New York’s Republican delegation — some 91 delegates strong — huddled around Rep. Elise Stefanik on Monday, formally tossing its support behind the party’s presidential candidate at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
“We believe Donald Trump will be the first Republican in a generation who will win New York state,” said Stefanik, a high-ranking House Republican representing northern New York, as her fellow delegates cheered.
Next month, it will be New York’s 307 Democratic delegates’ turn to back President Joe Biden at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago — unless the embattled candidate, who faces pressure to drop out of the race, decides to release them.
“I’m looking forward to joining our delegation,” said Gov. Kathy Hochul, the de facto leader of the state Democratic Party and a steadfast Biden supporter. “I’m having regular communications with those who are delegates from New York, and everybody’s excited and energized.”
But who are these people who anoint their party’s leader, and how did they get that power?
They include a mix of elected officials, political leaders, labor bigwigs and an assortment of other party enthusiasts, some of whom were elected and others who were appointed by party bosses in a process that can be arcane and mysterious.
Gothamist took a look at who made the cut and how they got there.
Who’s in the New York Democratic and Republican delegations?
There are names you’ve heard and names you haven’t.
Most of the ones you know are on the Democratic side, including the biggest name on the list: former President Bill Clinton, who gets to be a New York delegate because he lives in Chappaqua and is a “distinguished party leader.” That’s a term that the Democratic National Committee reserves for former presidents and congressional leaders, and it provides a seat at the convention for life.
Also on the Democrats’ list are the state’s two U.S. senators — Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand — and its 16 Democratic members of the House of Representatives. Then there’s Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, plus the Democratic mayors of Buffalo, Rochester and Albany.
A handful of the Republican House members from New York are all on the GOP’s delegate list, including Stefanik, who is the fourth-ranking member of the House, Long Island Rep. Anthony D’Esposito and western New York Rep. Nick Langworthy, the former chair of the state GOP.
State Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay and Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt are Republican delegates, as is Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman. Also on the list is Andrew Saul, a Republican businessman whom Trump appointed as commissioner of the Social Security Administration in 2019. Biden fired Saul in 2021.
So do we elect all of our delegates? Is that how you get on these lists?
No. There are plenty of non-elected officials who are delegates.
First, there are the party leaders — a network of state county Democratic and Republican chairs and committee members who find themselves as part of the delegation. That includes people like state Republican chair Ed Cox, current Manhattan GOP Chair Andrea Catsimatidis and former Manhattan Chair Jennifer Saul, who is now New York’s national GOP committeewoman.
On the Democratic side, there’s state party Chair Jay Jacobs and a host of county chairs, including Manhattan’s Keith Wright and Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn of Brooklyn.
Then there are donors and other party backers. On the Democratic side, that includes a number of labor union leaders, including teachers union presidents on the federal (Randi Weingarten), state (Melinda Person) and New York City (Michael Mulgrew) level. There’s also Mario Cilento, president of the New York state AFL-CIO.
The Republican side skews more heavily toward current and former elected officials and party officials. Erstwhile Long Island Reps. Peter King and Lee Zeldin, who lost to Hochul in 2022 and now is a frequent Trump surrogate on cable news, are among the former officials.
Why are there so many more Democrats than Republicans?
That’s largely because the Democratic convention has more delegates overall — about 4,000 nationwide — than the Republican convention, which has about 2,500.
New York also is a deep-blue state, which means it has traditionally voted heavily for Democratic candidates and gets a bigger proportional slice of the delegates.
On the Republican side, the party awards extra delegates to states that vote Republican in big races. New York didn’t get any of them, according to the Green Papers, a website that meticulously tracks the delegate process.
How do you get to be a convention delegate?
On the Republican side, there are two types of delegates: district-level and at-large. Each of the state’s 26 congressional districts each get three delegates, who are selected by the state Republican committee members from within that district. The remaining 13 delegates are at-large; 10 of them are selected by the state committee, two are the state’s representatives on the national GOP committee and one is Ed Cox, the chair of the state Republican Party.
The Democratic side is a little more complicated.
Of the 307 total New York Democratic delegates, 179 are elected on a district-by-district basis during the presidential primary. You would have seen them on your ballot if you voted for a presidential nominee in April.
In addition to them, there are 89 party leaders, elected officials (known as PLEOs) and other at-large delegates selected by the state Democratic Committee who aren’t tied to a specific congressional district but are pledged to support the winner of the state’s primary — in this case, Biden. The state party actually had a form that Democrats could fill out to express their interest.
The remaining 39 Democratic delegates from New York are known as “automatic” delegates — people whose current or former positions automatically qualify them to be delegates. They aren’t technically tied to any particular candidate, but unlike the “superdelegates” of past cycles, they’re not allowed to vote on the first ballot at the convention.
New York’s automatic delegates include Clinton, Hochul, Schumer, Gillibrand and the 16 Democratic House members, as well as its 19 members of the Democratic National Committee, including names like former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Maria Cuomo Cole, a longtime national committee member who is the sister of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
What role do the delegates play if Biden steps aside?
If Biden decides to end his campaign and release his delegates — something that he’s repeatedly said he won’t do — then the Democratic delegates will play an enormous role.
The delegates would be free to support whichever qualifying Democratic candidate they want to be their party’s nominee. It’s a scenario that could lead to multiple candidates trying to woo factions of delegates from each state to support their cause.
The Democratic convention is set take place in Chicago from Aug. 19 to 22.
Republicans, meanwhile, have already nominated Trump to be their candidate. He’s set to formally accept the nomination on Thursday, the final day of the RNC.