How Does One Become a Democratic Delegate Anyway?

Monday’s Democratic Convention basically accomplished what the party had hoped for. But there was an important exception: noisy interruptions from some in the audience, including several delegates, marred the picture of party unity. Not surprisingly, the media, used to entirely stage managed conventions with nothing but stand-and-clap delegates, focused on the disruptions and what they meant. But maybe they shouldn’t have – at least not as much. This convention is different because the factors that drove the Sanders campaign are different and thus his delegates are different.

 To see why that is, it is important to understand the rules of how delegates are chosen. As we have said before, delegates are chosen based on the proportion of the vote a candidate received in something on the order of 500 distinct contests. Once the allocations have been made, the campaigns are allowed to select the actual people who will be a delegates, screening for loyalty and other factors. One caveat is that the campaigns cannot choose just one person for each position. (Some states elect delegates directly listing their names on the ballot, which is another matter altogether.) Here’s an example of how delegate selection after the vote can work. The Massachusetts 4^th Congressional District had six delegates. Sanders won three, Clinton won three. The party held two caucuses at the same time to elect delegates to the national convention, each caucus attended by loyal supporters of their candidate. Over 130,000 people voted in the Massachusetts primary, but a much smaller number voted for the actual delegates. As few as 50 people could attend a caucus to choose delegates.

For Sanders, selecting delegates was a particular challenge. A lot of the people who are chosen to be delegates to the convention are long time party people: people who have been delegates in the past; people who serve in party organizations or work for party-backed politicians. The pool of such people supporting Sanders was incredibly small. Sanders probably had 10 real Congressional endorsers, and maybe 100 or so state legislative endorsements nationwide. This left a very small pool of traditional delegate types for Sanders. He required unconventional delegates. Plus, in competing for these slots, strong support for Bernie Sanders was much more likely to win a delegate a slot than experience or a willingness to be reasonable. Revolutionaries do not see themselves as reasonable.  

It was also notable that California’s Sanders delegation proved to be one of the most disruptive.  California chose its delegates entirely after the election was over. Who would want to want to fly cross country knowing you are going to lose, especially when going to the convention wasn’t seen as a networking opportunity for partisans or operators? Only the most committed of the committed Sanders supporters. Those are Bernie’s California delegates.  

Given all these factors, it was exceptionally unlikely that the Sanders campaign would be able to choose delegates who would be able to stay under control. In fact, someone Sanders selected to be on the platform committee defected to the Green Party’s Jill Stein.  

But one should not assume Bernie delegates are representative of ordinary Bernie primary voters; the amount of effort and therefore commitment required to be a delegate is massive compared to what it takes to simply vote. Where Bernie supporters go will be an important aspect of this election. Yet, it is clear that the angriest, overly passionate supporters were much more likely to be delegates and that Sanders was never going to be able to control them entirely. That is not how self-styled revolutions work. 

Of the 13 millions Sanders voters in the primaries, in the end about 10 million will vote for Clinton, maybe one million for Trump, and the rest either will not vote or vote for a third party.  Sanders has about 1900 delegates at the convention. If 200 or so are making noise (which seems to be the case) that falls into line with these predictions. 

This should be a concern for the Democratic team, but the press should understand it for what it is and not blow it out of proportion. Many Sanders people did not start as Democrats and  may not end up as Democrats, but that does not automatically change the contours of the race.