With her updated title Primary Politics, Elaine Kamarck has provided an indispensable guide to the U.S. system of selecting our presidential candidates. This book explains the evolution of our primary system, the effect it has on presidential candidates, and vice versa. Primary Politics is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how our presidential candidates reach the general election.

Al Gore, 45th Vice President of the United States (1993-2001)

The strength of Kamarck’s book is the detailed information on candidates’ strategies and their attempts to alter the rules of the game. These are the types of stories that undergraduates find fascinating and the ones that should more often be the background for quantitative approaches to the topics of candidate strategies and nomination rules. For younger scholars, the book serves as a good primer on the modern history of presidential nominations.

Barbara Norrander, Congress & the Presidency

Nobody knows more about the ins and outs of the primary nominating system than Elaine Kamarck. This in-depth update is essential reading because our primary nominating system changes with every presidential election season. In very readable prose, Kamarck shows us how the nominating process has evolved from the party’s control to candidates’ machinations. If you want to be ahead of the curve about the 2020 nominating system, this book is a guide to another electrifying primary season.

Donna Brazile, former interim chairwoman, Democratic National Committee