The more votes a candidate gets in a caucus or primary, the more "delegates" they are awarded, and all candidates will be hoping to win an unbeatable majority of delegates. Barack Obama , for example, won the Iowan caucus in 2008 and never relinquished this lead to his rival Hillary Clinton, even though at the outset he was considered an outsider candidate. VideoThe woman watching the ice melt from under her feet, .css-orcmk8-HeadlineContainer{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran's top nuclear scientist, assassinated near Tehran.css-1dedj2h-Rank{-webkit-align-self:center;-ms-flex-item-align:center;align-self:center;color:#B80000;margin-left:3.125rem;}1, US election: Appeal court dismisses Trump camp's lawsuit in Pennsylvania2, Maradona: Funeral worker apologises over coffin photos3, Utah monolith: Internet sleuths got there, but its origins are still a mystery4, Italian serenaded by husband outside hospital dies5, Belarus protests: Embattled leader Alexander Lukashenko hints he may quit6, Kaavan, the world's loneliest elephant, is finally going free7, Coronavirus: Calls in Denmark to dig up millions of dead mink8, Singapore: Jolovan Wham charged for holding up a smiley face sign9, Macron 'shame' at beating of black man by Paris police officers10. He's the one who campaigned for the change - and it may benefit him in 2020. Any candidate would need to get at least 15% of the vote in any primary or caucus to be awarded delegates. Democrats' key issues explained; Caucuses used to be far more popular back in the day, ... Any candidate would need to get at least 15% of the vote in any primary or caucus to be awarded delegates. This could well happen this year. A caucus involves people attending a meeting - maybe for a few hours - before they vote on their preferred candidate, perhaps via a head count or a show of hands. Iowa doesn't represent the entire US - it's largely white, so the way people vote there is very, very different than in other states. A primary takes place at a polling center where the voter uses a secret ballot to select their nominee. .css-14iz86j-BoldText{font-weight:bold;}Four years after the world watched Donald Trump's momentum build and build until he became the Republican nominee, America is again deciding who will run for the White House. After hectic Super Tuesday, everyone gets to cool down for a week, before another busy day on Tuesday, 10 March, when six states vote, with 352 delegates available. Iowa became first in 1972, for various technical electoral reasons too boring to go into here. In New Hampshire, it was only 24. At the start of primary season, 11 people remained in the running, a number that has now reduced to three. .css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link{color:inherit;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited{color:#696969;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link:hover,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited:hover,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link:focus,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited:focus{color:#B80000;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link::after,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited::after{content:'';position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0;z-index:2;}US election 2020: Democratic candidates on attack - against each other, Democrats 2020: What their key issues are, US election 2020: Meet the Democratic candidates vying to take on Trump, Top Iranian nuclear scientist assassinated. There are so many candidates that no one frontrunner emerges in the primaries, and they split the delegates between them. Its curtain-raiser status may now be in doubt. .css-8h1dth-Link{font-family:ReithSans,Helvetica,Arial,freesans,sans-serif;font-weight:700;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;color:#FFFFFF;}.css-8h1dth-Link:hover,.css-8h1dth-Link:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}Read about our approach to external linking. After New Hampshire, we started to get a clear picture of who was struggling (Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren), but even though Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg had claimed the most delegates at this stage, neither is guaranteed to become the nominee. In that second vote, all the 3,979 delegates would vote again, except this time they would be joined by an estimated 771 "superdelegates". The tiny north-eastern state of only 1.3m people once again became an unlikely hotbed of political activity. It's an unusual process, not all of which makes sense, although we've tried. Over the year, others woke up and eventually 28 people announced they were running to become the Democratic nominee for president. During the convention, those 10 delegates would vote for candidate A to become the Democratic nominee. (Any party member can apply to be a delegate - they tend to be party activists or local political leaders.). Eight days after Iowa on Tuesday, 11 February, was the first primary, in New Hampshire. The first event of the primary season isn't a primary at all - it's a series of caucuses, in Iowa. Differences between a Primary and a Caucus. We'll explain the difference between a primary and a caucus later. The presidential primary elections and caucuses are part of the process of nominating the candidates for the election held later that same year. He won there, then surprisingly won the presidency, and Iowa's fate was sealed.