Can someone simplify for me if they don't mind in a paragraph or two how delegates are distributed in Iowa and NH. Is it based on counties? What place you come in? ect.
I've got some explanations in
my thread, but a quick explanation:
Iowa - RPeople show up to the caucuses, they vote in a straw poll; the results of this straw poll are reported to the media. Delegates are doled out proportional to the vote share each candidate got, so if Trump gets a third of the vote, he'll get roughly a third of the delegates, up to rounding. There's essentially no cutoff, so anyone placing above 2% or so is likely to get a delegate out of the state.
Iowa - DNow, this is a weird one. At the caucuses, people elect delegates to County Conventions, to be held later in the month. At those conventions, they elect delegates to Congressional District and State Conventions, and it's only that third stage that actually chooses the delegates to the National Conventions. At each stage, the number of delegates each candidate is given is proportional to the vote share each candidate got, with a 15% threshold (i.e. this means O'Malley, barring a weird late surge, is cut out; his voters will get a chance to caucus for someone else if they like). We won't technically know the delegate counts until June, but we should have a good estimate by the morning after the caucuses.
Due to the complicated process (and the fact that there isn't a straw poll), what's actually reported to the media is a bit odd. Basically, it's an official estimate (by the Iowa Democratic Party) of the number of delegates each candidate would be entitled to at the State Convention, based on the results. Essentially, think of it as an Electoral College-like system. Each county has a certain number of "electoral votes", based on its population and past support for Democratic candidates. Note that this means an abnormally high turnout in one county won't actually help the winning candidate there as much as you'd expect. The "electoral vote" of each county doled out (roughly) proportionally to the vote share each candidate got in the county, except that candidates routinely placing below 15% in many precincts (i.e. O'Malley) are likely to be wiped out entirely. Since this is basically a two-man race, the number of delegates each candidate is likely to receive to the National Convention is going to be essentially proportional to the "vote" share the media will report.
New Hampshire - RDelegates are awarded proportional to vote share among all candidates who get 10% or more of the vote. Any delegates not assigned by this method (as is likely to happen if there are many candidates who get less than 10% of the vote, as seems probable this year) are assigned to the overall winner. So the winner in New Hampshire is likely to get a nice bonus of a few delegates.
In 2012, for example, Gingrich and Santorum both placed just under 10% in New Hampshire, so their votes effectively (for the purposes of delegate distribution) counted for Romney, who won 58% of the delegates on a 39% vote share.
New Hampshire - D
Delegates are awarded proportionally among candidates receiving 15% or more of the vote in the primary.
I'm glossing over the fact that on the Democratic side, delegates are awarded both on the basis of Congressional District and At-Large (in fact, 2 categories of At-Large, for arcane reasons)--this will effectively show up as weird rounding effects in the overall result, though these can really add up over the long term.
