What to Expect from the US Presidential Primaries in 2016?

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• published: 05 Jan 2016
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Welcome to the Investors Trading Academy event of the week. Each week our staff of analysts and educators tries to provide you a better understanding of a major market event scheduled soon and that have an effect on the global markets. It’s been a year of political satire and name calling as Donald Trump added flavor and theatrics to the Presidential nominations and debates. Slowly the fields will begin to narrow as each party has to anoint their leader. The 2016 presidential nomination process is still in the invisible primary stage. On the Republican side, the field of candidates is not set, we don’t yet know how much money candidates have raised or can raise, there are no endorsements of real significance of which to speak, and polling doesn’t really tell us much at this point. After the 1968 election, the McGovern-Fraser Commission ushered in the modern presidential nomination process by removing the nominating decision from the smoke-filled rooms of the parties’ conventions. The Commission sought to make the results of primaries and caucuses — and thus the votes of the rank-and-file party voters — more decisive. To accomplish that, the Commission created a direct link between the votes cast in primaries and caucuses and the delegates selected to attend the national convention. The results of the primaries and caucuses therefore bind convention delegates to particular candidates. At the convention, there is a roll call vote that formally nominates a presidential candidate. If states abide by the rules that the national parties have set for 2016, the four so-called carve-out states — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — will all hold their respective primaries and caucuses in February. Roughly, the expected calendar for Republicans is: February 1: Iowa | February 9: New Hampshire | February 20: South Carolina | February 23: Nevada. And for Democrats: February 1: Iowa | February 9: New Hampshire | February 23: Nevada | February 27: South Carolina. Why do Iowa and New Hampshire get to go first? The easiest answer is that Iowa and New Hampshire go first because it’s tradition. The New Hampshire primary dates back to the Progressive era a century ago, when presidential nominations were not directly based on the results of primaries. When the nomination system changed after 1968, New Hampshire proactively began to adapt to safeguard the position of its presidential primary at the beginning of the queue. The Iowa caucus goes first by accident, not by design. Due to the primary reforms after 1968, Iowa Democrats had to change their delegate selection and allocation process. There will be primaries and caucuses from February to early June 2016. But the nominees will likely be known well before the primaries are over. By Barry Norman, Investors Trading Academy - ITA