ABSTRACT
To illustrate how time and sequence impact the selection of presidential nominees, this chapter reviews the 2012 nominations. The chapter overviews the shaping of the 2012 nominating calendar and the movement of states seeking to maximize influence in the selection process before recounting the major parties’ nominating contests from the pre-primary, or invisible primary, identification of front-runners, to the winnowing of candidates in early contests and the identification of the parties’ presumptive nominee. In 2012, the national parties coordinated to blunt the effects of front-loading and shorten the nominating season overall. With an incumbent Democratic president standing for re-election, attention was exclusively on the Republican contest. Revised Republican delegate allocation rules, enacted with the intent of slightly prolonging the 2012 competition, combined with the wide field of entrants and lackluster rank-and-file support for the pre-primary front-runner to produce a more extended and contentious nominating contest than desired but which nevertheless identified Romney as the presumptive nominee before all states had voted. The chapter closes with the parties’ revisions of timing and delegate allocation rules in anticipation of 2016.
