Hey there listeners, Galen here.

Before we get to the third episode of the primaries project,

we wanted to add some updates to our second episode.

That episode took us from the messy 1968 Nominating Convention up through 2016, tracking how the candidates,

parties, and voters navigated a new primary system.

Initially, parties lost control of the nominating process, then regained it,

and then by the 2000s had begun to lose control again. Trump's descendants in 2016 was the culmination of that loss of control.

Democrats hadn't settled on a 2020 nominee when we first aired the primaries

project back in January of that year. But the coalescing of support around

Biden heading into Super Tuesday marked a significant win for the party decides

theory. After just one win in South Carolina, opposing candidates dropped out, endorsed

Biden, and voters took the cue.

From there, the contest was not even really competitive. Now we are just weeks away from the 2024

Iowa caucuses. Trump leads nationally by a significant cliff, lesser in the early

states but still a clear lead, and he has more endorsements than any of the other

candidates in the race. To talk about the developments since early 2020, and what could happen in the coming months

is Marquette University political science professor Julia Azari.

You heard her throughout the second episode helping us make sense of that system.

Julia, welcome back to the podcast.

Thank you so much glad to be here.

Great to have you four years after we first made the primaries project.

So here's my question about 2024 off the bat.

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