In June, we discussed in-depth how the Republican National Convention (RNC) works. This week, we’ll unpack how Democrats handle their business, as the conventions are slated to be held in Chicago from August 19 to August 22.
What makes this DNC unlike any other, at least since 1968, is that President Joe Biden (D-DE) made the unprecedented decision to quit the race after an abysmal debate performance in late June, followed by mounting calls from his party to drop out. Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA) appears as the presumptive nominee, along with her running mate Governor Tim Walz (D-MN).
Since the delegates will not be awarded according to their primary/caucus results that were held from February until June, this DNC will effectively negate the popular vote in nearly all regards, as Harris did not campaign for the nomination this year. Biden received the lion’s share of the 3,949 delegates available.
While the procedure is mostly the same for the GOP, the Democrats do have some unique rules at play in their nominating contests.
History and Purpose
The purpose of the DNC is identical to that of the RNC: to formally select nominees for president and vice president. Given the extraordinarily short runway the newly-formed ticket has, delegates from all fifty states, five territories, and the District of Columbia will have to put forward nominees until one clinches a majority of delegates.
The first DNC was held in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 21, 1832. The convention was held only to elect a vice presidential nominee, as President Andrew Jackson (D-TN), the first elected president of the Democratic Party, was already the nascent party’s leader and was not contested for the nomination.
From 1832 until 1936, DNC rules stipulated that a presidential nominee required two-thirds of the delegates’ votes, a feat that proved impossible on the first ballot round. Since the threshold was so high, dozens of ballots often dragged the convention into a deadline, in which dark horse candidates often became compromises as party bosses wouldn’t break from their nominees. One such candidate was James Polk (D-TN), who served one term as the eleventh president from 1845 to 1849.
In 1936, the rules were changed so that only a simple majority of delegates was required to secure a nomination; only one multi-ballot convention has taken place since then, 1952.
Vice presidential nominations were even more tense, as, traditionally, the nominee was not known until the final night of the convention. The 1972 and 1980 conventions were the first times a vice presidential nominee was known on the first nights of the conventions, which led to walkouts from the delegates and vote scatterings that sabotaged chances of certain nominees. Since 1984, the presumptive presidential nominee usually announces the vice presidential nominee before the convention begins.
Delegates
While the general election utilizes the Electoral College for determining winners and losers, the primary/caucus system uses delegates. While the Electoral College vote numbers for each state change decennially, pursuant to the results of the U.S. Census, state and territory quantities change every four years.
The GOP has their own rules on delegate math and bonus delegates and even gives the state parties more oversight as to how the contests can award delegates. The Democrats, however, have a more complicated formula governing how their states receive representation.
Pledged Delegates: These representatives are often selected at their state’s nominating convention and typically obligated to vote for the candidate who wins that state’s (or territory’s) primary or caucus. A candidate is usually only able to receive a share of a state’s pledged delegates if they win at least 15% of the vote in that state’s primary. Since 2012, the number pledged DNC delegates allocated to all fifty states and D.C. is based on two factors, similar to GOP rules: the proportion of votes each state gave to the Democratic candidate in the last three presidential elections, and the number of electoral votes the state has in the College.
The first step in their formula adds the three last Democratic statewide vote margins and divides them by the national Democratic vote total for the last three elections. That number is then added to the quotient of the state’s electoral votes divided by 538, the total number of votes in the College. That sum is halved and then multiplied by what official DNC rules call an “allocation factor.” The factor is 3,200, the base against which all delegates for the fifty states and D.C. are held to ensure equal weight is given based on the formula. Percentages are rounded to the nearest integer.
This final product is considered a jurisdiction’s base delegation.
At-Large Delegates: These are pledged delegates who are elected at the stateside level. A jurisdiction’s number of at-large delegations is determined by its base delegation multiplied by 0.25.
District Delegates: These delegates are elected often at the congressional district level, but can be elected at the state or territory legislative district level. A jurisdiction’s number of district delegates can be determined by subtracting its at-large delegates from its base delegation.
Pledged PLEO Delegates: Party Leaders and Elected Officials (PLEO) within the state makeup this category of delegates, also called add-on delegates. A jurisdiction’s number of PLEO Delegates is determined by the base delegation multiplied by 0.15.
Territorial Delegates: Since the five territories do not receive electoral votes, four – Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands – are instead given a fixed amount of pledged delegates.
