Hold tight — primary season is in full effect.
Still with me? Scroll over the map below to get a sense of the primary/caucus schedule, the crucial primary days and which states matter most in the nominating contest. Note that same states have Democratic and Republican contests on different days, and for these states, the map corresponds to the first date.
The magic numbers: to win the nomination, a candidate needs to win just over half his or her parties delegates. For Democrats, that amounts to 2,382 delegates. For Republicans, it’s 1,237 delegates.
The number of delegates in each state is based primarily on the size of its population. In most states, delegates are allocated proportionately based on the results of the primary or caucus (although in a handful of states, like Florida, the Republican primary is winner-take-all contest).
This means that, unless the race remains incredibly close into the late spring, each party’s nomination is generally secured long before a good number of states even get to vote. The staggered nature of this system affords candidates the luxury of focusing resources on specific areas of the country rather than trying to be everywhere at once.
However, it’s also somewhat controversial, in that millions of voters in late-primary states — including California, the largest state, which holds its primary in June — don’t get to directly participate in the outcome of their party’s nomination. Opponents of the process argue that this gives undue influence to small, largely white, rural early-voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire. And that can result in nominees who don’t necessarily represent the preferences of the larger U.S. electorate.
Note that most delegates are “pledged,” meaning they are mandated to support a particular candidate at their party’s national convention in July. However, just to make things all the more confusing, each party also has a certain number of “superdelegates” who can support whoever they damn well please.
Last thing: a primary or caucus is considered “closed” when participation is limited to only registered members of that party, “open” when participation is open to all registered voters, and “mixed” when independent voters are allowed to participate.