How to become a delegate

By Kaye Foley

“Delegate” is the magic word this election season. That’s because whichever candidate wins a majority of delegates heading into his or her party’s national convention gets the nomination.

So who becomes a delegate, and how are they selected? The rules are complicated — varying by state and by party — but, basically, here’s how it works.

Candidates earn delegates at both the state and the congressional district levels in primary contests. These delegates tend to be people who are active party members or local political leaders, who want to represent their party at the national convention.

For Democrats, delegates are awarded proportionally to the number of votes they won in the primary or caucus. For Republicans, it varies — some states and districts are proportional, some are winner-take-all and some are a hybrid. Each state has a different number of delegates for candidates to pick up. For example, Florida has 99 Republican and 246 Democratic delegates, while Iowa has 30 Republican and 52 Democratic delegates.

In a few states for the GOP and more often for Democrats, after winning a certain number of delegates, the candidate’s campaign gets to pick who will be going to the national convention as a delegate from his or her list of supporters. This helps ensure the loyalty of delegates. But for the most part, for Republicans, that’s not what happens. Sometimes voters decide delegates at local conventions or by ballot, and sometimes they are selected by party leaders.

Once chosen, delegates hit the road for the conventions, where they can officially support a candidate. On the first or the second ballot, Republican delegates are required to vote for the candidate they were “bound” to at their state’s primary or caucuses. But after that, most become “unbound,” which means they are free to vote for whomever they want. On the Democrat side, delegates are pledged — when a candidate earns delegates, they pledge support to him or her. They are highly unlikely to switch their vote when they get to the convention because they were chosen from loyal supporters, but they aren’t bound in the same way as Republicans.

The Democrats also have a special category called superdelegates. These are party bigwigs — more than 700 elected officials, former elected officials and others — who can vote for whichever candidate they want.

Regardless of your politics, the next time you hear about delegate drama, at least after watching this video you can say, “Now I Get It.”