Testing Theories of States' Adoption of the Direct Primary

• Published date: 01 September 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129241251783
• Author: Hans J. G. Hassell,Robert A. Lytle
• Date: 01 September 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2024, Vol. 77(3) 891–903

© The Author(s) 2024

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/10659129241251783

journals.sagepub.com/home/prq

Testing Theories of States’Adoption of the

Direct Primary

Hans J. G. Hassell

1

and Robert A. Lytle

1

Abstract

Understanding the origins of primary elections has important implications for evaluating their role in American elections.

While there is little argument about the importance of primaries to the American electoral system, there is less

agreement about why states adopted the direct primary and what they were intended to accomplish. Previous scholarship

has laid out three theories: the strength of the progressive movement, parties’efforts to maintain one-pa rty rule, and the

urbanization of American society. Using comprehensive state-level data from 1892 to 1930, we test these theories of

states’adoption of direct primaries. We f‌ind a strong inf‌luence of the strength of the progressive movement and the rate

of urbanization on the adoption of the direct primary, but we do not, however, f‌ind any inf‌luence of state partisan

competition. Our f‌indings reinforce original arguments about the importance of the progressive movement and ur-

banization in the adoption of the direct primary.

Keywords

primaries, nomination reform, progressive era, caucus, convention, direct primary

Writing shortly after his experience as a member of the

McGovern-Fraser committee, Austin Ranney argued the

adoption of direct primary elections was “the most radical

of all the party reforms adopted in the whole course of

American history”(Ranney 1975, 121). Primary elections

are a central feature of the United States’electoral in-

frastructure and scholars have devoted considerable effort

to understanding how primaries affect the inf‌luence of

parties, organized interests, and voters in nominations

(Bawn et al. 2023;Dominguez 2011;Hassell 2016,2018;

Kousser et al. 2015) and how primary contests shape intra-

party dynamics (Blum 2020;Hassell 2023;Masket 2020).

Although Ranney’s (1975) assertion that primary elec-

tions effectively curbed party control of nominations may

not be entirely accurate (Hassell 2018;Hirano et al. 2010;

Masket 2016), primaries shape political campaigns

(Adams and Merrill 2008;Fouirnaies and Hall 2020;

Hirano et al. 2022) and electoral representation

(Ansolabehere et al. 2007;Barton 2023;Kujala 2020),

and play an important role in the American electoral

system (Boatright 2014;Galderisi, Ezra, and Lyons 2001;

Jewell and Morehouse 2001).

There is, however, less agreement about why states

moved to adopt the direct primary to replace party cau-

cuses and conventions. Scholars have advanced three

different theories explaining this change in nomination

institutions.

The conventional account holds that states adopted

direct primaries as progressive reformers won public

support in their efforts to strip power from corrupt party

bosses (Barton 1922;Merriam 1923;Merriam and

Overacker 1928;Ranney 1975;White 1910). By this

view, it was the strength of the progressive movement that

vanquished party bosses and propelled states to abandon

the caucus and convention system. Accordingly, primaries

were a means to reduce party elite inf‌luence in

nominations.

In contrast, a second theory argues that parties and

party leaders actually embraced and encouraged the

adoption of primary elections to maintain single-party rule

in states (Hirano and Snyder 2019;Key 1964;Kousser

1974). Key (1964, 376) specif‌ically notes that “the

Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Hans J. G. Hassell, Department of Political Science, Florida State

University, 600 W. College Ave, Bellamy 531B, Tallahassee, FL 32306,

USA.

Email: hans.hassell@fsu.edu