YOUNGSTOWN — President Donald Trump’s delegates from Ohio to the Republican National Convention are decided, but who will represent the state at the Democratic National Convention is very much up in the air.

The process for selecting delegates for both parties is quite different.

With so many candidates running for the Democratic nomination, it could be some time before it’s determined who all the delegates from Ohio will be at that party’s convention. But as long as a candidate gets 15 percent of the vote in a congressional district during the March 17 primary, he or she will be awarded delegates.

It’s clear on the Republican side.

With Trump as the incumbent and the only Republican on the state’s presidential ballot, his campaign — with help from the Ohio Republican Party — selected who will vote for his nomination for re-election at the Charlotte, N.C., convention to take place Aug. 24-27.

Several statewide Republicans made the list of 31 at-large delegates, including Gov. Mike DeWine, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, Auditor Keith Faber, Treasurer Robert Sprague, Attorney General Dave Yost and Speaker of the House Larry Householder. Bob Sebo of Salem, founder of Paychex Inc., is on the list. There are 31 alternate at-large delegates.

There are also three delegates and three alternate delegates from each of the state’s 16 congressional districts.

Among those chosen as district delegates from the Mahoning Valley are Janet Cafaro of Hubbard — who, with her husband, J.J., have a home in Palm Beach, Fla., near Trump — as well as Columbiana County Republican Party Chairman Dave Johnson and Monica Robb Blasdel of Columbiana, Northeast regional liaison for Husted.

The district alternate delegates include Mahoning County Republican Party Chairman Thomas McCabe for the 6th Congressional District and Mark Munroe, director of the county board of elections and former county GOP chairman, for the 13th District. They both said they were asked to fill out applications and after meeting with Republican representatives, they were chosen.

“This will be my fourth convention,” Munroe said. “I’m looking forward to it. The conventions are always interesting. It’s an opportunity to see folks you haven’t seen in years, and you get to meet new people as well as rub shoulders with national officials.”

For McCabe, this will be his first convention as an alternate delegate. He went to the RNC in Cleveland in 2016 and used other people’s passes to get on the delegate floor.

“I’m very excited to go,” McCabe said. “Being chairman of a large county carries some weight. It should be a good experience.”

The delegate selection process for Democrats is more complicated.

First, the easy part: Ohio has 18 automatic delegates who are either current members of Congress — including U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Howland — as well as party leaders and Democratic National Committee members. Those 18 don’t vote on the first ballot at the convention.

The party had caucuses Jan. 7 at locations in each of the state’s 16 congressional districts. Supporters of each candidate met and voted on who would be selected as delegates.

The 89 district-level delegates and eight alternates are distributed among the 16 congressional districts based on Democratic turnout in the 2016 presidential and 2018 gubernatorial elections, said Kirstin Alvanitakis, Ohio Democratic Party spokeswoman.

That meant the Republican-heavy 6th District, which includes all of Columbiana County and southern Mahoning, selected up to three delegates for each candidate. The 13th District, which includes most of Mahoning and Trumbull counties, and the 14th District, which includes communities in northern Trumbull, selected up to six delegates and one alternate, like most other districts.

To actually get any delegates, a presidential candidate has to get at least 15 percent of the vote in a congressional district, Alvanitakis said.

“If only one candidate breaks 15 percent, they’d get all of the delegates,” she said.

State Rep. Michele Lepore-Hagan, D-Youngstown, finished fourth in the election to be a delegate for former Vice President Joe Biden in the 13th District.

Whether she gets to be a delegate depends on how well Biden performs in the district during the March 17 primary.

Lepore-Hagan has been attending Democratic National Conventions for more than 30 years, but never as a delegate.

The DNC is in Milwaukee July 13-16.

“I hope to get on the floor as a delegate, but I have no idea if I’ll be selected,” she said. “It’s too early to tell. I’m going to help Biden with the nomination and I’d love to do it as a delegate. I’ll support any Democrat wholeheartedly (for president), but I back Biden.”

Biden, along with U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Eilizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Pete Buttigieg, former South Bend, Ind., mayor, got the maximum number of district delegates and alternates while U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota came close.

Other candidates, including former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, are well short of filling their district slate.

“You’re not penalized by not being organized on the ground,” Alvanitakis said.

If a candidate without a full slate gets 15 percent in a district in the March 17 primary, that campaign has until April 8 to have a post-primary caucus to select delegates, she said.

Ohio Democrats also have 29 at-large delegates, who will be allocated to candidates proportional to the statewide election results as long as they reach 15 percent in Ohio, she said.

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