Important Presidential Primaries — Market Mad House

Strangely, presidential primaries are a recent addition to America’s electoral system.

In fact, they held the first presidential primary in North Dakota in 1912. Moreover, primaries did not become the main means of selecting the presidential nominees until the 1970s.

Until the 1950s, party elites picked the presidential nominees at the Democratic and Republican national conventions. Popular anger at nominees nobody voted forced the parties to adopt the primary system in the 1970s.