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The Deserted Primary in Iowa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Kirk H. Porter
Kirk H. Porter
Affiliation:
State University of Iowa
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Extract

For many years it has been apparent to the most casual observer that relatively few candidates for county office appear in the Iowa primaries. Very frequently indeed, only one aspirant for nomination will have his name on a party ballot as a candidate for a given office; and often there will be no candidate at all on the other party ballot for that office. This means, of course, in the first case that there is no contest whatever in the primary; and in the second case that there is no contest either in the primary or in the general election which follows. In other words, the lone candidate gains office merely by filing nomination papers. It is the purpose of the present article to present the essential facts with respect to the Iowa primary of June 5, 1944, and to venture some comments as to their implications. Only county offices will be considered.

Type
American Government and Politics
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , August 1945 , pp. 732 - 740
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1945

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References

1 See Horack, F. E., “The Operation of the Primary Election Law in Iowa,” Iowa Journal of History and Politics, Jan., 1921.Google Scholar

2 Counties may have boards of supervisors composed of three, five, or seven members. Most of them have three. Supervisors hold office for three years, all other county officers for two. Thus at the biennial election one or two supervisors may be elected who will not assume office until a year and two months after election.

3 Greatest deviation in favor of the Democrats is found in Dubuque county, −11.3 per cent, and in Johnson county, −10.4 per cent. Interestingly enough, Delaware county, adjacent to Dubuque on the west, shows the greatest percentage deviation in favor of the Republicans, i.e., +11.5 per cent. Apparently, party rivalry in Iowa reaches a peak on the boundary line between Delaware and Dubuque counties.

4 Two per cent of the number of votes cast for governor in the county at the last general election.

5 The courts held many years ago that gummed stickers are the equivalent of writing.

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