The Iowa caucus, to be held today, promises to be crucial in this year’s US presidential elections as well. Alongwith the New Hampshire primary, scheduled for January 8, it could yield the candidate who will be most well-placed to clinch the party nomination later this year. What exactly is the process through which the two major political parties in America select their nominees for president? What are the paces candidates must go through? Dhruva Jaishankar explains

• How are parties’ nominees for president determined?

The two major US political parties — the Democratic Party and the Republican Party — use popular state-by-state elections to select their nominees for the presidential election, a complex process that has evolved over the 20th century. The parties’ nominees are officially elected by state party delegates at the parties’ national conventions, held every four years, although they are traditionally determined beforehand.

• What are conventions?

The parties’ national conventions are large meetings of elected delegates and party leaders at which the parties’ nominees for president are officially elected. They are held at a predetermined venue during the summer of the election year. The 2008 Republican convention will be held on September 1-4 in St. Paul, Minnesota, while the Democratic convention will be held August 25-28 in Denver. Delegates officially vote for their parties’ nominees at the convention, but the nominees are in fact decided well before, with losing party rivals traditionally withdrawing from the race and endorsing the winner in a show of party unity. The last time a convention began without a pre-determined party nominee for president was at the 1976 Republican National Convention.

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