What are ‘delegates’ and why do they get to pick US presidential candidates?

Not so long ago, when most attention paid to the US presidential race was focused on running-mate selection, polling, or even a previously unexplained bear fatality, the winner of American Samoa’s Democratic primary made an announcement.

Jason Palmer had handed Joe Biden his only primary-season defeat in the US territory (really). The reward: three delegates to the party’s national nominating convention, a tiny drop in a vast pool of thousands of other crucial middlemen. When Biden later exited the race, after all, it was up to these people to decide whether Kamala Harris was the best possible replacement.

Palmer said he was releasing his trio of delegates and encouraging them to back Harris. A sufficient number of Biden’s pledged delegates have now made the same decision; they’ll certify it with a “celebratory” roll call at the party’s convention next week. Republican delegates made Donald Trump’s nomination official at their convention last month.

US presidential elections begin with a series of winnowing events for both major political parties in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and a handful of territories. They vary in terms of procedure and drama, but each ends up awarding delegates – who commit, in turn, to the elevation of a particular candidate when it really matters (at national conventions).

“Encouraging” was an important bit of phrasing in Palmer’s statement, though. The only real party requirement spelled out for Democratic delegates is that they reflect the sentiments of those who elect them “in all good conscience,” whatever that means. A surprising amount of agency flows through their ranks.

So, who are they?

Many are politically active people with day jobs, city administrators, or state legislators. The Democratic roster includes “superdelegates” like Barack Obama, but also an art teacher and a massage therapist. The Republican fold includes Donald Trump Jr., as well as a county sheriff and a real estate broker.

The bulk of lesser-known delegates are explicitly “pledged” (Democrats’ term) or “bound” (Republican lingo) to endorse a candidate.

The process of choosing these people is a lot more transparent now. The roles used to be doled out by party bosses, through deals made in back rooms “dense with the smoke of cheap cigars.” Those bosses would then have full command of delegates at all times, including when they nominated a candidate at the convention – a murky process based on handshakes and political horse trading.

In the first half of the 20^th century, state presidential primary elections became a more available means for aspiring candidates to maneuver around parties and appeal directly to voters. But they usually didn’t amount to much more than a beauty contest; good for raising a national profile, but only indirectly related to delegates' selection of the person who would ultimately run for president in the general election. Only 16 primaries were held in 1960.

Then came the trauma of the 1968 Democratic Convention.

The incumbent Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson, had announced he wouldn’t seek re-election. Robert F. Kennedy, a popular Democratic candidate opposing Johnson’s pursuit of a war in Viet Nam, had been assassinated – so what would his pledged delegates do? The party’s preferred candidate, Hubert Humphrey, hadn’t managed to stake out a clear position on the war, or even participate in whatever primaries existed at that point. Back-room dealmaking was in full swing.

Tensions burst in the convention hall, and there was bloodshed on the streets outside.

Reforms enacted in response to the 1968 debacle were meant to inject more transparency into delegate selection, and directly engage more average voters in the process. The number of states with Democratic primaries increased by 135% between 1968 and 2000; the states with Republican primaries increased by 169%.

Delegates are still party-vetted intermediaries, but show up with clearly stated candidate preferences – and are divvied up based on how their candidates fare. Democrats apply a proportional method, so the number of delegates awarded to a candidate is tied to the percentage of the vote the candidate wins in a primary. Republicans use a headache-inducing mix of methods including versions of winner-take-all.

Nearly half of the states hold “open” primaries, where any voter can participate regardless of stated party affiliation. There are also some states where parties opt instead to hold caucuses, which are more like big get-togethers at which a candidate might be expected to demonstrate an ability to grill steaks (they are increasingly unfashionable). The variation in rules and formats is dizzying. Even post-reform, the patchwork process of awarding delegates has been called opaque and incoherent.

The Democrats may have the “good conscience” rule, but some states have mechanisms that compel delegates to stick to a pledged candidate. And while Republican delegates don’t have even the glimmer of independence the rule provides, members of that party have argued its delegates can actually nominate whomever they want – one party official wrote an entire book about it.

That’s a lot of moving parts and uncertainties. It’s a system that seeks to balance the active participation one might expect in a healthy democracy, with the discipline needed to keep that democracy functioning.

“Functioning” was probably not a word used much to describe the 1924 Democratic Convention while it was underway. More than 100 ballots were held over 16 tumultuous days in New York. The gavel used to bring delegates to order had to be banged so often that it eventually fell apart.

It was an archetypal “contested” convention – no certainty about what delegates would decide going in, and a lot of bad feelings and recrimination when it was over.

The 1968 event was an even more unpleasant example of a contested process. The jostling over candidates was troubling, and so were efforts to reach consensus on a platform – the distillation of beliefs normally adopted at conventions.

Like this year’s Democratic convention, the 1968 event was held in Chicago. This year’s preferred nominee didn't participate in any primaries, as in 1968. There’s also yet another war underway that’s divided delegates, setting up a potential fight over related language to insert in the platform (thankfully, experts think the similarities will pretty much end there).

Republican delegates stirred up their own ill-fated rebellion at the party's 2016 convention, to demonstrate discontent with the nominee. Most of the members of the Colorado delegation walked out.

That same year, a clash over awarding Democratic delegates in Nevada led to chaos and a change of procedures. Someone menacingly picked up a chair during the fracas, according to one account, “but he put it down and everyone gave him a hug.”

Democracy is messy, and exhausting.

But one of its strong points is that as long as the institutions supporting it are vigilantly maintained, it can always be workshopped – in ways that will at least limit the influence of smoke-filled rooms.

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