Democratic Presidential Nominating Contests
Clinton was clearly the leading Democratic presidential candidate at the start of 2016. She was by far the best known of the candidates. She had endorsements from a majority of the Democratic U.S. senators and representatives, along with a dozen Democratic governors (Bycoffe 2016). She had amassed a sizable campaign finance chest of close to $200 million by the end of 2015, equal to what Obama had raised in 2011 for his reelection bid, plus she had sizable financial support from outside groups (Narayanswamy, Cameron, and Gold 2016). For these reasons, she had a solid lead of over 20 points in the polls (FiveThirtyEight 2016). However, during the fall of 2015, Sanders emerged as a serious challenger, to the surprise of many observers.
Despite his position as a U.S. senator, Sanders was viewed as an outsider. He had little support from the party elites. He called himself a democratic socialist, and although he caucused with the Democrats in the Senate, he had run for election in Vermont as an independent. His campaign stressed a strong economic message: government policies were tilted toward the wealthy, with most Americans failing to benefit from the nation's prosperity. He argued that the trade policies had cost the country millions of manufacturing jobs, reducing the economic opportunities for many Americans. Sanders wanted strong government policies to reduce income inequalities and to break up what he saw as a plutocracy that was a danger to American democracy. Two of the policies that he repeatedly emphasized were a single-payer health care system that would cover everyone and a $15 an hour minimum wage. Overall, he favored a very liberal set of economic policies, and although some Democratic voters saw Sanders as too far to the left, his ideas resonated with many, especially younger voters. The enthusiasm of his supporters allowed him to eventually raise over $200 million in campaign funds, with the vast bulk of it coming from small donations (Narayanswamy, Cameron, and Gold 2016).
Clinton was without doubt the insider candidate, and she was more moderate than Sanders in her policy positions. However, she moved to the left in response to the economic message of the Sanders campaign, supporting a $12 an hour minimum wage, for example. Sanders appeal rested on more than his economic message, as Clinton was hurt by views of her character, especially regarding her integrity. Polls showed that Democratic voters regarded Sanders as more trustworthy than Clinton (Associated Press 2016). Some of the questions about Clintons honesty went back to when she and Bill Clinton were in the White House in the 1990s. Other questions emerged more recently. The most serious question regarded her use of a private email server to handle her official communication as Secretary of State, an action that Republicans pummeled her on. Republicans also raised questions about her actions and statements regarding the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, an incident that was the subject of congressional hearings. After resigning as Secretary of State in early 2013, Clinton received large speaker fees from several business and financial organizations, leading to charges that she was too beholden to these interests to reform the system (Ceaser, Busch, and Pitney 2017, 43-52).
Support for Sanders was evident in the first two nomination contests, the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. He narrowly lost the Iowa caucuses to Clinton, then decisively won the New Hampshire primary, although this victory was not that surprising, given that he was from a neighboring state. As the primary contests moved to states with a larger minority population, Clinton did better. She won in Nevada and South Carolina, then did quite well on March 1, Super Tuesday: she carried seven of the eleven states that had nomination contests that day, winning a number of states by a wide margin. Those victories gave Clinton a substantial lead in delegates, one that would be difficult for Sanders to overcome. Sanders continued his campaign, but Clinton won the majority of the remaining primaries and caucuses, including all of the ones in large states. Clinton also was supported by over 90 percent of the super delegates, which expanded her delegate lead over Sanders. Sanders, however, only formally conceded the nomination to Clinton in a speech he delivered at the Democratic National Convention.
Results of the Democratic caucuses and primary elections can be found at: