It’s another Sunday, so for those who tune in, welcome to a diary discussing the Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic Campaign. If you’ve missed out, you can catch up anytime: Just visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide. Every week I try to tackle issues I’ve been asked about, and with the help of other campaign workers and notes, we tackle how to improve and build better campaigns or explain issues that impact our party.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve received a lot of questions—and I’ve seen a few answers by press sources—about what happens next in regard to delegates chosen through the primary process. Some of the solutions being proposed to “improve” the process would, in the end, run contrary to our Democratic values. The topics have included proposals for winner-take-all states and bound delegates, and the history of our party.
Want to know more? Let’s look into the Nuts & Bolts of how and why the party has the system we do right now.
Republicans do winner-take-all. Why doesn’t the Democratic Party?
One of the questions I see come up frequently is, Why does the Democratic Party commit to a district-by-district method in our delegate plan instead of allowing for a winner-take-all plan? Why do we do it this way? The answer is rooted in history, some of which I’ll handle later in a much longer piece on the role of minority communities in the shaping of our convention and rules. To jump to the end of it, though, it is to make sure any given community is not forced to vote for a candidate it does not believe in, and that the voices of a given congressional district are not silenced because of the vote count across an entire state.
Imagine it this way: Missouri has two large metro areas, Kansas City and St. Louis. Those two areas have large minority communities, especially in comparison to the rest of the state. In a winner-take-all contest, minority communities would find their voices limited, if not silenced, at a convention.
This is something that the party works directly to avoid, to make sure that all voices have a chance to be heard, and that the final vote is a true representation of a state’s will.
What happens to delegates won by a candidate who drops out?
Another of the party’s rules states that delegates are never bound to a candidate. They are free to vote their beliefs. Let’s say you started out a delegate for candidate A and, before the Democratic National Convention, something disqualifying A comes out. You are perfectly free to switch. This is why it is more than likely that delegates for candidates who have dropped out, especially in states where delegates to the national convention have not yet been chosen, are likely to go in voting for another candidate even on the first ballot.
From an email sent by the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee:
Finally, it should be noted that pledged delegates to the Democratic Convention are not legally “bound” to vote for the candidate for whom they were elected. Rather, they are "pledged in all good conscience [to] reflect the sentiments of those who elected them." [Rule 12.J] Under Democratic rules, delegates are always able to vote for their candidate of choice. Because presidential campaigns have the right to review and approve delegate candidates prior to their selection, delegates generally do remain committed to vote for their preferred candidate as long as their candidate is still viable. In cases where a candidate asks his/her delegates to support another candidate, or where a candidate who has accrued delegates drops out -- it is the delegate’s prerogative to either follow the candidate’s request or to vote for the candidate of their choice.
So, in a case in which, say, Mayor Pete Buttigieg or Sen. Amy Klobuchar drops out of the presidential primary and asks their supporters to back Vice President Joe Biden, those delegates could choose to vote for Biden on the first ballot, or they could vote for any other candidate they wished to.
What about unpledged delegates?
With the Unity Reforms to the Democratic Party’s nominating process adopted in 2018, there have been changes made to how we handle unpledged delegates. The email from the DNC notes,
Approximately 84% of the convention delegates are elected based on presidential
preference and are referred to as “pledged delegates.” The remaining convention
delegates are referred to as “automatic delegates.” This category of delegates includes Democratic governors, Democratic U.S. senators, Democratic members of Congress, Democratic National Committee members and a small number of distinguished former Party officials. Automatic delegates serve as delegates because of a position they hold, rather than who they support for president.
At the conclusion of the delegate selection process, after all the delegates have been
certified to the DNC Secretary, the Secretary will announce how many pledged
delegates were elected and certified for each presidential candidate. Part of that
announcement will include the Secretary’s determination of whether only pledged
delegates will vote on the “first ballot” for president, or whether the number of
delegates certified as pledged to a presidential candidate is “equal to a majority of all
pledged and automatic delegates” in which case automatic delegates will also vote on the first ballot.
The task confronting the party is always the same: What can we do to win in November? This is about making our party more inclusive, more representative of the people who vote for Democratic candidates, and more supportive of our candidates at all levels. One of the things I find most valuable about Nuts & Bolts is that I can learn something and then pass it on. When we can do that, we make others around us better Democratic voters. Sowing doubt and distrust in an internal fight is a great way to turn off Democratic voters. The better prepared we are to explain our processes to new and seasoned Democratic voters, the better off we are going into an election.
Next week: Building the democratic platform