What actually happens at the Democratic National Convention?

As we approach the end of the primary election period and enter the general election season, the Democratic National Convention has been set for July 25th-28th at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.

Considering the implications of the primary election period, the DNC will be crucial in determining whether presumptive leading candidate Hillary Clinton will clinch the nomination or if Senator Bernie Sanders will come out on top. Here’s a breakdown of the ins and outs of the 2016 DNC.

What is the Democratic National Convention?

The Democratic National Convention is a political gathering of delegates from the Democratic Party. At the convention, delegates from across the 50 states will vote to nominate and confirm the official presidential and vice-presidential candidates that will represent the party in the general election come November. It also serves to establish the planks, or goals and proposals, of the Democratic political platform and marks the formal beginning of the general election.

Why is it held in July and in Philadelphia?

Traditionally, party national conventions are held after the Summer Olympics in late August, to bypass the migratory traffic and the country’s focus on the Olympics. However, the Republicans surprised the country when they rescheduled their convention for July, before the 2016 Rio Olympics will even begin – the goal being to unify the party and to ease all of the fracturing and tension caused by this year’s ugly political battle between Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich. As expected, the Democrats followed suit and pushed their convention to also take place in July.

In terms of location, the Democratic National Committee selects and votes on the convention site from a pool of interested host cities. The three finalists for the 2016 convention were Columbus, Ohio (the site of the Republican National Convention), New York City, and Philadelphia. Based on conditions of logistics and strategy, Philadelphia was chosen as the year’s site. For the city of Philadelphia, hosting the convention could mean an economic stimulus (a smaller-scale version of economic benefits that come from hosting the Olympics).

How does it work?

At the convention, potential nominees need to reach the 2,383 mark from the delegate voting process. Two types of delegates are essentially voting – superdelegates and pledged delegates. Pledged delegates vote based on state primary and caucus results, and as the name suggests, are essentially confirmed for the candidate that they are voting for based on their state results.

However, the intriguing aspect of the DNC are the superdelegates. A group formed by a variety of party leaders, elected officials, and state leaders, superdelegates are free to vote for whoever they choose. Considering the fact that there are 564 superdelegates, they can drastically impact the voting process and swing the nomination towards another candidate.

What can we expect to happen during the 2016 DNC?

As many political pundits and experts have alluded to, Hillary Clinton will be the likely winner and nominee for the Democratic Party; she has 1,704 pledged delegates compared to Bernie Sanders’ 1,414. She also has the current backing of 498 superdelegates, bring her cumulative total to 2,202 delegates. Thus, she remains only 181 delegates away from clinching the nomination.

If Hillary Clinton then is predicted to win, why is Bernie Sanders still optimistic about receiving the nomination? Will she still feel the Bern?

Theoretically, Bernie still has a way in to defeat Hillary, comprised by a variety of factors. Primarily, neither candidate will reach the 2,383 mark by pledged delegates alone. The upcoming primaries are predicted to be largely divided between both candidates, and thus the nomination may boil down to the voting of the superdelegates.

What’s interesting is that although Hillary has the backing of many of these superdelegates, their pledge is not a promise set in stone. For Bernie, his hope is that many of these superdelegates will flip-flop to his side when the convention actually rolls around in July. Historically, this is not an unprecedented event; in the 2008 election, Barack Obama won the nomination although he initially had less “promised” superdelegates than his fellow Democratic opponents. Thus, Bernie hopefuls still have a rallying cause for his campaign.

What might make Bernie a more appealing candidate to superdelegates than Hillary?

The fact is that Bernie Sanders holds a majority of the youth vote and is advocating statistical figures that present him as a stronger challenger to Donald Trump during the general election. Many voters are rallying against the corporate mindset that Hillary represents; in addition to her possible reliability issues, she represents the status-quo establishment that dissuades many working-class voters from supporting her.

While on the Republican side this has led to an overwhelming support for outsider Donald Trump and his Make American Great Again campaign, the Democratic side is much more muddled. Bernie Sanders’ message and story resonate with young, working-class voters.

These are the same voters who may not turnout at the polls if Hillary wins the nomination. Therefore, the Sanders campaign is hopeful that these ideas will swing the superdelegates, and carry him to the nomination at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.