State Primary Question?

Question

How do candidates get dominate in their party? do they had to has most states win or votes?

how about california, any date of vote or deadline?

Answer 1

In the primaries and caucuses delegates are selected for the National conventions, Democrat and Republican. These delegates are pledged to a particular candidate, and will generally vote for that candidate in the first round of voting at the convention.

However, when candidates drop out of the race their delegates may vote for whoever they wish.

After the first round of voting delegates can also vote as they wish. Each state delegation has its own way of deciding things, also.

Conventions are sometimes hotly contested, but more often they are already decided at the time they begin as to who the nominee will be.

Answer 2

Candidates get nominated by winning the most delegates.

Generally speaking, both parties elect delegates based on results at two levels -- the Congressional District level and the State level. To use California as an example (since you noted it), California has 53 Congressional Districts. The results in each Congressional District will determine some delegates. Likewise, the state-wide result will determine another batch of delegates.

For the most part, Republicans tend to use a winner-take-all system. Thus, the candidate who finishes first in California's first Congressional District will get all of that District's delegates (for the Republicans that would be 3 delegates). Likewise, the candidate who finishes first in California will get all of the state-wide delegates (based on my understanding of the current balance of the two parties in California, that is probably 11 delegates). Thus one candidate might get 59 delegates (11 for winning statewide and 48 for winning 16 districts), another candidate might pick up 51 delegates for winning 17 districts, a third candidate might pick up 45 for winning 15 districts, and a fourth candidate might get 15 for winning the last 5 districts.

The Republicans assign 3 delegates to each congressional district and 10 delegates as the "base" state delegation. They then add on extra state delegates for things like having a Republican Governor, a Republican U.S. Senator, a majority Republican Congressional Delegation, majority in a state house, having voted for the last Republican Presidential nominee, etc.

The Democrats use a proportional representation system. That same Congressional District will have between 4 and 7 delegates to the Democratic Convention (depending on the democratic vote for President in 2000 and 2004). Those delegates will be split between all candidates who finish over 15% in the District. A similar thing will happen with the state level delegates.

It should be noted that these delegates are merely pledged to a certain candidate. They are not bound by the party rules in either party to vote as they are pledged. Barring a major scandal or being released by a candidate who has withdrawn from the race, the delegates do tend to vote as they are pledged.

As far as California as the timing in California is concerned, the primary is scheduled for February 5th. I believe that the deadline for the Secretary of State adding or removing candidates from the list is some time in the next week or two, but it has been some time since I last checked that website.