Delegates: They’re What It’s Really About!
Posted: December 27, 2015 | By: Iowa Caucus Project Staff
Tagged: About the Caucuses
By David Redlawsk, Harkin Institute Mabry Fellow Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick and Director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling Since 1972 for the Democrats, and this year for the Republicans, the Iowa Precinct Caucuses have not really been about voting for presidential candidates. Well they have (and are) but the real goal is to win delegates (ultimately) to the respective national conventions. Precinct Caucuses do NOT elect delegates to the national convention, but they do elect them to the county convention, and the process continues from there through district and state conventions, then to the national convention. The stakes then, are not just the media bump that generally comes from exceeding expectations on caucus night, but also ultimately claiming a share of the delegates Iowa will elect to the national conventions. No one gets nominated to be their party’s standard-bearer without having 50%+1 of all the delegates to the national convention. To be sure, Iowa’s share of those delegates is quite small (see here [GOP | Democrats] for details on every state’s delegate counts) but at least for the Republicans, every delegate may well count given the fractured nature of the field. Historically, there was […]