Photo credit – A. Shaker VOA commons.wikimedia.org
The 2024 Republican National Convention was held from July 15 to July 18 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In short, the conventions are when presidential and vice presidential candidates are formally nominated and delegates from the states, territories, and D.C. cast their votes. The convention is the literal gateway from the primary season to the general election season, with typical post-convention bumps in the polls for the candidates. The tradition stands that the non-incumbent party hosts their convention before the incumbent party does. Since the two parties have different rules for their conventions, we’ll discuss how the GOP handles their business this week and we’ll explore how the Democrats conduct theirs when the Democratic National Convention is held August 19 to August 22 in Chicago.
History and Purpose
Before the modern primary system, which was not fully brought up to the power it has today until the 1970s, political bosses had much more power than they do today. In the early 1800s, nominees were chosen mostly through party-based congressional caucuses. The party conventions were created after 1824, when no candidate received a majority of the electoral votes. As primary elections did not exist, closed-door caucuses were held in which party leaders selected their nominees. There was largely no public input in the selection of presidential candidates at the time for either party.
The Republican Party was formally organized in Pittsburgh in 1856, at which the first Republican National Committee was elected. Senator John C. Frémont (R-CA) was the first Republican presidential nominee, who would lose the 1856 election to James Buchanan (D-PA).
The 1924 convention introduced the rule that each state provides a national committeeman and committeewoman, a facet of party structure that affects delegate counts for each state today. 1924 is also the only convention in which a vice presidential nominee – Frank Lowden (R-IL) – refused to accept the nomination.
In the 1970s, both parties underwent major reforms to give the public more power in selecting nominees, pioneering the highly influential, yet relatively new, primary system we use today.
The overall purpose of the convention, besides selecting presidential and vice presidential nominees, is to establish an official party platform, and unify the party with the general election campaign kick-off.
Delegates
While the general election utilizes the Electoral College, the primaries’ point system is facilitated by delegates. While Electoral College votes per state change every ten years pursuant to the U.S. Census, delegate totals for each state and territory change every four years, as the number depends on math affected by elections.
Delegates are people who are selected by party leadership to represent their state at the convention. While the parties might choose their delegates differently, both parties have two basic forms of delegates: pledged and automatic. Pledged delegates are chosen at state nominating conventions and are typically required to vote for the candidate who won the primary in their state or territory. Automatic delegates are delegates as a result of the office they hold, typically members of the Republican National Committee. They are also normally obligated to vote for the candidate who won their state. This differs from how the Democratic Convention handles delegates, as automatic delegates could not only be members for the national committee, but could be governors, party leaders, or members of Congress. Those delegates are not required to back the winner of their state.
Some states also have rules for unpledged delegates, meaning they are not required to vote for the winner in their state. Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Wyoming, American Samoa, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands sent unpledged delegates to the convention this year. The GOP lets the states take the lead with how to allocate their delegates. Most states are on a proportional system, where at-large delegates are awarded for the winner of the state, while others depend on winners of individual congressional districts. States are free to enact thresholds for winning delegates. In New York, a candidate must receive at least 20% of the vote to qualify for delegates.
Other states have opted for winner-take-all contests. Most winner-take-all contests are held in the middle and end of the primary season, allowing a contest to wrap up if candidates drag out their campaigns, and to ensure a candidate does get a majority of the delegates to be declared the presumptive nominee. Some states use a hybrid system of the two, while others don’t hold a primary or caucus and instead allocate delegates at a state convention. Wyoming and North Dakota were the only two states that use this system. Smaller states such as Delaware, Montana, and Nebraska have opted for winner-take-all rules in the last few cycles, with Florida, Ohio, New Jersey, and Arizona being the much bigger winner-take-all prizes.
Delegate math changes every year based on the strength of a party in the last election cycle. The better a party does, the more delegates they’ll receive for the next presidential primary season, and thus, the more influence they have. If the GOP fails in a state, delegates will be taken away and the state will lose some of its influence for the next presidential primary.
Pledged Party Leaders: These are leaders of the Republican parties for each state, territory, and D.C. They consist of the national committeeman and committeewoman as well as the state chairperson. All are automatically nominated as pledged delegates to the convention.
