Presidential Nominating Rules

2012 Presidential Nominating Rules: A Comparison of the Two Parties 

by Rhodes Cook, The Crystal Ball

Democrats and Republicans are on the same page when it comes to the 2012 presidential primary and caucus calendar. For both parties, the sanctioned start of the delegate-selection season will be a month later than 2008, with Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina voting in February, and the rest of the country permitted to weigh in beginning the first Tuesday in March. The two parties have their differences on other facets of the rules, such as winner-take-all versus proportional representation, the awarding of bonus delegates to states and the role of “superdelegates.” Still, both parties have adopted rules for 2012 designed to discourage the long-running trend toward “front-loading,” characterized by a mad rush of states to a position near the start of the delegate-selection season.

Sources: “Delegate Selection Rules For the 2012 Democratic National Convention” (as adopted by the Democratic National Committee, August 20, 2010); “The Rules of the Republican Party” (as adopted by the 2008 Republican National Convention September 1, 2008, and amended by the Republican National Committee on August 6, 2010).

See also The Green Papers and Democratic Delegate Allocation and Republican Delegate Allocation