How many caucus delegates are there

To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. The political world is waiting with bated breath to see who will win the Iowa Democratic caucuses. The problem is that there will be three results coming in after Iowa voters gather on the evening of Monday, February 3. But the Iowa Democratic Party will also be tallying and reporting two other sets of numbers: how many actual people voted for each candidate in a given caucus — first an initial tally, then a final tally taken after lower-performing candidates are eliminated.

At the very least, this could be confusing. What if, for example, Sen. Bernie Sanders wins more votes but former Vice President Joe Biden wins more state delegate equivalents? So this is who got the most votes after a reshuffling. Announcing these three different results is a change for Iowa Democrats. In previous years, only the state delegate equivalents were recorded or reported.

That will provide more transparency — but could result in a muddle. The traditional metric for determining who wins is the state delegate equivalents, since, after all, the Democratic nomination contest is a competition to win delegates. Yet the actual vote totals may seem more intuitively useful than something based on a complex formula.

So how will this narrative be set? What they do looks a lot more like an ordinary primary. Iowa Democrats, though, have argued that a caucus should look and feel different from a primary. They want public debate and deliberation. They want attendees to have the opportunity to change their minds.

Fair enough. Yet Iowa Democrats also want influence over the national nominating process. They want to produce a clear result for the media and political world to make hay over.

Again, fair enough. These criticisms came to a head after the close Clinton-Sanders contest in The tiny north-eastern state of only 1. What is a primary? Unlike a caucus, where voters are expected to turn up at a few limited locations at certain times and stick around for a while, primary voters can just turn up at a polling booth and vote in secret. Then leave. How does a primary work? The more votes a candidate gets in a caucus or primary, the more "delegates" they are awarded, and all candidates will be hoping to win an unbeatable majority of delegates.

The number of delegates differs in each state, and is decided by a convoluted series of criteria. In California's primary, for example, there are Democratic delegates up for grabs this year. In New Hampshire, it was only This year is a bit different. After New Hampshire, we started to get a clear picture of who was struggling Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren , but even though Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg had claimed the most delegates at this stage, neither is guaranteed to become the nominee.

A few other states voted in between New Hampshire and the end of February, but things really started to warm up by Super Tuesday, on 3 March. What is Super Tuesday? THE big date in the primary calendar, when 16 states, territories or groups voted for their preferred candidate in primaries or caucuses.

A third of all the delegates available in the entire primary season were up for grabs on Super Tuesday. By the end of the day it became much clearer that Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders were the front-runners for the Democratic nomination. The two states with the most delegates voted on Super Tuesday - California with Democratic delegates and Texas California voted three months earlier than in , making Super Tuesday even more super than normal.

After hectic Super Tuesday, everyone gets to cool down for a week, before another busy day on Tuesday, 10 March, when six states vote, with delegates available. After that, the primary season still has three months left to run and at the end, the role of those delegates will become clear Donald Trump will almost certainly be sworn in as the Republican nominee at the party convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, between 24 and 27 August. The Democrats will confirm their candidate at their own convention between 13 and 16 July in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

What happens in a convention? Let's say that during primary season, candidate A wins 10 delegates. During the convention, those 10 delegates would vote for candidate A to become the Democratic nominee.

Any party member can apply to be a delegate - they tend to be party activists or local political leaders. All through the Democratic primaries, there are 3, delegates available. This could well happen this year. There are so many candidates that no one frontrunner emerges in the primaries, and they split the delegates between them. In that circumstance, a second vote would follow. In that second vote, all the 3, delegates would vote again, except this time they would be joined by an estimated "superdelegates".

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Bernie Sanders. Elizabeth Warren. Michael Bloomberg. Pete Buttigieg. Amy Klobuchar. Tulsi Gabbard. Total pledged delegates: 3, Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.

No meetings, caucuses, conventions or primaries which constitute the first determining stage in the presidential nomination process the date of the primary in primary states, and the date of the first tier caucus in caucus states may be held prior to the first Tuesday in March or after the second Tuesday in June in the calendar year of the national convention.

At the political party national convention, each delegate to the national convention shall vote for the party's presidential nominee candidate who received the greatest number of votes in the presidential preference election until the candidate is nominated for the office of President of the United States by the convention, until the candidate releases the delegate from the delegate's obligation, until a candidate withdraws from the race or until one convention nominating ballot has been taken.

After a candidate is nominated, withdraws from the race, delegates are released or one ballot is taken, each delegate is free to vote as the delegate chooses, and no rule may be adopted by a delegation requiring the delegation to vote as a body or causing the vote of any delegate to go uncounted or unreported.

Section If, subsequent to the primary, a candidate to whom one or more of such party's delegates are allocated either dies or files with the secretary a written statement, by him signed, to the effect that he has released all Connecticut delegates committed to him, the commitment of any such delegate to the candidate shall be deemed to have been released.

Any delegate to a national convention whose presidential candidate withdraws after being entitled to delegate votes pursuant to this article shall be an unpledged delegate to the national convention.

A delegate or alternate delegate selected from a congressional district to the national convention of a political party shall, on the first ballot at the national convention, support the candidate for President of the United States who received the highest number of votes in the congressional district at the primary election if the person is in fact a candidate at the convention.

A delegate-at-large or alternate delegate-at-large to the national convention is not required to support a specific candidate for President on any ballot at the convention. Each political party shall, on the first ballot at its national convention, cast this Commonwealth's vote for the candidates as determined by the primary or party caucus and calculated under this section or under party rules, whichever is applicable. Provided, however, that in the event of the death or withdrawal of a candidate receiving votes under this section prior to the tabulation of the first ballot, any delegate votes allocated to such candidate shall be considered uncommitted.

Withdrawal shall mean notice in writing by the candidate to the chairman of the Kentucky delegation prior to the first ballot. If there is a roll call vote for president at the national convention of a political party, all delegates and alternate delegates whose selection is subject by party rule to the approval of a presidential candidate shall vote on the first such roll call for that presidential candidate unless released by such candidate.

A national convention delegate shall be bound to vote for the presidential candidate for whom he or she designated commitment, if any, under section b and as certified by the presidential candidate or the presidential candidate's designee under this section before the delegate is elected as a national delegate until the end of the first ballot at the national convention. A editorial in the Boston Globe argued that caucuses are undemocratic and should be abandoned in favor of primaries.

The Boston Globe editorial board wrote the following: [12]. Ballotpedia features , encyclopedic articles written and curated by our professional staff of editors, writers, and researchers. Click here to contact our editorial staff, and click here to report an error. Click here to contact us for media inquiries, and please donate here to support our continued expansion.

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