Base Delegate Allocation for States: Since 2012, party rules stipulate that each state receives a base of ten at-large pledged delegates, meaning whichever candidate wins that state’s primary receives ten automatically. Each congressional district in a state receives three delegates as well. Each state has at least one congressional district, meaning the minimum number of delegates a state can have is sixteen, with the three pledged party leaders added.
Base Delegate Allocation for Territories: Party rules are slightly different for the territories, as all five have non-voting members of Congress. Such members can sit on congressional committees and sponsor legislation, but cannot cast floor votes. The most sparsely populated territories, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, and Guam, receive a fixed amount of pledged at-large delegates. The three aforementioned territories as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands receive six delegates each. Puerto Rico receives twenty, while Washington, D.C., gets sixteen.
Bonus Delegates: This is where the reward-punishment aspect of prior election results come into play. The Republican Party will award delegates on top of their base allocation based on two main factors: whether or not the state’s Electoral College votes went to the Republican candidate in the last presidential election, and how well the state GOP has done in electing Republicans in congressional and state elections.
When a state casts at least a majority of its electoral votes – split votes in Maine and Nebraska and faithless electors notwithstanding – for a Republican candidate in a presidential election, the state receives an additional four and one-half delegates for the convention, as well as a number of at-large delegates equal to 60% of the electoral votes available in that state. Fractions are rounded upwards. For example, Texas backed Trump in 2020 with all thirty-six of its electoral votes. 60% of thirty-six is 21.6, rounded up to 22. Since Texas backed a Republican nominee, it receives 4.5 delegates automatically. Combined and rounded up, Texas received twenty-eight bonus delegates based on the 2020 presidential results alone, on top of the ten base delegates, the three party leaders, and the 114 delegates from the congressional districts. Texas now has thirty-six congressional districts, with three delegates from each district.
But bonus delegates do not stop there. The GOP awards states with additional bonus delegates based on the strength of the state party. If a state has a Republican governor, they receive a bonus at-large delegate. If Republicans have majorities in the state legislature, it corresponds to an additional delegate for each chamber they hold. If at least one-half of the U.S. House delegation of a state is held by Republicans, an extra delegate is awarded. Finally, states receive an additional delegate for each U.S. Senate seat the party holds.
Reusing Texas as an example, the state starts with 127 delegates from its base allocation, plus twenty-eight bonus delegates from backing a Republican in the last presidential election. Republicans control the governorship (1), both chambers of the state legislature (2), more than one-half of the U.S. House delegation (1), and both U.S. Senate seats (2), translating to an additional six delegates, for a total of thirty-six bonus delegates. Texas had the second-largest batch of delegates this year at 161, just behind California with 169.
The method allows states to receive more influence in the nominating process if their state GOP pulls their weight, and penalizes them if they do not. For example, New York starts with a baseline of ninety-one delegates (ten pledged, three party leaders, and seventy-eight based on congressional districts). Democrats have a trifecta in New York, more than half of the U.S. House seats, and both U.S. Senate seats, resulting in New York receiving no bonus delegates at this year’s convention.
The exceptional performance from the GOP in 2022’s House races does, however, leave a possible opening to Republicans to gain a bonus delegate if they can raise their floor of victory and flip additional House seats in further elections, putting additional stress on the importance of winning House races.
A stark downturn from the 2020 convention is Georgia, which lost seventeen delegates based on the GOP’s loss of the presidential race and the two Senate seats in 2020.
Roll Call
The president and vice president are formally nominated under Rule 40(b), which says that a candidate must have the support of the majority of delegates of at least five delegations to clinch the nomination.
This year, there were 2,325 pledged delegates and 104 unpledged delegates. Nikki Haley (R-SC) released her ninety-seven delegates and endorsed Trump, giving them freedom to back the former president. Only the District of Columbia delegation withheld its nineteen delegates from Trump, stating their adherence to D.C. GOP rules, but still support Trump in spirit.
With a total of forty-one abstentions, Trump received 2,388 delegates, about 98% of all available.
The last time a Republican did not have the majority of delegates before a convention was in 1976, but Gerald Ford (R-MI) was able to receive enough votes on the first ballot. A contested convention occurs when a nominee does not have a majority of pledged delegates outright or cannot receive a majority on the first ballot.
