Primaries in certain states?

Question

Why are there certain states that politicians focus on? Don't we vote for our candidate on super tuesday, do certain states just get first pick, or do only certain states get to vote?

Answer 1

Certain states start first, and can set the stage for the rest of the cycle. NH is usually considered important, because they go early on. Their motto is "live free or die" or at least was, and I think it's very apt! This is for the GOP, I'm not too sure about the DNC.

Answer 2

Only some of the primaries and caucuses are on Super Tuesday (about 20 of them). You have 4-7 states scheduled for earlier than Super Tuesday. As those states earlier than Super Tuesday are the only state on a given day (and 5 of the 7 are relatively small states), candidates tend to concentrate their early efforts on those states.

Because it is expensive to run a campaign, candidates who are not well-funded and perform poorly (outside top 3 or 4) in the first two or three states will tend to drop out as they can't afford to continue.

Furthermore, the early results create an impression regarding who can win. For reasons like those noted in the other answers to this question (a willingness to take a second look at candidates who have done better than expected and a desire to avoid wasting a vote on a candidate who is about to withdraw), these results can have an impact on later results.

This year a complicating factor is that several of the early states are in violation of the rules of the two parties. The Republicans are suggesting that Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, and South Carolina may be penalized half of their delegations for holding binding primaries before February 5th. Iowa and Wyoming would not be penalized by the Republicans because they are caucus states which technically do not choose delegates until later Likewise, the Democrats have sanctioned Florida and may sanction Michigan for moving ahead of February 5th (the rules for the Democrats authorized Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina to hold their contests in January).

On February 5th, it is likely that most of the effort will be concentrated in a few states, especially New York and California. The reason for this is that the different states have dramatically different numbers of delegates. Because, you get the nomination by having the most delegates, not by having the most popular votes, the candidates are likely to go where the most delegates are.

My own hunch is that by mid-February (at least on the Republican side), we will be talking about how the March 4th states (Texas and Ohio) will decide the nominee.

Answer 3

For years, Iowa and New Hampshire have gone first.

A couple of elections ago, South Carolina moved up to be the first Southern primary after Iowa and NH.

Having worked on presidential campaigns in the past, I can tell you that a bad showing in both Iowa and NH can wipe you out.

People stop giving money and when the money is gone, the campaign is gone.

With the internet and TV, more candidates will make it past the first big states, but still after the first five or so states in January, you will be down to probably three on the Democratic side and four on the GOP side.

By Super Tuesday, it will be Hillary vs Obama and Guiliani versus two of the conservatives.

Answer 4

because iowa and new hampshire vote earlier than all the other states, and people have a chance to gauge if the candidate they want to vote for is worth voting for. people hate wasting votes because the more votes a candidate gets, the more delegates that candidate gets per state to cast their vote. So lets say huckabee finishes 3rd in both iowa and new hampshire. now people in the other states who were thinking about voting huckabee will see that he has a chance to get the nom, and therefore, will cast their vote for huckabee. But if huckabee does poorly in those 2 states, then people in other states might get discouraged and not want to take more votes from guiliani or romney. u have to understand the process to fully understand what i'm talking about.