- Between February and June 2020, all 50 US states and several US territories will hold a Democratic primary election or caucus beginning with the Iowa caucuses on February 3.
- The Democratic nominee will be formally selected at the Democratic National Convention, which will take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in mid-July, by delegates elected in primaries.
- But even though the nominee will be formally picked then, we'll probably know who wins much earlier than that: 90% of pledged delegates will be allocated after April 28.
- Here's how the entire process works from start to finish.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Between February and June 2020, all 50 US states and several US territories will hold a Democratic primary election or caucus continuing with the Nevada caucuses on February 22.
While US territories don't have voting power in federal elections, they still send delegates to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.
Then, the Democratic nominee will be formally selected at the Democratic National Convention, which will take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in mid-July, by the delegates allocated in those primaries.
But even though the nominee will be formally picked then, we'll probably know who wins much earlier than that.
Here's how the entire process works from start to finish:
The primary process
To get on the ballot in the first place, presidential candidates need a lot of signatures. These can be expensive to get depending on the state, so for longshot candidates, it's often the first hurdle to getting elected.
This also has the impact of forcing campaigns to have a baseline of financial and organizational capacity to carry them past the first obstacle and is one reason why lots of candidates tend to drop out right before big deadlines. This even can trip up otherwise competitive candidates, as evident by the fact Andrew Yang will not appear on the Ohio ballot.
Every state has a certain number of delegates to allocate, which is determined by a number of factors including how big the state is, how Democratic they lean, when they vote, and if they vote with their neighbors.
The DNC has four states who vote early in every election cycle: Iowa on February 3, New Hampshire on February 11, Nevada on February 22, and South Carolina on February 29. While these primaries hold disproportionate importance in the process by going first, they only account for 4% of the total pledged delegates.
The earliest that other states can vote this cycle is on March 3. Lots of states decide to hold their primary on that day, which is why we call it Super Tuesday.
This cycle fifteen states, the Democrats who live abroad, and the territory of American Samoa are holding Democratic primaries or caucuses on Super Tuesday, allocating 35% of the total delegates on that date alone. It's a massive day, and will be the beginning of the end for several campaigns and the end of the beginning for a select few.
After Super Tuesday, primary dates get tactical, since states receive a delegate bonus for scheduling their primaries later in the cycle and holding their primaries on the same day as neighboring states.
In general, states want to balance their role in narrowing the size of the field with having the final say on who wins by having the most possible delegates at the convention.
Some states — the ones on Super Tuesday — are willing to leave all the extra delegates on the table in order to get the first bite at the apple. Other states will wait until the last possible vote — smaller states like New Jersey and New Mexico — to gain outsized representation at the convention and potentially a shot at playing kingmaker.
On April 28, for example, six states in the so-called Acela corridor in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland all receive delegate bonuses for holding their primaries all on the same day later in the season. They also get a bonus because they share borders. The 663 delegates allocated that day is considerably higher than the 543 they would otherwise have if not for bonus delegates.
Sixty percent of delegates will be decided after the March 17 primaries, and after the April 28 "Acela primaries," 90% of the total delegates to the convention will have been allocated, meaning we'll have a pretty good idea of who is favored to win the nomination by that point.
Every state also has its own unique procedures for conducting primary contests. Some states have an open primary where non-affiliated voters and/or registered Republicans can vote, while other states allow only registered Democrats to cast ballots in Democratic primaries. And while some states elect their winner in a caucus, some do it in a primary election.
What is the difference between a primary and a caucus?
Of the first four nominating contests, Iowa and Nevada hold caucuses run by their respective state Democratic parties, while New Hampshire and South Carolina hold primaries run by the state government agencies.
In traditional primaries, voters go into a voting booth and cast a ballot expressing their choice for the Democratic nominee. Delegates are then allocated proportionally based on the results of that vote.
Caucuses, however, are much more communal and collaborative. Every caucus-goer is assigned to a caucus location, like a high school gym, for example, in their voting precinct where they gather in groups, deliberate, and use preference cards to publicly express their choice for the Democratic nominee instead of casting a ballot.
Importantly, both Iowa and Nevada hold two alignments for caucusgoers to express their preferences. If someone's first choice is not viable past the 15% threshold, they can realign their preference to a candidate who is viable or try to make their first choice viable on the second alignment, which is not an option in regular primaries.
Caucusgoers whose first-choice candidate is viable on the first alignment, however, are locked into their decision and cannot change their preference. This means candidates can only gain and not lose votes as the night goes on.
In an effort to make caucuses more accessible and inclusive for those who can't feasibly be in the same place caucusing for hours on end, the DNC has encouraged both Iowa and Nevada to adopt reforms to make it easier to participate.
Iowa held multiple satellite caucuses to accommodate Iowans who cannot physically attend caucuses or who are living abroad, and Nevada conducted four days of early voting, in addition to establishing caucus sites at the Las Vegas strip for casino workers who work night shifts.
The magic number in most primaries is 15 percent
Democrats allocate most of their pledged delegates proportionally by legislative district, in addition to allocating at-large and PLEO (party leader and elected official) delegates based on the statewide vote breakdown.
Most states allocate their delegates by congressional districts, but some, like Texas and New Jersey, use state legislative districts instead.
While delegates are allocated proportionally, in nearly every state the minimum threshold to earn delegates is 15% of the vote.
That means that as long as someone breaks 15 percent either statewide or in at least one district, they get delegates from that state to bring to the convention.
With such a crowded 2020 field, a number of candidates will inevitably fail to meet the delegate targets.
If someone wants to stop running for president at any point during the process, the delegates that they've earned — who are real people — can either be told to support a rival candidate or released to vote for whomever.
What happens at the convention?
At the Democratic convention, a candidate will actually be nominated when a simple majority of 1,991 out of 3,979 total pledged delegates support a given candidate.
But what if there no clear majority of delegates back one candidate? This is called a "brokered convention" and is pretty unlikely, despite the size of the field.
In this kind of hypothetical split convention scenario, automatic delegates, previously known as "superdelegates," would enter the fray to break the deadlock and select a candidate if there is still no clear majority after the second ballot.
Anyone who is a Member of Congress, former President or House Speaker, Governor, or DNC member would become a delegate with voting abilities to help split the tie.
Superdelegates played a significant role and were highly controversial in the 2016 convention, but the DNC has adopted rule changes since then that have made them pretty much irrelevant in all but the most extreme circumstances.
Read more:
DELEGATE COUNT: Here's who's winning the race for the 2020 Democratic nomination
SEE ALSO: The Nevada caucuses are the first since the disaster in Iowa. Here's how it will work.
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