What You Should Know About Primaries And Caucuses

CORRECTION (Feb. 3, 4:13 p.m.): An earlier version of this video inaccurately depicted the way votes are realigned at the Iowa caucuses. While we work to correct the error, we’ve taken the video down.

Both primaries and caucuses are ways to choose a party’s presidential nominee. But in practice, they operate quite differently. Podcast host Galen Druke explains how each method works.

For a deep dive into our primary system, listen to The Primaries Project on the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast.