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In politics, the presumptive nominee is a political candidate who is all but assured of his or her party's nomination, but has not yet been formally nominated. In the United States, the presumptive nominee is the candidate who has not yet received the official nomination of their political party at the party's nominating convention, but who has acquired enough pledged delegates to be assured, barring unlikely or unforeseen events, of the party's nomination. The term is applied widely on the national level, notably in regard to the U.S. presidential nominating conventions and the statewide level.

A candidate may be considered a presumptive nominee after all other major competitors have dropped out and it is considered unlikely that the candidate will withdraw, be usurped, or be otherwise removed from the race. Alternatively, in presidential elections, a candidate may be deemed the presumptive nominee after having accumulated enough delegate commitments through the primary elections and caucuses to be assured of the eventual nomination at the convention. Different news organizations declare a person the presumptive nominee based on their own rules. Not all news organizations declare a person to be the presumptive nominee.

In the U.S. presidential elections, the selection of delegates has been increasingly shifted earlier in the process to produce a presumptive nominee as early as possible, even in the presence of many strong candidates. The rise of Super Tuesday in the 1980s has led to the emergence of a presumptive nominee in both major parties by early March in all recent elections with the exception of 2008, when a spirited contest between Democratic Party candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama made it impossible for Obama to secure enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee until early June. George W. Bush and Al Gore were the presumptive nominees of their respective parties after Super Tuesday in 2000,¹ and John Kerry was referred to as the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party by May 2004.²

In presidential elections when an incumbent is seeking reelection, the incumbent is traditionally his or her party's presumptive nominee: recent examples include Ronald Reagan in 1984, Bill Clinton in 1996, and George W. Bush in 2004. However, a strong challenger or weak president can negate that status: examples in recent history include President Gerald Ford, who faced a challenge from Reagan in 1976, and President Jimmy Carter, challenged by Ted Kennedy in 1980. Despite this, it is traditionally frowned upon for a candidate to challenge an incumbent for the party nomination, as it is viewed as a mark of party disunity, particularly since the incumbent President is usually the leader of his or her party. Additionally, a badly run campaign challenging an incumbent is usually the death rattle of a politician's career in public service.

References

See also

• Preselection
• Prospective parliamentary candidate
• Heir presumptive