Minnesota, Connecticut and Utah

The difference between Minnesota and the other two states is that in Connecticut and Utah the conventions play a formal role in the nomination process. In Utah, a candidate who receives 60% of the delegate vote becomes the nominee. If no one reaches that threshold, the top two candidates advance to a primary. In Connecticut, as I recall, a candidate needs 20% of the convention vote to reach the primary ballot.

In Minnesota, by contrast, the convention merely endorses one candidate. Often, the endorsed candidate will run unopposed in the primary but there are plenty of times when contested primaries have occurred.

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by: davybaby @ Sat Nov 07, 2009 at 18:17:14 PM UTC

In CT

I believe you can still run in the primary even if you don't get on the ballot at the convention. Indeed, in NY, you can also get on the ballot at the convention (by getting 25% of the delegates' votes). If you don't, you have to petition to get on the ballot.

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by: DavidNYC @ Sat Nov 07, 2009 at 20:36:57 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

party conventions in Iowa

are necessary if no candidate wins at least 35 percent in the primary. In 2002, there was a four-way GOP primary in IA-05, and no one won 35 percent, so a 5th district GOP convention selected Steve King as the nominee for Congress. There was almost a statewide GOP convention last year for the U.S. Senate nomination, but it turned out that one of the three candidates barely got past 35 percent.

In 2006, Chet Culver narrowly avoided a statewide Democratic Party nominating convention when he won the gubernatorial primary with about 38 percent of the vote.

Before Terry Branstad got in the governor's race, it looked like a crowded GOP field might force a nominating convention next summer, but I doubt there's any chance of that happening now.

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by: desmoinesdem @ Sat Nov 07, 2009 at 18:51:13 PM UTC

Runoffs

Do we not know the runoff dates for the states not listed or do they not have them?  I suggest adding question marks, "TBA," or "N/A" for clarity.

And Georgia's conventions have no real power, as far as I know.  Everything will be decided in the primaries and runoffs.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.

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by: TheUnknown285 @ Sat Nov 07, 2009 at 19:05:32 PM UTC

The ones listed should be all of the states that have them

Runoffs pretty much don't exist outside the South; it's a remnant of the pre-VRA era, when runoffs would keep black candidates from winning a primary.

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by: Johnny Longtorso @ Sat Nov 07, 2009 at 19:08:41 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

To me, though, runoffs actually a good idea.

I've heard that before, and I wouldn't doubt it.  But the historical intentions aside, it's actually a good idea in my opinion.  It seems reasonable that elected officials should get the okay from at least 50% of the electorate.  On the flipside, some electoral procedures that had seemingly genuine intentions, in my opinion, have been bad ideas.  

If I remember correctly, non-partisan elections where a way to weaken party machines (a legitimate aim) but have also denied people the information short-cut of party affiliation, made those races hinge far more on name recognition, and led to huge ballot roll-off (non-partisan races have the lowest turnout and while that is also a factor of being further down the ballot, having less attention from the media, etc., the lack of party cues isn't helping.)  

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.

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by: TheUnknown285 @ Sat Nov 07, 2009 at 19:16:01 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Runoffs exist in New York City

when all candidates receive less than 40% of the vote.

"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--  Will Rogers  

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by: Pan @ Sat Nov 07, 2009 at 20:30:42 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

All the states with runoffs are listed

I think it would add too much clutter to put "N/A" for all the others.

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by: DavidNYC @ Sat Nov 07, 2009 at 20:34:32 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Incredible stuff, thanks!

I see it's already in the list of "SSP resources" (on the right-hand pane) too.  

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by: tietack @ Sat Nov 07, 2009 at 19:18:21 PM UTC

How about adding the race tracker's to the blogroll?

You have my Georgia tracker and CalifornianinTexas' California tracker.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.

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by: TheUnknown285 @ Sat Nov 07, 2009 at 19:24:45 PM UTC

Michigan

The Michigan Dems will have a convention sometime in August (after the primaries, and then also after the County Party Conventions) to decide on the candidates for Secretary of State, Atty General, and MI Supreme Court (and, in theory, MDP Chair, but, I can't imagine anyone running against Brewer. At least not seriously). It'll be in late August, but that's as specific as I can get. Nothing on the MDP site right now.

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by: jman077 @ Sat Nov 07, 2009 at 22:43:26 PM UTC

Indiana Convention

Dems, Reps, and Libertarians (I believe) have party conventions usually about 6 weeks or so after the May primaries.  Candidates for Governor, Senate, Congress, and the General Assembly are determined by the primary.  (Here in Marion County, it gets more complicated, as there are district-level slating conventions before the primaries -- basically a process of endorsement by party insiders, which of course brings with it party money and workers).

