Chapter 4 The Influence of Presidential Primary Elections on Congressional Primary Turnout

While the date of the general election is codified in federal statute to be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, the timing of congressional primary elections varies considerably, typically ranging from March until September.Furthermore, in years with a presidential election, there is variation in whether the congressional primary is held on the same day as the presidential primary.In this chapter, we explore the effects of the variation in the congressional primary date and the synchronizing of congressional and presidential primary dates on voter turnout.We find that when congressional primaries are aligned with the presidential primary and the latter is competitive, significantly more people turn out and cast ballots in the congressional primary.In 2016, North Carolina planned to hold its primary elections for the U.S. House of Representatives on the same date as its statewide and presidential primary elections, as it had done in 2008 and 2012.The date for the primaries was set for March 15, 2016.However, in early February federal judges deemed the congressional districts drawn by the North Carolina General Assembly racially gerrymandered-meaning the race of eligible voters was over-emphasized in drawing the district maps.The state did not have enough time to redraw the maps, issue a new candidate filing period using those new maps, print new ballots, and mail absentee ballots before the March primary date.Therefore, the state legislature passed a bill, signed by Republican Governor Pat McCrory, setting the new congressional primary date for June 7, 2016, thereby separating the congressional primary from the presidential primary date by several months.This example from 2016 in North Carolina is illustrative because it is both common and unusual.As we show in this chapter, states regularly move around the dates they hold congressional and/or presidential primaries on for several reasons, and sometimes these dates are concurrent¹ with one another and other 1 This chapter uses the term "concurrent" to refer to those congressional primaries that are held