Presumptive nominee
From Wikinfo
- For criticism see Criticism of Presumptive_nominee
In politics, the presumptive nominee is a political candidate who has clinched a nomination but has not yet been formally nominated. "Presumptive" is an adjective used to describe that it is expected that a person will be the nominee, although there is no legal definition of the term. In the United States, the presumptive nominee is the candidate who has not yet received the official nomination of their political party at the party's nominating convention, but who has acquired enough delegates to clinch the party's nomination. The term is applied widely on the national level, notably in regard to the U.S. presidential nominating conventions and the statewide level.
A candidate may be considered a presumptive nominee after all other major competitors have dropped out and it is considered unlikely that the candidate will withdraw, be usurped, or be otherwise removed from the race. Alternatively, in presidential elections, a candidate may be deemed the presumptive nominee after having accumulated enough delegate commitments through the primary elections and caucuses to be assured of the eventual nomination at the convention. Different news organizations declare a person the presumptive nominee based on their own rules. Not all news organizations declare a person to be the presumptive nominee.
In the U.S. presidential elections, the selection of delegates has been increasingly shifted earlier in the process to produce a presumptive nominee as early as possible, even in the presence of many strong candidates. The rise of Super Tuesday in the 1980s has led to the emergence of a presumptive nominee in both major parties by early March in all recent elections with the exception of 2008, when a spirited contest between Democratic candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama made it impossible for Obama to secure enough delegates and become the presumptive nominee until early June. Al Gore and George W. Bush were the presumptive nominees of their respective parties after Super Tuesday in 2000,[1] and John Kerry was referred to as the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party by May 2004.[2]
A sitting President of the United States who is running for re-election will often be the presumptive nominee from the start of the nominating process: recent examples include Ronald Reagan in 1984, Bill Clinton in 1996, and George W. Bush in 2004. However, a strong challenger or weak president can negate that status: examples in recent history include President Gerald Ford, who faced a challenge from Reagan in 1976 and President Jimmy Carter, challenged by Ted Kennedy in 1980.
Barack Obama[3] and John McCain[4] are the presumptive nominees for their respective parties in the 2008 United States presidential election. Obama and McCain are expected to be formally nominated at their respective national conventions.
References
- ^ Raasch, Chuck. November contest looks like Gore vs. Bush. Gannett News Service. USA Today. 2000-03-07.
- ^ Kerry strikes back at Bush on ads. CNN. 2004-05-05.
- ^ FoxNews.com , Barack Obama, Presumptive Nominee
- ^ CNN.com, McCain wins GOP nomination; Huckabee bows out
See also
| This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Presumptive nominee. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The text of this Wikinfo article is available under the GNU Free Documentation License and the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license. |
