Democratic Convention Rules [View all]

[uawchild]

The 2020 Democratic presidential nominee will be selected by delegates to the Democratic National Convention, which will be held July 13-16, 2020, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The national nominating convention is the formal ceremony during which the party officially selects its nominee. The delegates are individuals chosen to represent their state or territory at the convention.

In 2020, there will be an estimated 4,532 delegates: 3,768 pledged delegates and 764 automatic delegates—more commonly known as superdelegates.[1]

To win the Democratic nomination, a presidential candidate must receive support from a majority of the pledged delegates on the first ballot—an estimated 1,885 pledged delegates. If the convention is contested and goes to a second ballot or more, automatic delegates will be able to vote and a candidate must receive majority support from all delegates—an estimated 2,267 delegates.[2] Roughly two-thirds of the delegates will have been allocated by the end of March 2020.

This page provides an overview of the types of delegates to the convention and a summary of delegates by state. Election dates, delegate counts, delegate allocation rules are subject to change as each state finalizes its delegation selection process.

https://ballotpedia.org/Democratic_delegate_rules,_2020

Let me make sure I understand this correctly....

On the FIRST BALLOT the delegates are pledged to vote initially for a specific candidate OR had to explicitly be pledge to be uncommitted before hand. If someone has a majority, they are the nominee.

On subsequent ballots the previously pledged delegates are free to change who they vote for. So supporters of different candidates can change their votes and give a majority to another candidate.

I know it's a simplistic question, but I really want to be absolutely clear on how the process works.

It might very well turn out that this year, with so many good people in the race, that no candidate will win the nomination on the first ballot. So, it could turn out that a candidate with the single most number of delegates on the first ballot (say 35% for example) might not end up winning the nomination if the remaining delegates get behind another single candidate.

Woah. This could get very interesting.

Thanks!