The Wyoming Results Won't Be Out For A Bit

Wyoming is holding its Democratic caucus on April 9, and Bernie Sanders is fairly likely to win in the western state. However, though the Wyoming caucus will begin at 11 a.m. on Saturday and will probably last a few hours, the actual election will not be officially decided until May 28. Sure, the results of the Wyoming caucus will be announced by Saturday evening, and the state's 14 Democratic delegates will be distributed between Sanders and his opponent, Hillary Clinton, but the delegates themselves will not actually be chosen until Wyoming's state caucus in May.

That's right, Wyoming's delegates — delegates are the representatives sent to the Democratic convention in July — are not elected, nor officially distributed between candidates until the Wyoming Democratic Party holds its state convention in May. Confusing, right? Essentially, in states that hold caucuses, voters choose how many delegates to allot to each candidate, and then the Democratic or Republican Party in that state elects the actual delegates to send to the Democratic or Republican National Conventions during the summer — these national party conventions are where each party's presidential candidate will be chosen.

However, even though the state's results are not official until the state convention is held and delegates are elected, candidates certainly celebrate their victories as soon as the caucus results are announced.

Wyoming is one of the most conservative states in the United States, but its caucus is getting a lot of attention — Sanders even celebrated his Wisconsin win in Wyoming. This is because Wyoming could prove to be unusually important in the Democratic race, even though Wyoming Public Radio reported that there are only around 60,000 registered Democrats in the state — only registered Democrats can vote on Saturday's closed caucus — voting for the allocation of 14 pledged delegates.

Although the results of the Wyoming Democratic caucus are not typically among the most anticipated in the country, and the 14 delegates will not change much numbers-wise in this year's election either, if Sanders can win the state, he will continue his winning streak — Sanders has won eight states in a row — which would be helpful with the approach of the far-more-important New York primary on April 19.

Therefore, a Sanders win in Wyoming on April 9 would be symbolic in more ways than one: It would show he can keep winning even if the wins don't change much as far as the delegate count goes, and be symbolic in that, due to the confusing delegate system, the caucus results would not actually be official when they are celebrated.

Whew, elections are confusing!