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Delegates from the precinct caucuses go on to the county conventions, which choose delegates to the district conventions, which in turn selects delegates to the Iowa State Convention. Thus, it is the Republican Iowa State Convention, not the precinct caucuses, which selects the ultimate delegates from Iowa to the Republican National Convention. All delegates are officially unbound from the results of the precinct caucus, although media organizations either estimate delegate numbers by estimating county convention results or simply divide them proportionally.

So then

Precinct Delegate elect delegates to the District convention that elects delegates to the State Convention that elects delegates to the Republican National Convention.

Sheesh why dont they just have a primary and be done with it.

I find caucuses annoying. But it’s not really as disconnected as it sounds. Candidates get people to be their delegate selections and put them at every caucus, where they are announced as the candidate delegate. Then, when the caucus votes for a delegate, that’s the person they choose, if they are the majority.

So the “pricinct delegates” are essentially campaign volunteers for the campaign. Yes, they could switch candidates, but that is unlikely. They will then pick campaign volunteers to be the delegates to the next level, and the next.

They are not “bound”, but it isn’t often a delegate will switch. Imagine any of the outspoken candidate supporters here at FR switching their candidate tomorrow — that’s what we would be talking about.

Having said that, interestingly enough, in Tennessee, where the delegates are actually picked and put on the ballot by the candidates, one of the hand-picked Gingrich delegates was his campaign co-chair, but he switched support to Santorum right before the election. Then he was elected as a Gingrich delegate.

My guess is everybody is counting him as a “gingrich” vote, even though the gingrich folks were laughing about how since Santorum didn’t have a full slate of delegates, he wouldn’t get all his delegate votes (since someone else’s delegate would be sent instead).