[PJDK]

Coming from a UK background something I've been long curious about is is there a constitutional reason for when the opposition presidential candidate is selected.

It seems like the current way of doing things leaves the opposition rudderless through most of a presidential term, followed by a bitter fight where their own side rip each other apart followed by only a few months to try and establish oneself as leader in waiting.

Could the democrats do their primaries now? It feels like that would 1. Distract from Trump so he doesn't get run of the news 2. Mean that all the "candidate X is a bad democrat" stories could be long forgotten by the next election. 3. Give a pedestal to the actual presidential candidate as the go to person for the media to get reactions from 4. If they turn out to be genuinely terrible there's a lot of time to find out and potentially replace them.

[jfengel]

That is a good observation.

Primaries are actually a relatively recent innovation. Before that, the candidates just appeared from the party machines. All of the ugliness went on out of public view.

For the last several elections people complained that there wasn't much difference between Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris. And there isn't. They are a center leftish (by American standards) bunch.

The party has a small wing further to the left, but it just isn't enough to put forth a strong candidate. That is the biggest ugliness we get now: they don't feel represented and often, they don't vote.

[ipaddr]

The states have laws when you can hold a primary but nothing in the constitution.

[mmooss]

> Coming from a UK background something I've been long curious about is is there a constitutional reason for when the opposition presidential candidate is selected.

That's a very interesting point. On the other hand, the GOP did have a leader through the Biden administration - Trump.

Even when they don't, such as under Obama, they do have effective means (Fox, social media, etc.) and content (effective, disciplined talking points) of communication. The Dems have neither.

[bobthepanda]

the problem is that running any sort of campaign that effectively reaches the continental and population scale of the US is incredibly expensive. Bernie Sanders for example raised $228M during his primary campaign in 2016. it would be hard to see how to make that happen more frequently.

[shadowgovt]

Constitutional? No, except that states run the primaries.

... but when the primaries are is encoded into state law, so it would be a challenge to change it for every state if one wanted to shift when "the primaries" as a whole concept are.