre Poilievre - Conservative leader since 2022
Elizabeth May - Green leader since 2022 (prior stint as leader, 2006 to 2019)

A second difference is that our party leaders are already in Parliament, and that’s where they’re campaigning, in the sense of setting out their positions and getting known to the country. We don’t have the period half a year before the election where we’re trying to get a handle on the potential leaders; we know who they are already, and by the rules of Parliament, if Parliament is sitting, as a general rule they have to be in the House, governmentin’. That cuts down on their availability for campaigning.

A third difference is that there is a formal legal beginning to the election period, which is absent in the US system: the dissolution of Parliament. Once the writ drops, dissolving Parliament, then the election is on. Technically, no-one is a candidate until that starts, because each one has to be nominated with Elections Canada to stand for election in their district, and that nomination process opens with the writ. They will normally have their party nomination sewn up for their riding in advance, but they’re not candidates for the House of Commons until after the writ drops and they file the necessary papers.

A fourth difference is that we don’t have primaries, which are a formal election process where the hopeful has to campaign and win the nomination, state-by-state. The primaries have to occur in the same year as the presidential election, but far enough in advance to allow for different primaries in different states. We don’t have that. Here, each party has their own system to nominate their candidates. There is federal regulation of the candidates’ election spending, but the system to get the party nomination is up to the party, and voting is restricted to members of the party. Those party nominations are done on a riding-by-riding basis, and generally don’t get much public attention.

The British system is similar. I’m not familiar with French elections, so can’t comment on that.

10

News outlets, as near as I can tell.

These days, ten minutes after an election’s over they start talking about the next one. I suppose it sells papers/draws eyeballs.

That’s a problem.

Aside from that problem: I think that in a country the size and diversity of the USA there’s a good deal to be said for not holding all the primaries at once. People have been elected who would never even have been nominated if all primaries were simulateous or one national primary was held per party. (I’m thinking particularly of Obama. Though, come to think of it, the same could probably be said for Trump. But I don’t know whether we’d ever have gotten a Black candidate with an all-at-once primary; everybody would have kept on saying ‘I really like them, but they can’t possibly win.’)

However – the campaigns used to start only shortly before the first primaries. And the primaries could be consolidated somewhat, into groups each made up of some larger and some smaller states from various locations within the country, with the first ones starting later in the year. The first has to do with both the news coverage and the amount of money that now needs to be raised; and the second I think started with states battling to be first. They could rotate that. New Hampshire will argue.

11

Yeah - the editorial I was reading was in the Chicago Trib (paper edition). I was surprised that my reaction was to question what they believed they were bringing to the process. Whether they thought additional time/inspection would meaningfully inform anyone, or whether it would just provide more headlines.

I really hate that I’ve become so cynical and distrusting of what I used to consider REASONABLY responsible journalism.

12

There are sensible countries where the election period permitting campaigning and circuses is on the order of one month.

This is better. Politicians in perpetual election mode make poorer long-term decisions and strengthen crony capitalism for obvious reasons.

But as mentioned, in the US the selection and the election are autonomous and synonymous.

13

Weirdly, I do think there’s some benefit to have a small pool of early primaries with more of an emphasis on retail politics rather than wholesale. That process is what exposed a lot of DeSantis’ weaknesses. I would say:

Early March: NH, SC, NM or AZ, and maybe NE or OK.
Mid-April: 1/3 of the remaining states split between large, medium, small.
Mid-May: Ditto
Mid-June: All remaining states.

All of the above on set dates (i.e., all the April states vote on the same day).

States could rotate between April/May/June in successive elections (so that everybody takes a turn at “too late to impact the overall outcome”.

Non-Incumbent Party Convention is mid-July, with the incumbent Convention the first week of August.

14

That would work. It might even calm down New Hampshire.

I think you could move it all a month later, though. That would put the final convention the first week in September, with two months still to go before the election.

15

I was reading about the 1964 campaign. Talk about who the Republican candidate might be started in the fall of 1963. The New Hampshire primary, truly first in those days, was as late as March 10. It was January 23 this year, as it keeps moving earlier to remain the first primary.

The parties have been talking for decades about reforming the primary process. Unlike other countries, however, U.S. parties are figments of the imagination. One cannot join them because no such animal exists. The RNC and the RNC are basically literal committees: they can make suggestions but do not have the power to enforce them over objections.

State legislatures agree to the fiction of party candidate selection by making primary days subject to state law. That ends in 50 states having fifty different sets of law. New Hampshire’s state law requires that the presidential primary be earlier than any other state’s. No one has yet found a way to break that stubbornness.

On my rare optimistic days, however, I think it just might possibly be at the breaking point. Nobody wants to campaign in NH in January. No one wants it earlier because of the holidays. No one wants the other states joining in this idiot dance. Can the other 49 states secede from New Hampshire?

16

The parties could declare that a primary held earlier than their schedule doesn’t count, and any delegates thus elected will have no vote at the convention (or otherwise for the nomination vote.)

I have the impression that they once tried threatening New Hampshire with that, but when NH didn’t cave they didn’t stick to it in practice. I might be remembering wrong.

17

Yeah, they’ve done that for the past couple of cycles. Did anyone notice? The delegates weren’t counted but everybody knew they would if they mattered.

18

New Hampshire sets Jan. 23 presidential primary date

Of course, it is, in a way, shortened this year. If Trump forces Vance out in early August, it will be a trend. Low info voters will have a good reason to ignore everything before the last couple months.

19

I do not follow.

Third parties need time to collect signatures. Strong legacy parties have the resources to do things quickly, if necessary.

Wouldn’t incumbent House members like a law forbidding campaign activity before, say, Labor Day?

20

The First Amendment. Any law to prohibit campaigning or fundraising would run afoul of the 1st.

Nor do I consider our long process a bad thing- it often weeds out bad candidates.

See Thomas Eagleton. and a front running Dem who was caught with his pants down, I can remember the name.