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Road to the White House Mini-Lesson
TOPIC: Delegate Count
CREDIT: This lesson was created by Jennifer Morely, Tampa Technical High School, Tampa, FL.
STANDARD: Understands the roles of political parties, campaigns, elections, and associations and groups in American politics

TOPIC: DELEGATE COUNT
Event Date: 2/7/04 | Air Date: 2/8/04 |

Watch entire program

links in the lesson |

Lesson Index

OVERVIEW
Candidates within the Democratic and Republican parties must earn enough delegates during the primary and caucus season to earn their party's nomination for president. Each national party has its own rules for assigning delegates to each state; and each state party has it own rules for awarding delegates to candidates. While candidates earn delegates throughout primaries and caucuses, the determination of "winners" is not made until the party's summer nominating conventions. Students will evaluate the fairness and efficiency of these nominating systems. Explain to students that delegate counts will determine the Democratic nominee for president, and that it is not a "winner take all" system like the electoral college. Go to the Democratic National Committee's website , and news sources to obtain more information about the system, delegate counts per state and up-to-date delegate counts per candidate.	Video Clip 1 - Watch CNN interview Howard Dean Clip 2 - Watch Howard Dean event Clip 3 - Watch both clips side by side
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. How does a primary work? 2. What does Howard Dean mean when he says that "not all votes have been counted?" 3. What distinction does Howard Dean make between poll results and election results? 4. What does the reference to Florida mean?
STUDENT ACTIVITY
Divide students into groups, assigning the following tasks. Group 1: Have students list candidates and current delegate counts. Have students give some examples of total delegate counts for a few states that have already held their primary/caucus and review the current overall standings. Group 2: Summarize the process by which the national party will determine a nominee. Group 3: Propose some combinations of states yet to vote that could change the placing of the candidates in the race for the nomination. For example, what would happen if John Edwards were to win California and Texas? Dean? What would happen if one candidate was a strong second in every state? Have all groups present their findings to the whole class then discuss together: Is this a fair system? Should we have a national primary instead of a state-by-state system? APPLY YOUR KNOWLEDGE Design a new system: Research the rules for selecting delegates from the Republican and Democratic parties. What are the differences? Similarities? Research the rules for some of the states. Which of these systems seems to be most fair? In groups, design system that is the most fair and efficient.

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