The table on this page is a "work in progress". Please bear with us as we continue to collect the necessary historical data to add to it as time goes along.

The following table is, simply, a compilation of the dates on which States scheduled a Direct Primary (a Primary Election, as opposed to the indirect Primary [that which we, nowadays, would call either Caucuses or Mass Meetings]) to nominate candidates for Statewide and/or Federal elective office under either specific statutory provisions providing for same or (albeit far less commonly) constitutional provisions authorizing the State to adopt such statutory provisions by law. The only Primaries listed in this table are STATE Primaries (as opposed to PRESIDENTIAL Primaries- sometimes, but not necessarily, held at the same time as a State Primary- utilized as at least an adjunct to the distribution of a Party's National Convention delegates pledged to the various and sundry contenders for that Party's Presidential Nomination every four years).

In the table below, the ELECTION YEAR is indicated (even-numbered election years in which members of both houses of the Congress of the United States are regularly chosen are in normal bold typeface; "Off-years"-- odd-numbered years in which a few States hold their State elections- are boldface italicized) and, for even-numbered election years only, the Class of the United States Senate seats up for election to full 6-year terms in that year is noted. The General Election date- the Tuesday immediately following the first Monday in November mandated for at least Federal elections by Federal law (though also used, by almost all States, for their State general elections as well)- for each election year is also indicated.

The "for" column re: each STATE in the table below simply notes which Statewide and/or Federal offices were up for election in the General Election of a given ELECTION YEAR and, further, re: which Party candidates for said offices might have been nominated in a Primary held on the date indicated in the adjacent column. [NOTE: Primaries re: Special Elections for any Statewide and/or Federal office are not noted in the following table (although, in many cases, nominations re: a Special Election being held at the same time as a given year's General Election did, in fact, use the same Primary date as was normally used for other Statewide and/or Federal offices up for election at the same time [this, more usually, has occurred where a Special Election to finish out a term re: a vacancy in one State's U.S. Senate seat was held at the same time as the regular election for a full 6-year term re: the State's other U.S. Senate seat]-- no attempt is made, in the table below, to denote such circumstances, however)]

G= a State's Governor's Chair up for election for a full term;
S= one of the State's two United States Senate seats up for election to a full 6-year term;
h= all of the State's seats in the U.S. House of Representatives up for election for 2-year terms.

United States Senators were not elected by Popular Vote until the 17th Amendment to the UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION had been certified as having been ratified by the necessary 3/4 of the States of the American Union by Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan on 31 May 1913; therefore (except for a couple Special Elections to fill vacancies in the Senate after that date), the first Senate Elections for which Party candidates were nominated via Primary Elections were held in most of the States authorizing Direct Primaries at the time were those for the Class 3 seats up for election in 1914. However, prior to the ratification of the 17th Amendment, a number of States were already holding non-binding (that is, "advisory") Popular Elections for the United States Senate, even though such elections could not constitutionally force a given State's legislature to necessarily choose the Senate candidate so favored by the People (OREGON was the first State to formally authorize such a procedure, in 1902; beginning in 1908, that State further required that the name of the candidate "winning" the advisory Popular Vote be formally announced, at least, to the legislature before the legislators actually began balloting for U.S. Senator).

Several States followed Oregon's lead- as well as its method of so advising the legislature of the voters' will before said legislature got down to the business of electing a U.S. Senator- and, in 1912 (the year of the first Federal Elections noted in the table below), the following States held such "advisory" Popular Elections for their respective Class 2 seats in the United States Senate: COLORADO, KANSAS, MINNESOTA, MONTANA, OKLAHOMA and OREGON; the dates in the table below for the Primary Elections in these aforementioned States, therefore, could have been used to nominate candidates for said "advisory" Popular Elections for U.S. Senator. In addition, SOUTH DAKOTA- while it did not hold such an "advisory" Popular Election for its Class 2 Senate seat that year- did require that its legislature only consider those candidates nominated by the Parties through its State Direct Primary when choosing a U.S. Senator. Party nominations for United States Senate- via Direct Primary- in the States named in this paragraph in 1912 are not, however, specifically noted (with a letter 'S') in the "for" column re: these States in the table below.

