As you may not have noticed, we now have 17 candidates for the Republican nomination for president. The Democrats have 6 likely candidates, but for most they assume Hilary Clinton will be the nominee. I encourage you to visit realclearpolitics.com to see the latest polling and information on both nominations. I also encourage people to use the site ISideWith.com to help see where they match up with candidates on the issues.
Starting early next year the democrat and republican parties will be holding primaries or caucuses in each state to determine who will be the nominee for their party. Now, officially you are selecting delegates for your party from your state during the caucus/primary who will go to the party's national convention. Normally, however there are enough delegates which go to one candidate that the nomination is settled far before the national convention.
You may be wondering what the difference between a primary and a caucus is. In presidential nomination campaigns, a caucus is a system of local gatherings where voters decide which candidate to support and select delegates for nominating conventions. Often these gatherings will be very noisy and can last for hours. People will make cases for their candidates and try to sway voters. Eventually a system of voting commences but it is not secret ballot, your vote is known. Some caucuses will have those who support a candidate stand all together and count the numbers from each group.
A primary is a statewide voting process in which voters cast secret ballots for their preferred candidates similar to how we vote for most candidates in a general election. In most states the candidate with the most votes receives all the delegates from that state, however some states will divide them based upon percentage of votes received.
If you aren't bored out of your scull think of it this way. You're in a huge high school, you might not know everyone there so how do people decide on who should be the Homecoming king. Each classroom is given a vote on who they think should be Homecoming King. Since this is such a massive high school though, instead you decide to pick a few people from each class who really like the person they nominate. They then go to the gym and a vote is held. They aren't forced to vote for that person, but it is very likely that they will.
There are also a few other delegates as well who are deemed super delegates. These are party elders such as sitting members of Congress, former presidents and such. They make up approximately 20% of all delegates at the convention. This is to ensure the party's platform represents core values of the party.
Because of the schedule and the general momentum a front-runner gains, normally only the first month and a half of primaries really matter. This means that states like California, with it's massive population will have little impact on the nomination, and most likely the nomination will be considered settled before it even reaches Ohio in March. Officially the nominee is determined by a candidate receiving a majority of delegates votes at the convention. However when a candidate receives a majority of delegates from the states they then become the presumptive nominee.
What does this mean? In almost every case for last half a century, it means that a candidate who enters the race late, or doesn't gain enough national attention or support by February 1st has little to no chance to win the nomination.
Certain states have firm laws on their primary dates. New Hampshire's law states that their primary must be the first in the nation. Iowa's caucus is always the first caucus in the nation. These first states have a massive impact on the nomination process. There are many who don't agree with the amount of power this affords these two states in comparison to the rest of the country in deciding the future of the country.
If you are still confused this video does a good job of explaining it:
The schedule for primaries and caucuses in 2016 for each state are as follows:
Monday, February 1 Iowa caucus
Tuesday, February 9 New Hampshire
Saturday, February 20 South Carolina
Tuesday, February 23 Nevada caucus
Tuesday, March 1(Also known as Super Tuesday) Alabama Arkansas Colorado caucuses Georgia Massachusetts Minnesota caucuses North Carolina Oklahoma Tennessee Texas Vermont Virginia
Saturday, March 5 Louisiana Nebraska (Dem caucus)
Tuesday, March 8 Hawaii caucus (GOP) Mississippi Michigan
Sunday, March 13 Puerto Rico (GOP)
Tuesday, March 15 Ohio Florida Illinois Missouri
Tuesday, March 22 Arizona Utah
Saturday, March 26 Hawaii caucus (Dems)
Tuesday, April 5 Wisconsin
Tuesday, April 26 Connecticut Delaware Maryland Pennsylvania Rhode Island
Tuesday, May 3 Indiana
Tuesday, May 10 Nebraska (GOP primary) West Virginia
Tuesday, May 17 KentuckyOregon
Sunday, June 5 Puerto Rico (Dem)
Tuesday, June 7 California Montana New Jersey New Mexico South Dakota
Tuesday, June 14 Washington, DC
States with no firm dates:
New York North Dakota Utah Colorado Idaho Kansas Maine Washington Wyoming
