COLORADO
Election type: primary
Date: March 3
Number of delegates: 79 [14 at-large, 9 PLEOs, 44 congressional district, 12 automatic/superdelegates]
Allocation method: proportional statewide and at the congressional district level
Threshold to qualify for delegates: 15%
2016: proportional caucuses
Delegate selection plan
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Changes since 2016
If one followed the 2016 series on the Republican process here at FHQ, then you may end up somewhat disappointed. The two national parties manage the presidential nomination process differently. The Republican National Committee is much less hands-on in regulating state and state party activity in the delegate selection process than the Democratic National Committee is. That leads to a lot of variation from state to state and from cycle to cycle on the Republican side. Meanwhile, the DNC is much more top down in its approach. Thresholds stay the same. It is a 15 percent barrier that candidates must cross in order to qualify for delegates. That is standard across all states. The allocation of delegates is roughly proportional. Again, that is applied to every state.
That does not mean there are no changes. The calendar has changed as have other facets of the process such as whether a state has a primary or a caucus.
While the position of the Colorado delegate selection event did not change between 2016 and 2020, the mode of delegate selection did. Colorado voters in 2016 passed a ballot initiative to bring a presidential primary back to the Centennial state for the first time since the 2000 cycle. And although the change granted the governor the ability to set the date of the contest for one of the first three Tuesdays of March, Governor Polis ultimately opted to slot the Colorado primary into Super Tuesday. That caucus-to-primary shift actually preceded the move by the DNC to encourage such changes for the 2020 cycle. Nonetheless, Colorado is one of the 11 states that made the change for 2020.
The other quirk in the newly re-etablished Colorado presidential primary is that the process works via vote-by-mail. Democratic registrants are mailed a Democratic ballot, while unaffiliated voters -- who are allowed to participate -- are mailed both a Democratic and Republican primary ballot from which they choose one. There is same-day registration as well for anyone who wants to participate as a Democrat.
Thresholds
The standard 15 percent qualifying threshold applies both statewide and on the congressional district level.
Delegate allocation (at-large and PLEO delegates)
To win any at-large or PLEO (pledged Party Leader and Elected Officials) delegates a candidate must win 15 percent of the statewide vote. Only the votes of those candidates above the threshold will count for the purposes of the separate allocation of these two pools of delegates.
See New Hampshire synopsis for an example of how the delegate allocation math works for all categories of delegates.
Delegate allocation (congressional district delegates)
Colorado's 44 congressional district delegates are split across 7 congressional districts and have some variation across districts from the measure of Democratic strength Colorado Democrats are using based on the results of the 2016 presidential election and the 2018 gubernatorial election in the state. That method apportions delegates as follows...
CD1 - 9 delegates*
CD2 - 9 delegates*
CD3 - 5 delegates*
CD4 - 5 delegates*
CD5 - 4 delegates
CD6 - 6 delegates
CD7 - 6 delegates
*Bear in mind that districts with odd numbers of national convention delegates are potentially important to winners (and those above the qualifying threshold) within those districts. Rounding up for an extra delegate initially requires less in those districts than in districts with even numbers of delegates. Colorado has a total of 4 districts with odd numbers of delegates -- more than half -- and the range is five delegates from a low of four delegates in a district to a high of nine (two districts). That is more variation compared to a state like California with many more districts.
Delegate allocation (automatic delegates/superdelegates)
Superdelegates are free to align with a candidate of their choice at a time of their choosing. While their support may be a signal to voters in their state (if an endorsement is made before voting in that state), superdelegates will only vote on the first ballot at the national convention if half of the total number of delegates -- pledged plus superdelegates -- have been pledged to one candidate. Otherwise, superdelegates are locked out of the voting unless 1) the convention adopts rules that allow them to vote or 2) the voting process extends to a second ballot. But then all delegates, not just superdelegates will be free to vote for any candidate.
[NOTE: All Democratic delegates are pledged and not bound to their candidates. They are to vote in good conscience for the candidate to whom they have been pledged, but technically do not have to. But they tend to because the candidates and their campaigns are involved in vetting and selecting their delegates through the various selection processes on the state level. Well, the good campaigns are anyway.]
Selection
The 44 district delegates in Colorado are chosen in April 2-17 district caucuses based on the results in the respective congressional districts. The 9 PLEO and then 14 at-large delegates are selected on April 18 at the state convention based on the statewide primary results.
Importantly, if a candidate drops out of the race before the selection of statewide delegates, then any statewide delegates allocated to that candidate will be reallocated to the remaining candidates. If Candidate X is in the race in mid-April when the Colorado statewide delegate selection takes place but Candidate Y is not, then any statewide delegates allocated to Candidate Y in the March primary would be reallocated to Candidate X. [This same feature is not something that applies to district delegates.] This reallocation only applies if a candidate has fully dropped out. Candidates with suspended campaigns are still candidates and can fill those slots allocated them.
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