The eleven days between New Hampshire and Nevada is the third longest “break” of the primary process.  So with a little time to spare before the pace picks up (and March is the busiest month in the primary cycle), time to turn to one of the perennial topics of discussion in the primary process.  (Whether there is a second edition this year will depend on how things look at the next major break — the three weeks between Wisconsin and the Mid-Atlantic states.   Every four years, there is speculation about the possibility that the race will not be decided until the convention.  And every four years, by mid-April, it’s pretty clear that the race is over.  So why has this speculation been wrong in the past and why might it be true this year (or why will the speculation go bust again this year).

Before getting to the issue of a contested convention, there is a question of terminology.  Many people talk about the possibility of a “brokered” convention.  Prior to 1968, state party leaders had solid control over the delegate selection process.  Most states used a caucus system with little if any role for presidential preference in the election of delegates.  The delegates elected tended to be loyal to state party leaders not to any particular presidential candidate.  And even if an individual delegate might want to go rogue, there were tools like the unit rule mandating that a state vote as a block (i.e. as the majority of the delegation decided) to prevent it.   So, even if the convention only went one ballot, most conventions for 130 years were brokered conventions in the sense that the party leaders talked with each other and reached an agreement as to who should be the nominee (sometimes on the first ballot and sometimes after many, many ballots).

Since 1968, the two parties have enacted mechanisms in which presidential preference in the primary/caucus controls the vote on the first ballot.  The Republican rules give a little less power to the presidential candidate, but the typical Democratic delegate is more loyal to the candidate than to the state party leadership.  Even that loyalty is loyalty to a movement and, not necessarily, to the personal success of the candidate.  In other words, it is unclear that — in the case of a contested convention — presidential candidates could deliver their delegates.

What is possible is a contested convention in the sense that the nomination is still in doubt when the convention begins.  Contested conventions have been rare.  At most, maybe the 1976 Republican Convention and the 1984 Democratic Convention qualify as contested conventions.  And no party has had to go to multiple ballots under the current system.

So what is different about 2020 that could lead to a contested convention.

First, and foremost, the internet has changed fundraising.  In the past, it was hard for candidates to raise money quickly.  Because candidates had trouble raising money, they had to rely on federal matching funds which came with limits on spending.  In short, while a candidate could succeed in Iowa and New Hampshire with a tight budget, they typically found themselves without much cash on hand for the following states.  The “insurgent” candidates typically were unable to follow-up on their early success, and, by the time that they had the money to compete, they were too far behind.  Meanwhile, even establishment candidates needed to replenish their campaigns after the first round of states, and the big dollar donors who were key to the 1980s and 1990s fundraising plans would only “invest” in likely winners.  In short, it was hard for a trailing candidate to find the money to keep going.

Today, the internet and sites like Act Blue make it possible for a candidate with a decent showing to raise $12 million in a week.  So a candidate can find the money to keep going even when it is mathematically unlikely that the candidate will win.  Small donors are not necessarily making a decision on who they think can win; they are looking for a way to make a difference.    The ability of candidates to find the money to keep running has led to the second-placed candidate staying active until the last primary in the last two Democratic primaries and, on the Republican side, you still had three candidates in the race at the start of May in 2016.

Second, 2020 has had an unusually large number of candidates with some degree of success.  Normally, you have two or three candidates with delegates after the first two states.  This year, you have five candidates having won delegates.   Looking at the polls released in Nevada since the New Hampshire primary, six candidates have gotten at least 13% (which with undecided voters or normal statistical errors means that they can reach 15% and viability) in at least one poll and each of these candidates have at least one poll in which they are getting less than 15%,  And there is one candidate not on the ballot in Nevada who is polling above 15% in several Super Tuesday states.  In short, you could have an unprecedented number of candidates with 100 delegates or more after Super Tuesday.

In the Republican Primary, the number of candidates with some success would have little impact.  Many of the later states use a winner-take-all or winner-take-most rule for allocating delegates.  If a candidate can consistently get 40% or more of the vote, they can take almost all of the delegates and get the nomination (e.g., President Trump in 2016).  To get a contested convention in the Republican Party, you need three equally strong candidates in which no candidate is winning most states and most congressional districts.

On the Democratic side, if you have three candidates getting 15-25% of the vote each, a candidate getting 40% of the vote is going to gradually face too large a gap to get a majority of the delegates.  Even in 2008, enough early states split the delegates three-ways that nobody had a majority of the delegates by the end of the process.

Third, after the 2016 process, some Democrats were upset about the role that superdelegates played in that year’s election.  In the past, the superdelegates have tended to unite behind the candidate with the most delegates.  That practice allowed the leading candidates to clinch the nomination even when a significant number of delegates were pledged to the third-placed candidate.  This year, as a result of the reforms put in place since 2016, the superdelegates do not have a vote on the first ballot.  While the superdelegates may revert to form on the second ballot at the convention, the inability to intervene to decide the nomination on the first ballot increases the chance of a multi-ballot convention.

Of course, while there are features of the system that make it likely that — some day — we could have an open convention, there are other features that could still lead to the race being effectively over after the Mid-Atlantic states vote at the end of April (or maybe even before then).  While candidates can keep their campaigns going, voters tend to respond to the cues from the early states and focus on the leading candidates.  If you have a clear top two candidates after Super Tuesday, voters will tend to switch from the candidates who are winning a handful of delegates to those who actually look like they have a chance at winning the nomination.  And, while the superdelegates do not have a vote on the first ballot in the case of a contested convention, they can definitely signal their intent for the second ballot.  If it is clear that the leading candidate will get the nomination on the second ballot, many of the candidates will withdraw from the race and suggest that their delegates support the presumptive nominee on the first ballot.

At this point, my personal opinion is that the most likely result is something between 2008 and 2016.  There will be a candidate with a clear plurality of the pledged delegates.  With the possible exception of the second-placed candidates, the other candidates will get the message and unify behind the presumptive nominee.  While there is a slim chance that a second ballot will be necessary, I think that it will be clear going into the convention that the leading candidate will get the nomination.  However, there is also the possibility that no candidate wins a majority of the states on Super Tuesday and that you have a tight three-way race for delegates.  If that happens, a contested convention will go from unlikely to a serious possibility.