AMERICA’S ENDLESS ELECTION CYCLES A Closer Look By Mark Anderson, Legal and Legislative Assistant, NMBA A common refrain when American presidential election cycles roll around every three years or so is, “Why are our elections so long? Do they have to be?” It’s well-known that election cycles in the United States last a relative eternity, but less discussed are the reasons why they are so painfully overlong. To illustrate how numb Americans have become to the constant electioneering, there were questions when President Joe Biden dropped out earlier this summer over whether the Democratic Party could organize a competent campaign in the matter of several months. This belies how much time and organization goes into political campaigns and contingency plans, and how the length of American political campaigns can be attributed to far more complex origins than pure logistics. The campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris quickly coalesced because major political parties are well-funded machines that can act quickly if need be. But, in America, we’ve gotten used to political parties feigning helplessness when pressed to act and campaigns so mind-numbingly long that most people just want them to end. It isn’t this way because of some law of nature, but because of particular choices made in decades past. In fact, one of the most defining, unique aspects of American elections is their length. Many other nations have laws on the books strictly enforce how long campaigns can be. While most are aware of how lengthy our election cycles are, it’s less well-known that they haven’t always been this long. As a recent article in the Foreign Policy magazine details, “In 1896, Republican William McKinley famously campaigned from the front porch of his home in Ohio and won election as president. Although candidates would compete in primaries since their advent in the early 20th century, most only did a handful, if any, and they were only testing grounds for the summer party conventions where the machine would select the nominee. In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson didn’t even file in the New Hampshire primary.” The article further details that, “The duration of the presidential campaign cycle has vastly expanded since the early 1970s. Political reform following the tumultuous 1968 15
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