And another day, another [del]primary[/del] caucus, this one being GOP in Nevada. Only a couple of recent polls, but they have Trump at ~40%, and Cruz and Rubio at ~20% each, with Kasich and Carson in the mid to upper single digits.
Okay, a new question: According to a thread that Frank has started, there’s more going on in the Ohio primary than just the presidential thing: March 15th Ohio Primary - all offices.
Say what? why have we poor foreigners been misled into thinking this was all about the presidential nominations? I’ve not seen any of this when I’ve been watching the primary night results on the main networks (e.g. CNN, CBS, etc.)
How important is the other stuff? does it affect governors, Congress critters, dog-catchers? Is Ohio standard and all the other primaries have these other votes going on as well? Is it like an iceberg, where most the votes occurs outside of the main media coverage, only on local news outlets?
Some states have primaries for all applicable offices at the same time. Yes, that could include any combination of governors, Congress, state legislatures, and municipal offices.
Other states have all that stuff on a separate day, later in the year.
Either way, primaries are not only important, they are sometimes the de facto election to office, in jurisdictions where the general electorate is strongly tilted to one party or the other.
So do the results of the other primaries get covered by local news? The national networks just do the presidential ones and ignore the other races?
Yes, if there’s anything interesting to cover. Sometimes there’s not much going on. After the presidential race, I think the hottest thing in my area of Ohio is a Republican primary for county prosecutor, which isn’t really the kind of thing that gets people talking. (Elsewhere in the state, there’s a 15-way primary for John Boehner’s seat in the House of Representatives. If it doesn’t get national coverage it will certainly get local coverage, since winning the Republican primary is tantamount to election.)
My Democratic ballot had 20 offices on it, but 18 of the races had one unopposed candidate or were completely uncontested and the US Senate primary isn’t very exciting (everyone expects the nominee will be Ted Strickland, a former governor).
Usually, yes, unless something really unusual happens, like an incumbent senator losing or a really crazy person beating an establishment choice.
In Cook County, Illinois the primary is March 15. Oddly enough, the state attorney race will probably get the most coverage. The Democratic primary is between Anita Alvarez and Kim Foxx. Alvarez has taken a lot of heat for her handling of cases against police officers while Foxx is ethically challenged. I voted for Alvarez, Kim Foxx’s campaign violations are disgusting.
The downticket primaries will get coverage if someone with a high national profile gets (or is in danger of getting) primaried. Or if something weird happens during the primary. Otherwise, those will tend to stay local.
The Ohio action isn’t even all primaries. According to the information card I got, there are 23 different ballot initiatives up for a vote, too, such as one to renew the funding for the county Health and Human Services office (I’m not sure what the other 22 are; I need to look those up). Apparently the state figures that if they’re going to go to the bother of having an election anyway, they might as well get a bunch of other business dealt with while they’re at it.
In states where the two primaries are on different days, meanwhile, how do they prevent people from voting in both?
Thanks for the explanations, everyone.
[Spock voice]Fascinating![/Spock voice]
So how does a 15 way race get decided? Is it FPTP? Or some form of run-off or ranked voting?
In Texas they have a runoff if no one wins with 50%. I imagine it’s similar in most states.
First past the post. In theory 6.7% of the vote could get someone the nomination.
And it’s actually two separate 15-way primaries. One is for the general election in November, the other is for the special election being held in a couple of months to fill the current vacancy. So conceivably two different people could end up being nominated for different terms in the same office.
Only in eleven states, mostly in the South.