Members, Not Party Leaders, Determine Candidates

One big difference between political parties in California versus those in, say, Europe is that it's our members who choose the candidates. In many European countries, by contrast, party leaders draw up the lists of who gets to take office if their party wins on Election Day. Our members choose our candidates directly in primaries.

This party will continue to support the nominees selected by our members. That's a function of respecting the decision of our members in terms of who they nominate for federal and state offices.

In local government, because there are no primaries, our county central committees - consisting of the elected representatives of our members - act on our members' behalf in endorsing/nominating candidates for county and city offices, and special districts.