Polls and Elections: Institutional Dynamics and Nominating Processes: The Latest Twists on a Familiar Story or the Emergence of a Brave New World?

The presidential nominating contests of 2016 were extremely fertile ground for hypothesizing by media analysts about alternative outcomes. Lacking much theoretical grounding, most of these were almost destined to be embarrassed by actual events—and 2016 proved extremely good at that. Yet the practical collapse of these journalistic hypotheticals does raise insistent theoretical questions, most of which are variants of one central puzzle: Were the nominating dynamics of 2016 ever very different from those of previous years? If so, how? If not, why not? There is in fact an established theoretical approach in political science with which to frame some answers. This article sets out to embed those answers within that established wisdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]