Coined by journalist Arthur Hadley in 1976 to describe a “pre-primary” process, beginning as early as the outcome of the previous general election, in which candidates promote their prospects as future nominees to party leaders and fund-raisers, the “invisible primary,” according to political scientists Cohen, Karol, Noel, and Zaller, is in general terms an unobserved interval of time prior to the opening of the primary/caucus season wherein candidates labor for the requisite support to win their party’s nomination. As described by Cohen, Zaller, et al., it is in the invisible primary that candidates “meet, woo and gain the public support of leading members of their party.” These “leading members” are further identified as including “office holders, party officials, interest group leaders, citizen-activists, and anyone else who works regularly for the party,” such as “fund raisers” and “ideologues,” and we hazard to venture that influential media figures are also in the mix. While sounding public opinion remains important, the invisible primary, described by some as “exhibition season,” plays a critical role in determining who will succeed in state primaries and caucuses, and by extension, who will ultimately win the party’s nomination for president. The invisible primary is, therefore, as Sides and Vavreck observe, a means “to recruit [candidates] or perhaps discourage them,” through the deliberate “efforts of party leaders” long before the first caucus or primary occurs.
For Cohen et al., the importance of the unseen endorsement of party leadership cannot be gainsaid; the invisible primary has become the “modern analog to the smoke-filled rooms” that shaped the direction of the national nominating connections before the ascent of the modern primary system following the internal reforms of the nominating process during the late 1960s and early 1970s, especially the reforms instituted in the Democratic Party in 1972 in response to the McGovern-Fraser Commission. Those reforms, which were more or less emulated by the Republican Party, were designed to democratize the presidential nomination process, to grant more “power to the people” by abolishing the party boss and the smoke-filled room. Democratization makes perfect sense in a democratic polity, and yet as the appearance of the invisible primary might demonstrate, some needs find a way to be filled in spite of our best efforts to suppress them.
While direct, authorized presidential primaries had been around as early as 1912, they were merely popularity contests to test the viability of candidates who were already on the inside track; one could gain the party’s nomination without winning a single primary. But with the reforms that shaped the political landscape of the 1970s, they assumed new relevance in presidential politics, and the constellation of primaries and caucuses expanded. Consecutive Democratic nominations for president of first Sen. George McGovern in 1972 and then Gov. Jimmy Carter in 1976 were the consequence of this new process, two candidates who likely would have been otherwise marginal in the more traditional national convention system as dominated by bosses, insiders, and elites. The reformed primary system also encouraged Gov. Ronald Reagan’s serious challenge against incumbent president Gerald Ford, who won the nomination, in 1976. These examples were enough to illustrate a marked change—a more democratic change, as it were, in which the rank and file played a major role, and this was met with some resistance by insiders and principal activists in both parties. A new and largely unobserved dynamic grew out of the reforms of the 1970s to replace the smoke-filled room, a dynamic that developed its own structure and established its own patterns: the invisible primary.
Popularity among the general public and within the media and the ability to generate abundant funding are important qualities for any candidate, but there is evidence to support the notion that “winning” in the invisible primary is paramount. Without gaining the support of the party leadership itself—of prominent officeholders at national and state levels, of leading activists in the precincts and invested insiders at all levels—no candidate can mount a credible campaign for the nomination. This support is, as suggested above, won quietly from the inside, not necessarily deliberately concealed but nonetheless beyond the public’s view. Even before succeeding at the crucial necessity of fund-raising, it can be said that the unofficial, unpublicized support of prominent party leaders is the first and requisite step. Cohen et al. detail the appearance of Texas governor George Bush on the scene during the prelude to the 2000 campaign, the exhibition season that was not exhibited, in which he gathered the support of thirty-one governors, “8 of 9 from the most populous states,” and from there managed to launch an irresistible bid for the nomination. Low-profile endorsements from several of these governors were tendered prior to Gov. Bush’s announced intention to run, leading to the accumulation of financing that would far exceed that of any other candidate in the race. Gov. Bush was not a secret; he was a well-known public figure, and both his political ambitions as reported by the press and his exposure to potential supporters in private channels were important. In the accounts offered by political scientists like Cohen and Zaller, Sides and Vavreck, or John Aldrich, the invisible primary is not unlike a multilayered conversation, part of which is indeed visible, but a good part of it is obscured from the gaze of the general public. Negotiating throughout this conversation, party insiders and prospective candidates engage in a mutual relationship involving a candidate’s skill at self-promotion and the party insider’s demonstration of interest and potential commitment, all done without media scrutiny and therefore more candidly. As stated above, this is not meant to conceal an inner cabal of kingmakers, or even to return to older practices (e.g., bosses and machine favorites) that antedate the reforms of the seventies, but rather it is a means to supply what was lost before the primary system; that is, a way to screen candidates without relying on the caprices of public opinion. Public opinion remains potent, and all candidates seek to build a favorable relationship with the electorate; this is natural to democracy. Leadership is also natural to democracy; it is natural to politics, and the invisible primary, if it is indeed an accurate depiction of the reality of campaigns, in its own way is a vehicle for leadership independent of the strains that accompany the quest for popularity. If the analogy holds, the invisible primary is the smoke-filled room unconstrained by walls yet equally mysterious to those uninitiated in the interior processes of democratic politics. Anything is subject to abuse, and the activity that occurs in the invisible primary is no different, but the fact that it is an influence in the nominating process does not mean the destruction of the nominating process.
