Democratic Leader Recorded Pressuring Candidate to Drop Out of Primary

[Civil War Man]

How exactly does the process of determining which candidate is the "official" Democrat or Republican candidate work in a US election?

Comedy answer: It doesn't.

Short answer: There is no set process.

Longer answer: It varies from state to state. The most common is some kind of primary system, where each party has an election to determine who their candidate will be. Some are open, so any registered voter can vote in the primary election. Some are closed, so registered voters can only vote in the primary for the party they are registered with. Some are semi-open, which is a closed primary that also allows voters who are not affiliated with a party to vote. IIRC, California basically has a free-for-all for non-presidential primaries, where all candidates from all parties are on the primary ballot, and the two highest vote-getters, regardless of party, move on to the general election (so you could have a general election where the two candidates are both Democrats or both Republicans). Other places have caucuses, where instead of filling out a ballot you go to a certain place at a certain time and whichever candidate has more supporters show up at that place wins, and in the case of a tie it's decided by something ridiculous like a coin flip.

[Zaune]

I see. I think the strangest part from my European perspective is that this varies by locality and not by political party, because as I understood it there's not a lot of actual laws governing how parties run their internal affairs over here apart from the purely financial ones.

In fact, it almost sounds like you haven't got a two-party system over there, but a two-party state.

[Civil War Man]

I see. I think the strangest part from my European perspective is that this varies by locality and not by political party, because as I understood it there's not a lot of actual laws governing how parties run their internal affairs over here apart from the purely financial ones.

In fact, it almost sounds like you haven't got a two-party system over there, but a two-party state.

Part of that is that the electoral system was not really set up by viewing the country as one nation divided into different states, but as a confederation of semi-autonomous states.

To be fair, it also can vary by party, but I didn't include that particular piece since I know there are differences for presidential primaries but don't know whether or not there are differences for down-ballot races. The differences for the presidential primaries are also mostly in terms of how delegates are handed out.

Because you don't actually vote for a presidential candidate in the primaries. You are actually voting for the delegates who will vote for the presidential candidate at the party conventions, much like how during the general election you don't actually vote for president, but you vote for the electors who will cast a vote for president during the actual election.

Anyway, in the presidential primaries, the Republican party has a winner-take-all system, so winning a state primary by 50%+1 gives you all of that state's delegates, while the Democratic party has a proportional system that divvies up state delegates based on popular vote. However, there's also the difference between bound delegates, who have to vote for the candidate they are bound to in the first round of voting (but usually become unbound if no one wins in the first round of voting), versus unbound delegates, who can vote for whoever they want. Republican delegates are bound or unbound depending on how the states they are from run their primaries, while Democratic candidates are bound with the exception of the so-called Superdelegates, who are comprised of the big names in the party, including former and current Presidents/VPs, current congressional representatives and senators, governors, DNC officials, etc.

So yeah, US elections are less run by a system than they are by a clusterfuck.

[The Romulan Republic]

That's a good point, especially in the age of Fake News, on a topic which is rife with disinformation (from all sides).

Anyone care to provide a link?

I've both posted and described all the evidence I could find on the matter:

1. No evidence of any formal pledge against attack ads.
2. No evidence that all candidates were pressured into signing such a pledge.
3. Evidence that the DCCC released opposition research against one candidate, not an "attack ad" per se.
4. No evidence that the DCCC launched attacks (ads or otherwise) on all of the "legitimately Leftist candidates".

So "Fake News"?

[Simon_Jester]

Again, I feel like we should at least let Ritterin Sophia come back and explain herself on this one before deciding it's fake.

[The Romulan Republic]

If she does so, and backs up the claim, then I'll be happy to join in denouncing the persons in question.

[PoisonSymic]

Again, I feel like we should at least let Ritterin Sophia come back and explain herself on this one before deciding it's fake.

At this point, it seems clear that Ritterin Sophia is unable or unwilling to step up and provide any evidence whatsoever for her sweeping claims against the Democratic Party.