Image by Brett Neilson on Flickr.com is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
This time next year America will have a new president. But I’m sure you know that already because the news has been talking about the upcoming American presidential election for over a year already. The American presidential election season is very long and it seems to get longer every four years. This post is meant to try and help you understand why the American presidential elections are so long. Take a look at this vocabulary and how it is used in this post, before you read on.
campaign – to work (by giving speeches, holding rallies, debating, and meeting people) toward the goal of being elected
candidate – a person who is trying to be elected to a political office
politician – a person who is elected to office and works in government
presidential election – the process of selecting a president, including campaigning, voting, and counting the votes
primary election – the process of selecting which people will represent each political party in the presidential election, including campaigning, voting, and counting the votes
American presidential elections weren’t always so long, the first American presidential election in 1789 was very fast in fact, it was just a few months long. For more than a hundred years American presidential elections were relatively quick like this.
In American’s past, presidential candidates were chosen by politicians in the nation’s capital, not by the entire American public. This made the process of deciding who (1 person from each political party) was going to run for the presidency fast. The decisions were made by a few very powerful men. When this was the way presidential candidates were selected, the presidential candidates campaigned for about two months (in September and October) before elections in November.
Many Americans thought this process was unfair because only the politicians in the capital city could decide who would run for president; more Americans wanted to have a say in who could be president. So in the early 20th century the American presidential ‘primary system’ for selecting presidential candidates was first introduced. In this new system, each state in the United States held its own primary election to decide who that state wanted to run for president (1 person from each political party). The candidate who won the most state votes then would run for president in the national election. The politicians in Washington, DC no longer selected the presidential candidates, the people of America did. This seemed like a much more democratic process to everyone.
This system was in place for many years, but not in the way it is today. It was still a relatively quick process in which people in each state in the United States selected who they wanted to run for president. The state elections happened in a few months and then the national presidential campaign took place in a few months, then a new president was in office.
In the 1960’s the presidential primaries changed – they became more popular and more people were interested in them. A major reason for this was that campaigning and debates among primary candidates were broadcast on TV. Now more people started to pay attention to this primary process. This is when the primaries began to lengthen in time. Around this time it was decided that the first state to hold their presidential primary election would be Iowa, in January. January is ten months before the presidential election! By March both political parties (democrats and republicans) usually know who their presidential candidate will be. Then those two people can start campaigning against each other to win the presidential election, which will be in November.
In the most recent American presidential elections there have been more and more men and women interested in becoming president. This is another reason the presidential primaries have lengthened. When so many people are trying to be elected to one position these people have to start early to get their name out to the whole country. The United States is a big country, so traveling around the country to promote yourself takes time. The news media starts covering candidates as soon as they start campaigning, so now when candidates begin traveling around the country two years before the presidential election it makes the news. This is why the American presidential election seems so long.
This current presidential primary campaign has been going on for over a year already, but soon we will know who the two candidates for president (1 democratic and 1 republican) will be. Then we just have to wait until November 2016 to know who the new president of the United States will be.
