Welcome back to Beyond the Polls. This week I'll be talking with Elaine Kramark about Democratic Party

rules and structures for the nomination contest in 2008. Let's dive in.

We focused a lot on Democratic Party internal dynamics and the press talks a lot about people, but process matters

too. In fact, you can argue that process helps to shape the outcome. And here to talk with us about

this in the 2028 contest is Elaine Kmart, a longtime Democratic National Committee Rules member

and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Elaine, welcome back. Thanks for having me. Well, let's just start off with the basics.

Why does the order of primaries matter in shaping the outcome of the nomination contest?

It matters because in both political parties, the nomination contest is a sequential process.

And that differentiates presidential nominations from any other election in America.

And frankly, I don't know of any other in the world.

Okay.

And so if it's sequential, what happens is that each contest builds upon the previous

contests. And going first or second or third, for that matter, really shapes the race.

These early contests, they tend to narrow the race considerably.

And so by the time you get to Super Tuesday, where there's a lot of contests on one day,

you usually have maybe one, maybe two, sometimes three, but usually one or two people

left in the race.

And of course, we know that everybody doesn't vote exactly the same way,

which is to say certain demographics, whether it's ideological or age-based or gender or whatever,

do shape how people vote.

And if you have a particular type of demographic going early, like with the Republicans,

...