The Presidential Nominating Process Is Confusing. Here’s How It Works

There’s been a lot of political drama in recent days. It’s been more than 50 years since a sitting president chose not to run for re-election. What happens now? 

News Director Eric Douglas spoke with Marybeth Beller, Marshall University associate professor of political science, to get her take on the current situation. 

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. 

Douglas: Over the weekend, President Joe Biden stepped aside and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place. What does that mean? In the grander scheme of things, what happens next?

Beller: Well, what happens is that President Biden has released his delegates through the primary process. All states select their delegates that are going to go to the Democratic and Republican conventions, those delegates generally pledge to vote for a certain candidate. The delegates from West Virginia had pledged for President Biden, however, now that he has removed himself as candidate, those delegates are now released as they are throughout the nation. And so the delegates are then free to vote for whichever candidate they choose to nominate at the convention. 

Douglas: We don’t vote on every individual law, but we vote for people who represent us and to do what we hoped they would do. So this is effectively the same thing. Technically, we didn’t vote for Joe Biden, we voted for state delegates who we believe, or who have agreed to, follow our wishes and vote for that person at the convention.

Beller: Yes, and no. Actually the state parties, sometimes for the primary process, often through state conventions, will select the delegates to that convention. So, West Virginia delegates were selected among party leaders, and also people at the convention, to then cast their ballot to nominate a president. Where you and I as citizens come in, is that we do elect many of those Democratic office holders who are going to be convention delegates. But then once the party selects at the convention its nominee, then it comes back to the individuals to cast their ballots. And our electoral college members then have pledged to vote in a way that the majority of the citizens from their state have voted.

Douglas: It seems like there’s a lot of failure points.

Beller: Honestly, from the founders that citizens might not make the best decisions in directly selecting a president, but that we should vote for electors to represent us, and that those electors would then be charged for really studying the matter and selecting the best person. I agree with you, it is not democratic. And that is why for many, many, many years, we have a lot of people calling to get rid of the Electoral College. But as it stands, the parties do choose their nominee, sometimes by directly electing those delegates, sometimes by choosing them from party leaders, or at party conventions. And then citizens get to weigh in, in the popular election, and Electoral College members then generally pledged to vote in the manner that the majority of the citizens have voted. 

Douglas: We’re literally one step removed through the nomination process and then through the Electoral College, we’re one step removed from directly deciding anything. 

Beller: Yeah, that is correct. We have what is called a representative democracy. And so we elect people who make decisions on our behalf. And we get to chime in by communicating with them in a variety of ways, but also then going to the ballot, to retrospectively vote to keep them in for another term or to vote them out. 

Douglas:  So we’ve seen that vice president Harris’ campaign has said that they have secured enough of the 4,700, roughly, delegates attending the Democratic National Convention to secure the nomination in the convention in a couple of weeks. 

Beller: There are just under 4,000 pledged delegates, and a nominee needs the majority of those pledged delegate votes. So she needs just under 2,000. And she has those. All 25 West Virginia Democratic delegates to the convention pledged their support for Harris.

Douglas: So what happens moving forward?

Beller: The Democratic convention will take place. And there are a series of votes, we call them ballots. On the first ballot, the pledged delegates will vote. And if a majority of them agree to a nominee, then that person will officially become the nominee for the party. If no one gets a majority of the vote, then the vote goes to what we call a second ballot. On the second ballot, there’s a second group of delegates that are called superdelegates. These people only get to vote on a second ballot. Superdelegates are made up of national party leaders, officials who have been elected from their party, so we have senators, governors, party leaders, many people are the superdelegates. There are 747 of them nationally. And so if Kamala Harris fails to win on the first ballot, on the second ballot, the super delegates will be allowed to cast their vote. And then hopefully on a second ballot, the nominee would be chosen. But essentially, ballots at the convention continue to be run until a majority agrees on the nominee.

Douglas: Historically, this is where the backroom dealings come in, where, after a couple of votes, they start horse trading in the back, you vote for my person, and you’ll get this.

Beller: Right. The last time we really had this was when (Massachusetts Sen.) Teddy Kennedy ran against the incumbent Jimmy Carter in 1980. On that first ballot coming in, Ted Kennedy had 34 percent of the pledged delegates. And so while Carter was successful having enough delegates for the nomination, having a third of the delegates go for someone else was really a big deal at that convention. And so the speech that we still quote today from Teddy Kennedy saying that, “for him the fight is over. But for all of us the fight continues.” That speech was his concession speech.

Douglas: How often has this happened over the last 250 years? Is this relatively common, relatively uncommon?

Beller: It used to be very common before we adopted the primary process. States didn’t often have a primary as we know them today. States might have caucuses, and some of our states still do have a caucus. But it was very often at the convention that those caucus representatives from states would come together and deliberate who they felt would be the nominee. 

That was very common. It was certainly common as late as Truman’s nomination for the presidency. But as states changed their pattern to get more and more the process of holding primaries and having delegates, then it hasn’t been as common. If you remember 2016 with Bernie Sanders, he had a lot of pledged delegates. And while Hillary Clinton looked like she was going to have more, it was very, very close. And so there was a lot of talk about policy changes, and what Clinton might agree to do if Bernie released his delegates. On the floor, Bernie ended up making a speech, releasing his delegates, who were then free to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Douglas: So this has happened in the last decade. We really didn’t switch to the primary system until the early ’60s with Kennedy. 

Beller: That’s absolutely correct. Yes, the primary system is something that has evolved at the end of the last century. 

Douglas: It’s relatively new. I mean, if we want to go back to the founders original intention sort of argument, they never even envisioned anything like this. 

Beller: Not at all. In fact, it was considered gauche to put oneself out as a candidate individually. And so what was considered to be more polite is to have gentlemen come together in groups to discuss who they might want to nominate with the understanding that if they agreed to a certain candidate, that candidate would say yes.  But there wasn’t this campaigning of individuals to see who was most popular, it was done behind the scenes in groups. 

Douglas: We’re back to the smoke-filled rooms in the back. 

Beller: The idea was that citizens back then, of course it was only male citizens, and in most cases, they had to own some property to even qualify in their states. But it was considered that even those people who were allowed at the time to vote weren’t really qualified to know who would be a great candidate. And so they were expected to rely on political insiders who might have more knowledge. So again, very undemocratic.