Previous lessons:

1. How 1968 changed the way parties pick their candidates
2. What is a caucus; what is a primary?

Now we’ll take a look at the delegates themselves. Who are these people and how do they get picked? What is a "superdelegate"? How does delegate "math" work? And finally, what is the best strategy for accumulating delegates during the primary/caucus season?

Who are delegates?

Delegates from both major political parties tend to be local party activists, officials, and people who are activists in political advocacy groups associated with the political party in question (e.g., pro-NRA activists in the Republican party; labor union activists in the Democratic party). The latest data on whether delegates to party conventions held elected or party office come from 2008. That year, just over half of Democratic Party delegates held party office, and 30 percent held elected office. 57 percent of Republican delegates in 2008 held party office, though there is no data on the percentage who held elected office. Elaine Kamarck, in her study of the presidential nomination process Primary Politics, cites research demonstrating that in 2012 and 2016, more than half of Democratic delegates belonged to a liberal political advocacy group, while almost 40 percent of Republican delegates belonged to a conservative political advocacy group.

After President Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan, following a contested Democratic convention in which Senator Ted Kennedy vied for the nomination, and remembering the nomination of George McGovern who lost to Nixon in a landslide less than 10 years earlier, Democratic leaders started to look for ways to return "the regulars" to the nomination process. By the 1984 convention, new rules allowed hundreds of elected officials to become "superdelegates" to the convention, not bound to any candidate. While these delegates have played a role in only a few conventions, and have never changed the outcome desired by voters, superdelegates became controversial. The Republican party allows their Republican National Committee members to be automatic delegates to the convention but they have to vote for the winner of their state.

In 2016, the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders complained that the process was "rigged" and claimed as proof the superdelegates who were not bound by state primary and caucuses, and who largely supported Hillary Clinton. The 700+ unpledged delegates at the 2016 Democratic convention were the highest level of party notables: elected members of the Democratic National Committee (including the chairs and vice-chairs of the state parties); current and former presidents, vice presidents, and former congressional leaders; and over 190 members of the House of Representatives, 47 senators, and 21 governors. In 2020, bowing to the controversy in 2016, Democratic superdelegates will not be allowed to vote for a candidate on the first ballot at the convention.

On the Republican side in 2016, too, the campaign of candidate Donald Trump complained about the system being "rigged." A chief complaint was the fact that, in the Republican process, the selection of actual people to fill the delegate slots occurred after the primaries and, unlike in the Democratic Party, the Republicans did not have a rule requiring that its candidates could approve of the delegates who would go to the convention. Thus in some cases they feared that individuals close to Senator Ted Cruz would be able to win delegate slots that Trump had won.

At present, the 2020 Democratic National Convention to be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in July will feature over 4,700 delegates whose job will be to nominate the Democratic Party candidate for president. Nearly 4,000, or about 83 percent, of these delegates will be so-called "pledged delegates"—individuals who are elected by primary and caucus voters to support a specific candidate. The rest are the superdelegates.

In 2016, the Republican Party Convention held in Cleveland, Ohio, featured over 2,400 delegates, including their own pledged delegates, also called "bound" delegates. Per party rules, Republican delegates are bound to vote for the candidate voters chose, at least on the convention’s first ballot.

Each of the two major parties sets its own rules for delegate allocation. In 1972, George McGovern won a plurality of about 44 percent, but not a majority, of the primary vote in California. But under the party’s winner-take-all rules, he garnered all 271 of the state’s delegates. Second-place finisher Hubert Humphrey finished only 5 percentage points behind McGovern but won no delegates. Thereafter, a Credentials Committee for the upcoming convention decided to award California’s delegates on a proportional basis, thus reassigning 151 (or about 55 percent) of those delegates to the other candidates.

Since 1980, the Democratic Party rules have called for full use of proportional representation in all states, but many exceptions and loopholes remained. Debate continued into the early ‘80s about implementation of proportional rules, but as of the 1992 nomination season, the Democrats have used proportional representation in all states. On the Democratic side, winning a primary or a caucus does not give a candidate all of the delegates available in that jurisdiction. A candidate has to win at least 15 percent of the primary vote to gain any delegates at all. The remaining delegates are apportioned using a formula for which can be found in the Democratic Party rules.

The Republican Party, on the other hand, continues to use a hybrid system that combines some elements of proportional with winner-take-all approaches for delegate allocation. But it is essentially winner-take-all, and unlike the Democratic Party, Republicans have generally kept to the same system in the reform era.

As Kamarck summarizes, "Democrats use a proportional representation system that tends to reward candidates who lose narrowly and awards relatively few delegates to those who win narrowly. Republicans tend to use winner-take-all systems that reward candidates who win by even the slimmest margins."

Winning contests, momentum, and accumulating delegates

As mentioned earlier, the candidate with the majority of the party’s delegates going into the national convention will earn the nomination to run for president. But exactly how candidates gain delegates throughout the primary/caucus season is a matter of serious strategy. As Kamarck argues, "sequence matters." Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as South Carolina and Nevada, give candidates who win there only a small portion of the delegates needed to capture the nomination. But the outsized media attention given to the early states, especially the first two, means that candidates who finish in the top two or three slots can carry momentum into the delegate-rich contests to follow.

Little-known Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter understood this in 1976 when he won both Iowa and New Hampshire contests, generating new attention and momentum as he marched toward the nomination. In 1988, however, Senator Al Gore skipped February contests in Iowa, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Maine, betting on winning delegates in the 22 Super Tuesday states in March. He won only a handful, including his home state of Tennessee, effectively ending his candidacy. And recall that outsider candidate Donald Trump came in second to Senator Ted Cruz in Iowa in 2016, but went on to win pluralities in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada on his march to the nomination.

As Kamarck has written, "No one has the money or time to campaign in a state as big as California at the outset of the primary race, and the verdict from the early states will confer on the top two or three winners that most precious commodity in presidential nominating politics: momentum."

Successful candidates will emerge from the early contests with either outright wins, or with narratives that they beat expectations, thus propelling them forward into the delegate-rich contests to come. Consider Bill Clinton, who in 1992 finished second in New Hampshire to Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas. Tsongas was expected to finish first, so it didn’t help him; Clinton, on the other hand, already carrying some scandal baggage, was dubbed "the comeback kid" and went on to win the nomination. Those who fail to earn any delegates in the early contests, or perform below expectations, may drop out. Starting on Super Tuesday, the nomination contests are all about winning delegates, rather than gaining momentum from early primaries and caucuses.

In 2020, Super Tuesday will occur on March 3, with 15 jurisdictions—including California and Texas—plus Americans abroad participating in Democratic primaries and caucuses. The Republican version of Super Tuesday, also on March 3, 2020, will feature primaries in 13 states.