| The first step in electing the president of the United States is for the parties to nominate their candidate. Each party only allows one candidate to run in order to prevent a splitting of votes in the general election. Simply put, if two Republicans ran against one Democrat, the Republicans could split their party’s vote between them, most likely allowing the single Democrat to get the most votes and win. This is clearly against the party’s wishes.
There are two different methods of choosing which candidate a party will support, the caucus and the primary election. They determine how many delegates a state’s party will send to the national convention in the summer of an election year to support each candidate that wants to run. |