Delegate-hunting can be a mathematical challenge, but it all adds up
4:20 p.m. Monday, February 4, 2008
More than the number of hands they shake, more than the number of babies they kiss, the number presidential candidates are really focused on is the number of delegates they can win.
"We're watching the delegate count very closely and want to be able to rack 'em up," said GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Delegates are the people who -- at the national political conventions this summer -- will collectively choose their party's nominee for president. They're chosen on the state level as the result of voting in primary elections or in caucuses held in through the state.
So far, the system sounds simple enough, but political experts say it's not.
"No one really is in control of this system, unfortunately," said Christopher Arterton, Dean George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management.
The rules are set by political parties and state governments -- not the federal government. And, the two leading parties in the U.S. -- Republicans and Democrats -- do it differently for historical reasons.
To win the party nomination, a candidate needs to capture half the party's delegates. For Democrats, the magic number is 2,025. For Republicans, it is 1,191. How do they do the math? Democrats use a proportional method. For example, if ten delegates are being elected and a candidate gets approximately 60 percent of the vote, he or she gets six delegates.
Republicans leave it up to the individual states, which can use either a proportional method or winner-take-all.
The candidate with the most votes in a district wins all of its delegates.
Both parties have so-called "pledged" delegates. They're supposed to vote for a particular candidate, but they don't have to.
"And then, sorry, just to make it a little more complicated, there are yet another set of delegates that are added in that are called "super delegates," Arterton said.
"Super delegates" are usually political office holders or party chairmen, and they can vote pretty much as they want. It's the candidates' job to woo them. This complex system can yield some strange results: A candidate could win a majority of states and still end up not winning as many delegates as the other candidate.
And this year, more than ever before, the race to the White House will be won district-by-district, delegate-by-delegate.
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