Iowa 101

The Iowa caucuses do not result directly in national delegates for candidates the way that the primaries do. Instead, caucus-goers elect delegates to county conventions, who elect delegates to district and state conventions where the national convention delegates are selected. The following applies to Dems only.

Jan 3: Iowa caucus-goers gather at local precincts and do the caucus thing, after which the first ballot is cast (a blank sheet of paper). Inviable candidates (those receiving less than 15% of the vote) are weeded out by a second ballot wherein supporters of inviable candidates are required to make a second choice. Precinct delegates are then chosen to the county conventions, allocated in proportion to the percentage of support received by each candidate after the last ballot.

March 26: County conventions convene and choose their delegates to both their respective Congressional District Conventions AND the Iowa State Democratic Convention. Each presidential contender receives a number of the county's delegates to the District/State Convention in proportion to the number of County Convention delegates supporting their candidate.

April 26: Congressional District Conventions convene to choose delegates to the Democratic National Convention. 29 district delegates are allocated in proportion to the number of District Convention delegates supporting a viable candidate. Congressional districts 1-4 in Iowa are given 6 delegates and IA-5 is given 5. Thus, the district convention is the first time that DNC delegates are officially allocated to candidates.

June 14: The IA State Democratic Convention chooses 16 of Iowa's pledged DNC delegates based on statewide support: 10 At-large National Convention delegates and 6 pledged PLEOs. The remaining 12 delegates - 11 PLEOs plus 1 additional delegate - are officially unpledged.

29 district delegates + 16 pledged state delegates + 12 unpledged state delegates = 57

Aug 25-28: DNC Denver!