UNDERSTANDING THE U.S. REPUBLICAN PARTY PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES AND CAUCUSES

The Republican Party presidential primaries and caucuses are indirect elections in which voters cast ballots for a slate of delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention. There are 2,470 delegates. To be a party nominee, a candidate must have 50 percent plus 1 of the delegates- 1,236 delegates- to win. Depending on each state's law and each state's party rules, when voters cast ballots for a candidate, they may be voting to directly award delegates bound to vote for a particular candidate at the state or national convention (binding primary or caucus), or they may simply be expressing an opinion that the state party is not bound to follow in selecting delegates to the national convention (non-binding primary or caucus).

Under the party's delegate selection rules, the number of pledged delegates allocated to each of the 50 U.S. states is 10, plus three delegates for each congressional district. For Washington D.C.; and the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Marian Islands, fixed numbers of pledged delegates are allocated. Each state and U.S territory will be awarded bonus pledged delegates based on whether it has a Republican governor, it has Republican majorities in one or all chambers of its state legislature, and whether it has Republican majorities in its delegation to the U.S. Congress, among other factors. A state or territory may then either use a winner-take-all system, wherein the candidate that wins a plurality of votes wins all of that state's allocated pledged delegates; or use a proportional representation system, where the delegates are awarded proportionally to the election results.

Unpledged delegates will include three top party officials from each state and territory.

The Republican National Committee has imposed strict new rules for states wishing to hold early contests in 2016. Under these rules, no state will be permitted to hold a primary or caucus in January; and only Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada are entitled to February contests. States with early-March primaries or caucuses must award their delegates proportionally. Any state that violates these rules will have their delegation to the 2016 Convention severely cut: states with more than 30 delegates will be deprived of all but nine, plus RNC members from that state; states with less than 30 will be reduced to six, plus RNC members.

Every one of these delegates is hard-won, and each state’s rules are a little different. The race is wide open.

Trump, for example, has to build a state-of-the-art campaign if he wants to continue to do well and have the possibility of winning the nomination. This is not a reality show. It is a modern, multimillion-dollar campaign with social media, sophisticated, up-to-the-minute positive and negative television spots, policy-development research, opposition research, grass-roots organization, full-scale legal consultation, coalition building and a structured campaign in most of the 50 states.

Trump has said that he will spend a billion dollars to win. That sum will guarantee no one will out-spend him. But he needs to build a grass-roots campaign with volunteers. You never have enough volunteers in places like Iowa and New Hampshire. The Iowa caucus is a giant organizational effort in which the winner may need as much the free help as he can get to win. And then the follow-up to win the 99 county conventions — and eventually the state convention held many months later.

The contests in each state are conducted under that state party’s rules. There is also continual oversight from the Republican National Party’s committee rules.

Just to show you the complexity here. There are, for example, 11 states with a winner-take-all provision. Whoever gets the most votes gets all the delegates. A little more than 25 percent of all delegates (668) are decided this way. Take Florida. You get the most votes in Florida, you get all its 99 delegates. The battle should be fierce between the state’s current senator, Marco Rubio, its former governor, Jeb Bush, and maybe Trump.

Ten states assign their delegates proportionally. Meaning a candidate gets a proportion of the delegates depending on how well he or she does. A total of 447 delegates are chosen this way.

Meanwhile, there are 17 states that use a caucus and convention to choose delegates. Iowa is such a state. Even though it’s the first caucus, the convention is held months later — and no one selected in the caucus is bound to his or her candidate.

The other states have combinations or other methods entirely. The bottom line is, you better know all the rules and have state and local talent available to help you through the process.

The oldest rule in politics is: When your momentum catches up with your lack of organization, you’re doomed to failure.

Calendar

1 February: Iowa (Caucuses)

9 February: New Hampshire (Primary)

20 February: South Caraolina (Primary), Washington (Caucuses)