It has been nearly two centuries since an American presidential election has evoked a crisis of confidence like that following the election of 2016. Not since the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828 has there been such a public display of anxiety concerning the methods by which we choose our chief executive. As in the contest of 1828 pitting the Democrat Jackson against his Federalist opponent John Quincy Adams, the presidential nominating process of 2016 produced a contest between a celebrity populist, widely seen as unqualified by experience or temperament, and a highly experienced and competent but deeply uninspiring political insider who had been anointed by establishment elites.

In 1976, the Iowa caucuses launched a Georgia governor and peanut farmer into the White House. In 2008, Barack Obama ran up delegate scores across the country during the Democratic nomination contest in caucus states characterized by high-intensity voting. The presidential caucuses have long been a staple of American democracy. In 2020, however, only three states—Iowa, Nevada, and Wyoming—hosted a presidential caucus. Overnight, the caucuses suddenly became obsolete. This chapter explains how and why this happened.

The major parties have repeatedly tinkered with the presidential nomination process over the past two hundred years. Since the 1968 Democratic National Convention, when rioting over an exclusionary nomination process led to a series of important reforms (primarily to the detriment of caucuses), the major parties have sought to balance ways to include ordinary individual voters in the nomination process while not necessarily excluding the party establishment.

When it comes to electing the chief executive of the United States, the presidential debates play an important role in shaping public opinion and the choices facing voters. Having a fair process in place to determine who is eligible to participate in the debates and to guarantee that the debates are conducted neutrally is crucial to ensuring the integrity of the electoral process as a whole. In the past, controversies have arisen concerning which candidates should be invited to participate, which political parties should be represented, and whether the debates have been conducted in a way that is fair and neutral. Most of these controversies have never been resolved satisfactorily. Today, much more work needs to be done to ensure that our presidential primary and general election debates live up to their potential to provide truly diverse policy views to the public and are conducted in a manner that is wholly free from bias. Gender bias in terms of the questions asked of the candidates was evident in 2016, and other kinds of biases may appear in the future. Problematically, the eligibility rules for the general presidential debates have remained unchanged for decades. Meanwhile, government oversight of the debates remains virtually non-existent.