Brokered convention?

I heard something about the Republicans having a brokered convention if Donald Trump wins the nomination. It looks like Trump will be the nominee. So, what is a brokered convention? And why is it necessary?

 

You should really wiki it for a more detailed explanation.

 

A brokered convention is one in which nobody has enough votes to secure the nomination right off the bat so a lot of horse-trading goes on for delegates, usually around who will be the VP in order to give the POTUS nominee enough votes to reach the threshold. For instance #1 might not like #2 to has to arrange a deal with #4 to get to the nomination, but #2 and #3 may still have enough delegates to overcome #1 if they combine them and decide between them which one gets to be the POTUS.

 

Thank you, Deckel. I understand now.

 

He is in a very favorable position. But, far from the nomination.

 

when kasich goes away in a few weeks then the situation will clarify. If trump stays in the low/mid 30's of actual vote count then the nomination is up in the air...sort of like what will happen if Clinton is indicted throwing the dems into chaos...

 

so even with super delegates, they don't think anyone will have enough votes to win?

 

If it were any other candidate in Donald Trump's position right now, the pundits would be saying the race is over.

The hard truth for the Republican establishment is...the race is over.

 

Only Democrats have Super delegates.

 

Donald Trump is despised by the party establishment and has the highest unfavorables of any presidential candidate in the last 20 years.

 

I notice that South Carolina was a winner take all state for Trump, giving him 50 delegates. Will South Carolina be a winner take all state for the Democrats also? If it is, it will sure help Hillary since she already won Nevada.

 

And like it or not, he's dominating the Republican Primary. He will be beaten but not by the clowns he's running against in the GOP. He took their own playbook and is beating them to a pulp with it.

 

It all depends on Cruz's durability.... if he stays standing, then Rubio can divide the anti-establishment vote between Cruz and Trump and hope for favorable events, but if Cruz folds, then the anti-establishment vote rallies around Trump and he just walks over Rubio.

 

The GOP isn't as loaded down with superdelgates as the DNC is. A lot will come down to how delegates are allocated in the various states that are not truly winner take all. There are other factors too. For instance, Trump is up in Virginia in the polls, but the VA GOP is making the voters sign a GOP loyalty card which will drive away independents and others who might otherwise support Trump. What would likely happen in the GOP if it were a brokered convention is that Trump racks up a lot of delegates early in a large field, but then the field becomes Trump V. Whoever and whoever runs the rest of the table, and end up neck and neck, in which case all these 8 deleagtes here, five delegates there people could have to decide who to crown, assuming party insiders did not out-maneuver them by stripping away delegates from one candidate in favor of another by leaning on governors and such with promises of pork projects getting funded.

 

I think that's about to change. The establishment is rallying around Marco Rubio, and a unified establishment is a big problem for Donald Trump.

 

I'm not a Trump supporter but it's fantasyland to believe that either Cruz or Rubio has a chance at this point of mounting a genuine threat to win the GOP.

 

I don't think they'll be able to win the nomination outright, but they might be able to force a brokered convention and then win over enough delegates to clinch the nomination.

 

I think if one of them were to drop out on Super Tuesday, the other one would pick up all their support which would then cause anybody supporting the other stragglers to jump onto the bandwagon to stop Trump. Whether or not Trump is unstoppable, I don't know. It certainly looks that way because Cruz and Rubio are every bit as egotistically righteous as Trump. If it comes down to a brokered convention on the GOP side Bloomberg might use that and the anti-Hillary sentiments even within the DNC to jump into the race as an independent and we will end up with a brokered Electoral College too.

 

Cruz will fold eventually, as soon as people wake up to the realization that he was born in Canada and isn't eligible to be President. I realize the Democrats would love for him to win the nomination and then spring out the lawsuits, but one way or the other, Cruz can't be President.

 

Please give it up on this "birth" issue.... I'm no fan of the man, but so long as his parents were citizens I don't think it should matter where he was born. If you're born on US soil, you're a citizen.... if you're born on foreign soil to US parents, you're a citizen. End of story. Why can't we just agree that Cruz can't be President because he's a moron? Not that that's a constitutional barrier. I keep thinking back to that quote when Warren Harding became President... I think it was Alice Roosevelt Longworth who said, "When I was growing up they said anyone can become President, and now I see that's true"

 

As far as I know, none of the Democrat primaries are winner take all. I believe they are all proportional with a 15% minimum viability.

 

Where there's life, there's hope.... I think if Rubio can lock down the establishment vote and Cruz stays alive and divides the anti-establishment vote with Trump, then anything is possible. Trump could self-destruct at any time. He probably won't.... but he could. If Cruz drops out, though, then Trump just swamps Rubio. One-on-one Rubio doesn't have a chance... One-on-two, though, he does. He's tri-angulating. That's why Rubio is so attacking Cruz so hard - it wins Cruz credibility with the anti-establishment.... plus, if Cruz drops out and it's just Rubio vs. Trump, then Rubio is the natural choice for VP.

 

I found the bold above to be extremely interesting. I couldn't imagine how the loyalty card would be binding, so I Googled. They have recently repealed the loyalty card. It's still interesting to me that the VA GOP looked for a way to limit primary voters.

In states where crossover voting is allowed, I'm sure there are Democrats voting for Trump, but not because they actually want him to be President. I know a few that have said they did that very thing. They would have also likely signed the loyalty card laughingly citing "all's fair in love, war, and politics."

 

A brokered convention happens if no candidate enters with the minimum number of delegates to secure the nomination. It takes 50% plus one delegate to be a parties nomination. But that isn't going to happen. Every election cycles there is talk about a brokered convention where all the candidates enter the convention without the required number of delegates to secure the nomination and it never happens. The last brokered convention happened in 1952 on the Democratic side 24 years before we when to the way we choose the candidates today back in 1976.

Back then most of the states choose their delegates via the state party leaders in smoke filled rooms. The nominees were chosen at the conventions instead of primaries. Conventions had a useful purpose prior to then, today the conventions are just the coronation of the nominee. they have outlived their original purpose and in my opinion their usefulness.

 

Republicans would be wise to give it to trump if he's leading but not enough delegates, that man will run 3rd party and republicans will lose the election