ABSTRACT
Of all the biases in the presidential nomination process at the start of the 21st century perhaps the one invoking the most concern is the calendar. States hold their primaries and caucuses from mid-winter to spring of the election year. The Iowa caucuses always start off the calendar, followed by the first primary held in New Hampshire. Many politicians, journalists, reformers, and Americans question why these two states should always have such a preeminent role. Voters in Iowa and New Hampshire choose among a large number of candidates, and results from these states eliminate some candidates while bestowing momentum on others. Meanwhile, with many recent nomination contests ended by mid-March or early April, states with primaries scheduled for late spring have no voice in the nomination choice. Because of this pattern of excessive attention to the earliest states and a lack of voice for the last of the states, more and more states have moved their primaries forward in a process known as front-loading. This culminated in 2008 with nearly half of the states holding their primary or caucuses on the same first Tuesday in February. Yet this front-loading introduces new concerns about increasing the costs of campaigning in a jammed-packed schedule and the disadvantages to lesser-known candidates. Further, with so many primaries scheduled at the front end of the nomination calendar, nomination contests often are over before citizens in states with later primaries have a chance to vote. Such concerns lead politicians, party activists, advocacy groups, journalists, and social scientists to call for new reforms to rationalize the calendar of presidential primaries and caucuses.