[NOTE: The listing of an office re: a given Primary Election date in this table does not necessarily mean Direct Primaries were actually held for said office in that year: for instance, in some States, where only one candidate is on the ballot for a Party's nomination for an elective office, the Primary is cancelled (although, in most cases, the Primary Election for that office is still held and the nomination of the unopposed candidate is not official until the Primary vote has been officially certified by State election authorities, as it would be for any other Party nomination by Direct Primary); in addition, in a few States over the period covered by this table, Primaries or Conventions could be used- at the Party's own option- for nominating candidates for Statewide and/or Federal office (nomination by Convention would, in such cases, render nomination by Direct Primary unecessary). Some other scenarios that have- over the years- allowed an otherwise scheduled Primary Election to not be used for nomination for Statewide and/or Federal office are included in the notes beneath the table.]

The "Primary" column simply indicates the date a Primary Election was held (or- re: the NOTE above immediately preceding this paragraph- at least scheduled) in that State during the given Election Year. An x in this column means that the interested user of this table should check the notes beneath this table as to why a specific Primary date is not indicated (where it otherwise should be) in this table. However, the actual inclusion of a date for a Primary in this table does not necessarily mean that both Major Parties used that date- or, for that matter, even a Direct Primary at all!- to nominate candidates for Statewide and/or Federal office (although the more significant "anomalies", as it were, in this regard are explained in the notes beneath this table).

The "Runoff" column simply indicates the date any Runoff Election (a second ballot where States allow for same [in cases where no candidate for the nomination has reached a certain threshold- usually, but not always, a majority of the total vote- in the preceding Primary: a Runoff is between the top two vote-getters in the Primary, thereby guaranteeing that the Party's candidate for an elective office was nominated by a majority of the voters]) had been scheduled. The listing in the table below of a date for a Runoff does not necessarily mean Runoffs were actually held re: nominations for Statewide and/or Federal office in that given year.

Where the word 'Preferential' appears in this 'Runoff' column, this refers to a Direct Primary process (one not to be confused with the so-called "Preferential Primary" used in Arkansas from 1942 through 1958 and explained in the notes underneath the main table below) in which the voter in a Primary Election was permitted to indicate not only his or her first choice of candidate for the Party's nomination, but also his or her second choice as well (theoretically, such a 'Preferential' Direct Primary might allow a voter to indicate third choice, fourth choice, up to as many candidates for the nomination as might be on the Primary ballot, but the practice in those three Southern States [ALABAMA, FLORIDA and LOUISIANA] in which it was utilized was to limit the Primary voter to no more than two choices); where the first choice votes for the candidates in a Primary Election might not be enough to produce a majority of the total votes cast for the top vote-getter, the second choice votes would be added to each candidate's first-choice votes in order to (hopefully!) make sure that the top vote-getter had a majority of the total votes cast in the Primary Election. This version of "Preferential Primary" was also used, early in the history of their respective utilizations of the Direct Primary, by Idaho, Indiana, North Dakota and Washington state but seems to have been rather quickly abandoned: in addition, Minnesota and Wisconsin, early on and only for a relatively short time, used a variant of this known as the 'Alternative-vote' system in which the candidate on the ballot with the least first-choice votes would be dropped and only the second-choice votes for the remaining candidates would be added to the surviving candidates' first-choice votes; the process would continue until a candidate with the most votes received had emerged with a majority of the total votes cast; please note that it is beyond the scope of the information provided on this page of this website to differentiate just when such systems might have been used in these other States during the period covered by the main table on this page.

The "General" column shows the date of the General Election in a given year where a State did not hold its own General Election for Statewide and/or Federal office on the Tuesday immediately following the first Monday in November. In addition- re: LOUISIANA specifically- it is used to indicate years in which that State utilized its unique "Open Primary" (such years being indicated by the word "open" appearing in this column); this "Open Primary" itself is further explained in the notes beneath this table.

[NOTE: During the period when LOUISIANA held its STATE Elections in even-numbered years, said Elections are treated- in the table below- as if Louisiana were an "Off-Year" State and, thus, the Direct Primaries preceding said elections are listed re: the odd-numbered years in this table. This best serves to reduce confusion (as the date for Louisiana's State Primary and General Elections never coincided with those for Federal offices in the same year); in addition, there is a lineal connection to the State's current dates for its State Direct Primaries and General Elections (which is easily discernable upon examination of the relevant data in the table below) extending from this period down to the present day.]