What's the difference between a primary and a caucus?

The Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary was the first primary in the 2012 presidential race. It followed the Iowa caucus, but represents different political skills than a caucus; we'll discuss the differences below.

Mitt Romney won both Iowa and N.H. (statistics below) and now has 20 delegates. Rick Santorum has 12 delegates from Iowa but gained none in N.H.; Ron Paul & Jon Huntsman gained their first few delegates each.

Primaries differ substantially from caucuses. The key differences, and their political implications, are:

• Fewer people vote in caucuses than in primaries. In the Iowa caucus, 122,000 people voted; in the New Hampshire primary, 248,000 people voted. Iowa is a larger state than New Hampshire (3.1 million people vs. 1.3 million in N.H.). Expressed in percentage of people voting, Iowa had 4% participation, while N.H. had 19% participation, nearly five times more.

• Caucuses require publicly announcing your vote; primaries have secret ballots. Your neighbors in you voting district know for whom you vote; and therefore people only attend who are willing to declare publicly for a candidate.

• Because fewer people participate in caucuses, and because they require publicly announcing support, the attendees "self-select" as those who are the most fervent supporters of their candidate. Therefore, a caucus measures fervency (depth) of support, as opposed to a primary measuring a larger cross-section (breadth) of support.

• Primaries take place in the usual voting place as in the general election, and take place all day (voters can go at the time of their choosing). Caucuses take place at odd locations -- sometimes public places like schools; sometimes in people's livingrooms -- and at odd times -- you must show up at the appointed time or you cannot participate.

• Because of the restrictions on time and place, participants must be informed beforehand, and persuaded to attend. The major task for campaigns in caucuses is to inform their supporters and arrange their attendance. In contrast, the the major task in primaries is to keep track of which supporters have voted earlier in the day, so those who have not voted can be contacted later.

• Because there a caucus requires more specific information and more simultaneous work, caucuses require far more volunteers working than do primaries. Hence caucuses measure a campaign's "organizational ability" -- its ability to organize thousands of volunteers to contact many more thousand potential supporters.

• A campaign's organizational ability does not necessarily require money -- it requires volunteer labor. Primaries, on the other hand, with wider participation, is more amenable to broadcasting -- in other words, spending money on TV ads, radio appearances, and so on -- that makes money much more important in primaries than word-of-mouth met in caucuses.

So, Romney won the Iowa caucus AND the N.H. primary -- and hence is the clear frontrunner. Here is the popular vote count, and the delegate vote count, from the New Hampshire primary:

We presented a table with our analysis of the Iowa caucus, showing each state's delegate counts. Below is the same table, adding in whether each state holds a caucus or a primary (and their dates). When the South Carolina primary comes up, we'll explain "Winner takes all" versus "Proportional"!

For additional information (in GREATLY more detail than this summary!) see: http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P12/R-Alloc.phtml Or read about the South Carolina primary next week....
-- Summary by Jesse Gordon, editor-in-chief, OnTheIssues.org, Jan. 12, 2012.