Advantages And Disadvantages Of Primaries And Caucuses

State parties use two methods when selecting national convention delegates, they use primaries and caucuses. Primaries and caucuses can be perceived as the first step toward presidency. Some states only hold primary election and others only hold caucuses, but there are also some states that use both primaries and caucuses. States like California and Washington are examples of states who use the primary election method otherwise known as preliminary election. Primary systems are used to select a candidate from a political party, primaries are also used to narrow the field of candidates to a single person who will then represent the political party during the general election. Delegates are also chosen during this process. These primary election …show more content…
Both these candidates instead focus on battle ground states or swing states. The states that are pro republican or pro democratic can affect the candidates positively or negatively, in this way the Electoral College can affect presidential campaigning, reason being one candidate has the support of a state giving a disadvantage to the other candidate and vice versa. The Electoral College has been around for over 200 years and has proven to be effective, but there is also other methods of selecting a president, the other method being direct popular vote system and state or nation-wide population vote. This method however has proven to have potential problems, like in the case of the 2000 presidential election. During this election, George W. Bush and Al Gore came to a difference of less than 1,000 votes in the state of Florida. Because of this over six million votes had to be recounted, this lead to controversy between states when Bush won by decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. Because of the risks the direct popular vote has, today, presidency is not chosen by a nation-wide population vote or direct popular vote, but rather the total of Electoral College votes