More narrowly, one might describe the invisible primary as those processes that occur between the emergence of a candidate and the establishment of fund-raising—in particular, the appearance of such money generators as super PACs. However, while this is doubtless a part of the invisible primary dynamic, it is about more than the money. Party insiders do recognize the importance of forwarding candidates who can draw funding, but a candidate’s campaigning skills, ability to inspire loyalty, and insider appeal are priorities. Even more important than funding is the search for candidates who can unify the party and give it the common cause needed to win the White House. Establishing a candidate who can bring unity to the party is central, as Cohen et al. explain: “An especially important common feature [of the invisible primary] is that individuals of diverse preferences—here ideological preferences—must converge on a choice that might not be many people’s ideal choice.” The invisible primary will not satisfy those who are ardently committed to a candidate with purist proclivities; rather, it is through this mostly hidden stage of the nominating process that such true believers are screened out, leaving a more pragmatic candidate who can be considered optimal to the highest number of factions. Once a candidate proves to the party loyalists that he or she can provide this kind of unity and leadership, the candidate’s status as early front-runner is more likely. Significantly, the money must be there, patronage must be secured, and rival spending must be matched or exceeded, but money alone does not earn nominations; money without prestige, loyalty, and trust among the party insiders cannot win elections. Money is necessary to a winning campaign, but it is not by itself sufficient.
As mentioned above, the invisible primary both “recruits and discourages” candidates, and while the former is likely to occur long before the primary season, the latter is likely to extend into it. An example shared by Dan Balz and Sides and Vavreck is provided by the 2012 campaign of Newt Gingrich, whose campaign was hobbled by eroded support from party insiders. Some of this could be observed by the public, but much of it stemmed from efforts by many insiders to dissuade Gingrich from continuing his campaign. In Gingrich’s case, the opposition to his campaign became increasingly visible the longer he sustained it, but Sides and Vavreck claim that this opposition, once it became more public, “provided a somewhat uncommon glimpse into the conversations ongoing during the invisible primary.” More recently, Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com, commenting on the fleetingly anticipated entrance of former governor and 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney into the race for the 2016 nomination, observed that Romney was engaged in the conversation and negotiations of the “invisible primary . . . [in an attempt to persuade] influential Republicans that Bush is too moderate, that Rubio isn’t ready, that Paul is too far afield and so forth.” This may serve as a more accurate example of the nature of the invisible primary than the Gingrich case in 2012, and, given the eventual transitory nature of Romney’s interest in 2016, one might conclude, although with a dose of conjecture, that this time he failed to stir interest or support among party insiders—that he lost the invisible primary and wisely withdrew. Of that we cannot be sure, but Silver’s account of Romney’s momentary presence in the conversation may provide another visible glimpse into principally invisible processes.
Given the nature of the invisible primary, if it is as many political scientists and commentators believe it to be, we can only conclude that this unobserved but crucial conversation is under way at present, and we can only speculate on how it will play out as we move further into the 2016 campaign season. As of late December 2015, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, while failing to gain attention in the polls, nevertheless still led his rivals in the number of insider endorsements. This changed in February 2016 with Sen. Marco Rubio catching, and then eclipsing Gov. Bush in the quantity of endorsements. According to a recent article by Aaron Bycoffe at FiveThirtyEight, in which candidates are assigned an endorsement score based on public support from members of the House of Representatives (one point per endorsement), the Senate (five points per endorsement), and state governors (ten points per endorsement), Sen. Rubio had accumulated 97 endorsement points by Feb. 21, followed by Gov. Bush with 46, Gov. Chris Christie with 36, Gov. Mike Huckabee with 25, Sen. Ted Cruz with 22, and Gov. John Kasich with 22. Having lost significantly in the South Carolina primary, and losing ground to Sen. Rubio in the endorsement race, Gov. Bush, who began his campaign as the likely front runner, withdrew from the campaign. Donald Trump—the frontrunner as measured by the public polls—has yet to receive an endorsement (as of Feb. 21, 2016), with Ben Carson having received just one endorsement point. Whether or not Mr. Trump can continue to dominate the public, visible campaign given his utter inability to gain any insider endorsements remains to be seen, but as of this writing he has managed to win primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina even though he has no support from party insiders. On the Democratic side, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton has almost universal support within the invisible primary in spite of Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’s widely captivating campaign, and she is also now enjoying stronger numbers in the polls in most states, although not across all groups. Should Sec. Clinton and Sen. Rubio gain the nominations of their respective parties, it would thereby seem to lend additional credence to the importance of the invisible primary as concluded by many political scientists and analysts, perhaps confirming the analogy depicting the invisible primary as the re-embodiment of the “smoke-filled room.” At present, the campaign of Donald Trump could still throw a spanner in the works.
Aldrich, John. “The Invisible Primary and Its Effects on Democratic Choice.” PS: Political Science and Politics 42, no. 1 (January 2009): 33–38.
Balz, Dan. Collision 2012: Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America. New York: Viking, 2013.
Bycoffe, Aaron. “The Endorsement Primary.” FiveThirtyEight. December 28, 2015. http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-endorsement-primary/.
Cohen, Marty, David Karol, Hans Noel, and John Zaller. “The Invisible Primary in Presidential Nominations, 1980–2004.” In William G. Mayer, ed. The Making of Presidential Candidates. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008, pp. 1–38.
Cohen, Marty, David Karol, Hans Noel, and John Zaller. The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations before and after Reform. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Hadley, Arthur. The Invisible Primary. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1976.
Sides, John, and Lynn Vavreck. The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013.
Silver, Nate. “Romney and the GOP’s Five-Ring Circus.” FiveThirtyEight. http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/romney-and-the-gops-five-ring-circus/. Accessed August 25, 2015.