Puerto Rico: Puerto Rico receives base delegates but then faces the same math as the fifty states and D.C. do regarding at-large, district, and PLEO delegates.
Bonus Delegates – Timing and Clustering
Unlike the GOP, which awards bonus delegates based on congressional and statewide electoral success, the Democratic Party awards bonus delegates based on two factors: timing and clustering.
Timing stages are divided into three stages. Timing Stage One includes any primary/caucus held before April. Timing Stage Two includes the month of April entirely. Timing Stage Three includes May and June. If a contest is held during Stage One, it receives no bonus delegates. Holding a contest in April nets a jurisdiction a 10% increase in delegates. If a state holds its contest in May or June, it receives a 30% increase.
The purpose of the timing criterion allows states voting later in the season to have more electoral clout, even if a candidate has captured a majority of delegates to become the party’s presumptive nominee. The logic is that a spot on the calendar, which may or may not be an arbitrary decision, should still have weight when it comes down to a tight race. Assuming a candidate has not wrapped up a majority of pledged delegates by the end of April, which is unusual, the states slated to conduct party business later in the spring have much more influence.
The clustering criterion incentivizes states to work together to boost their bonus delegates. Clustering consists of three or more neighboring states holding contests concurrently. If a state is involved in a cluster, it receives a 15% increase in bonus delegates.
However, the benefits of clustering and timing can be stacked, allowing states to maximize the number of bonus delegates they can receive.
If a state is involved in a cluster and holds its primary in April (Timing Stage Two), it receives a 25% increase in delegates. For a state clustering and holding its content in Timing State Three, it receives a 35% increase in delegates.
Superdelegates
Perhaps the most well-known, and somewhat controversial, aspect unique to the DNC is that of superdelegates, also known as automatic delegates: an unpledged delegate to the convention who is automatically seated and has complete freedom for whom they cast their vote. These delegates are primarily composed of the aforementioned PLEOs (Party Leaders and Elected Officials). With 3,949 pledged delegates, 747 superdelegates makes up a whopping 4,696 delegates to the DNC.
Superdelegates can be filed into four categories: elected members of the Democratic National Committee; Democratic governors, including territorial governors and the Mayor of D.C.; Democratic members of Congress, including non-voting House delegates from the territories and D.C.’s shadow senators; and distinguished party leaders, which can consist of sitting or former presidents, vice presidents, congressional leaders, and DNC chairs.
While superdelegates have traditionally been able to support any candidate they chose, the 2018 Democratic Conventions brought about a massive rule change: superdelegates cannot vote on the first ballot at the nominating convention, relegating them to contested conventions.
Contested conventions occur when no candidate receives a majority of the delegates on the first ballot. Not only does this significantly increase the power of political power brokers and the stakeholders flush with checks made out to the campaign of their choice, but it also unbenches the superdelegates. With 747 at this year’s conventions, this number can make a massive difference in the roll call, especially if the rest of the party is nearly evenly-divided between two candidates.
Democrats Abroad
Another unique facet of the DNC is the Democrats Abroad organization and its respective primary. The organization has members in 197 countries and 48 organized country chapters. Since 1976, Democrats Abroad has sent a delegation to the DNC every four years. The organization gets twelve at-large delegations and one pledged PLEO.
Republicans Abroad operated with a similar purpose until 2013, when Republicans Overseas took its place as a spiritual successor. Neither organization has sent a delegation to the RNC.
Roll Call
Joe Biden won fifty-six contests, 3,905 delegates, and 14 million votes. The “Uncommitted” ballot option was active in multiple states, mostly as a protest vote against Biden for his stances on the Israel-Gaza War. The option took large portions of the electorates in Michigan and Minnesota, states with large Arab populations, signaling early schisms within the Democratic establishment going into November. The option won no contests, but took thirty-seven delegates and more than 700,000 votes.
Congressman Dean Phillips (D, MN-03) took no contests and only four delegates, capturing almost 530,000 votes nationwide.
Dark horse candidate Jason Palmer (D-MD) campaigned heavily, albeit virtually, in American Samoa, allowing him to win that contest and three delegates, despite taking in just under 21,000 votes nationwide. Palmer made Biden the first incumbent president to lose a primary/caucus contest since Jimmy Carter (D-GA) in 1980.
So far, Vice President Harris appears to have secured enough delegates to win the nomination on the first round, which would avoid a contested convention and would keep the superdelegates on the bench.
