The first happens this year on March 1, Super Tuesday, when nearly a dozen other states hold early nominating contests. Colorado has a round of precinct-level caucuses in neighborhoods around the state. This is the first chance for a candidate to get knocked out of the running. Presidential contenders need to meet a minimum of 15 percent to send enough delegates to represent him or her at the next level. And it could happen right in the living room of one of your neighbors.
The second step is for the locally designated delegates who you’ll help select at your caucus meeting to travel to conventions in all 64 counties where another poll for president takes place.
Then at seven congressional district conventions, parties will take a poll to send delegates for each presidential candidate on to the state and national convention. Then, finally, at the state convention on April 16th in Loveland, the same thing happens: more polling.
Bottom line: March 1 is your chance to get in early and will be the first place to make your voice heard. Good news: you won’t have to travel far. Unless you yourself are selected to attend the next steps, your delegates will carry the banner for your candidate from here, all the way to the national convention, which takes place in Philadelphia.
So can someone actually win on March 1?
In a way. A straw poll for president will be taken that will show where each candidate stands. The precincts report to the counties and the counties report to the state. All along the four-step process Democratic Party officials will live-Tweet and release on social media the number of delegates each candidate has.
“We won’t declare a winner or a loser,” says Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Rick Palacio about the March 1 caucuses. They’ll just say Candidate X has this amount of delegates and candidate Y has that many.
Palacio likens the process to a high-school track meet: The first lap is the precinct caucus — where you know who’s ahead, the second lap is the county conventions, the third lap is the congressional district convention, and the fourth lap is the state convention, which somebody actually wins.
Then why are these March 1 precinct-level caucuses so important for presidential candidates?
The numbers each candidate garners on March 1 in these neighborhood gatherings will help show the level of support and enthusiasm each candidate has in Colorado. Also, candidates that fail to crack 15 percent of support in the precinct caucuses will have lost the state.
