In the 2016 presidential primaries, party nomination rules benefited Donald Trump and hurt Bernie Sanders

During the 2016 presidential primary season, both candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders expressed concern that their party's nomination process hurt their chances of receiving their party's presidential nod. But to what extent do party nomination rules help or hinder candidates? In new research which examines how representative state delegations to the 2016 nominating conventions were, James King finds that the Democrats’ use of superdelegates made these delegations less representative, hurting Bernie Sanders’ chances of gaining the nomination. The Republicans’ use of winner-take all primaries, on the other hand, benefited Donald Trump’s aspirations for his party’s nomination.