{{Short description, Election run by a political party to select a candidate or nominee for a later general election
A firehouse primary, also called a firehouse caucus or "unassembled caucus", is a term sometimes used in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...
, not a government, to select the party's candidates for a later general election. Firehouse primaries were originally held in public buildings such as firehouses. The term has been used principally for elections in the U.S. state of
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
.
For the 2020 Democratic party primaries,
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
,
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...
,
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...
, and
North Dakota
North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, So ...
conducted firehouse primaries. North Dakota used the term ''firehouse caucus'' for its event.Josh Putnam North Dakota Democrats Plan to Hold March 10 Firehouse Caucuses FrontloadingHQ blog, March 13, 2019 Because firehouse primaries are held with more limited locations and time frames than state-run primaries, and party officials have more control over who the candidates are, firehouse primaries have been criticized as relatively undemocratic by some American commentators.Roger Chesley ''The Virginian-Pilot'', Mar 1, 2017
Firehouse primaries are the norm for the selection of candidates for public office in political parties outside of the United States and some parts of
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...
. The selection of candidates to compete for political officer on behalf of a political party in European nations is usually done by paying party members or party officials, or a mix of both, often without the use of any public infrastructure or direct funding. It is unusual for there to be any particularly strict or explicit legislation governing how parties can select their candidates. As such, a term like 'party selection', 'party election' or another local term is more likely to be used than 'firehouse primary'. Most countries do not have a system for voters to publicly register as identifying with a particular political party as in the United States which makes open primaries more difficult, though not impossible, to hold.