The party conventions themselves nominate candidates for Attorney General, Supt of Public Instruction, and Secretary of State.

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by: IndianaProgressive @ Sat Nov 07, 2009 at 23:40:36 PM UTC

It's daft how

you can run even in the primary even if you didn't get in the ballot convention. It's just plain weird.  

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by: rdshelmerdine @ Sun Nov 08, 2009 at 12:05:36 PM UTC

Here is the whole MN process

As mentioned above, none of it is done or funded by the state but rather the MN DFL and the MN GOP.

The first step are the caucuses, which are based on voter precincts.  You go there to vote in the presidential, submit new issues to be voted on and implemented into the DFL platform, and sometimes straw votes are done for other races, depending if the chair decides to hold one or not.
At the end of caucus night, the person running your precinct's room gets a tally of how many people can sign-up to be delegates to the senate district convention from each precinct, or county convention if it involves crossing county lines.  You raise your hand, maybe have to battle it out if a lot of people want to be delegates, and then call it a night.

At the sd/county level, you endorse candidates for state house and state senate.  Then, this is where it gets a bit chaotic.  You now have to divide up into smaller caucuses based off of candidates and/or issues.  You aim for these smaller caucuses to be a certain number.  Like if 1000 people are participating and 20 get to go to the state convention, then you need a group of 50 and out of those 50, you vote on which one person gets to be the delegate, who goes to both the congressional district and state convention.  You also pick a second person who goes to the congressional district convention and is an alternate to the state convention.

The people who want to start a caucus line up at a mic, they usually brought a home-made sign and announce their caucus.  "Obama-Franken-Universal Healthcare!", then that person goes to an empty spot up against the wall around the convention location.  Then everyone picks where to go.  After like 5 minutes, they then say a new higher number to make your groups to make it so that you have like 15 caucuses instead of 25.  I think they cut it down a second and final time, giving a final number a group has to be to get a delegate.

This is where campaign infrastructure is really important as there is a science to maximizing delegates.  If you need 50 people to get 1 delegate, 100 would net you two.  So if you have like 300 supporters for a candidate, having four groups of 58, 98, 65, 79 would be a poor way to appropriate your supporters.  If you get a group that gets you 1.51% towards getting two delegates, then they round it up and give that second delegate, so 76 people would net you 2 delegates.  So with a group of 58, you just wasted 8 supporters that could be in another group and be used to push another group over the top of getting two delegates.  And this third phase of caucus building is only like 15 minutes long and it gets really hectic and confusing so maximizing delegates is an art.  A campaign needs to find and train someone in each county/sd convention to work this out.  

Once the caucuses are set in stone and the chair says how many delegates each caucus sends, your caucus votes on who to send with people giving a speech on why to send them.  These people then go onto the congressional district convention where they endorse a candidate, and then onto the state convention where they endorse candidates for statewide office.

You need 60% of the delegates to get the endorsement and sometimes they last all night and result in no-endorsements.

The whole process is extremely convoluted and is really way too much of a process to entice anyone with a regular attention span to politics and participation to go through.  But at the same time, it really allows the activists to introduce themselves and get to know each other.  It is an extremely hands-on experience with a bunch of people you probably don't know but should.  I went to some trainings and tried to find info on what the hell was going to happen, none of which were really that helpful as the best way to learn it is to raise your hand and become a delegate to your senate district convention.
And if other Minnesotans would like to correct anything I've said, please do.  As a 23 year-old, Ive only gone once and I probably forgot some stuff.

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by: Andrew @ Mon Nov 09, 2009 at 00:25:19 AM UTC

OT, but not really sure where this can go at all

In the weekend open thread that's now closed to comments, I can't read the comments, but...how did a new comment get posted to it?  I went to the thread, then found that the main page no longer showed any new comments, then now I come back and there's one new comment.

party: Democratic, ideology: moderate, district: CT-01

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by: Glenn Magus Harvey @ Mon Nov 09, 2009 at 07:08:22 AM UTC

I noticed that too

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.

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by: TheUnknown285 @ Mon Nov 09, 2009 at 16:11:19 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Ditto.

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by: californianintexas @ Mon Nov 09, 2009 at 16:16:18 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Not to mention, i asked about a SSP NYC get-together

and now I can't see if anyone responded!

party: Democratic, ideology: moderate, district: CT-01

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by: Glenn Magus Harvey @ Mon Nov 09, 2009 at 18:10:53 PM UTC

[ Parent ]