The Atlantic’s Ball on Some of the GOP Primary Elections: ‘Nothing More Than Straw Polls’

Monday in an appearance on CNN, The Atlantic’s Molly Ball argued that some of the Republican Party’s presidential preference contests are nothing more than “straw polls” that don’t determine how a state’s GOP delegates are selected, nor do they determine who that delegate supports at the party’s nominating convention.

Ball said Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has a point when he says the process isn’t “exactly democratic.”

“What is happening here is a lot of people, as Trump loves the point out, brought into the process that is not a democratic process and now finding out to their chagrin that the way it works, a lot of these elections that people are participating in in droves are nothing more than a straw poll,” Ball said. “They don’t determine who goes to the convention. They don’t determine who the delegates are and who they vote for. And so, you know, the parties in a way brought it on themselves because when they introduced primaries and opened them up the public to seem democratic in the ’60s and ’70s, they created an expectation that those votes matter. But the fact is that’s not what matters. What matters is technical contests. It is not Ted Cruz’s fault that he understands the process and is milking it for all its worth. But Trump does have a point that the process is not exactly democratic.”

(h/t RCP Video)

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