Parties' candidates are chosen by different nomination rules. Recent empirical evidence showsthat these rules influence the attributes of the nominees; for instance, open primaries in the U.S.choose more extreme candidates than closed primaries. Despite this evidence, the literature does notprovide an explanation of why appealing to a more moderate electorate -as during open primariesresultsin more extreme candidates. I build a model that shows that open primaries elect predictableextremists", while, for instance, party leaders would chose moderate mavericks". I obtain these resultsthrough a model that puts together 3 pieces of partisan politics: affiliation decisions, nomination rules,and an observed endogenous valence, which (together with party membership) signals the candidates'ideologies. Moreover, I investigate the welfare implications of three methods: nomination by the partyleader, by closed primaries, and by open primaries. I show the conditions under which nomination byparty leaders leads to higher social welfare than nomination by open primaries. Furthermore, I showthat higher screening by parties, leads to more ideologically uncertain candidates. In sum, I argue thatparty affiliation decisions, and endogenous valence play a large role in understanding the effects ofnomination rules on the political equilibria.
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