In Iowa, if you can't win a primary election at the ballot box, you can win the nomination instead at the convention hall.
Under Iowa state law, if no candidate for state or federal office wins 35 percent of the vote in a primary, the nominee is selected instead by party activists at a convention.
Deciding a nominee by convention is rare in Iowa's federal races.
The last time it happened was 2002, when Steve King won a 30.2 percent plurality of votes in the Republican 5th Congressional District primary and wrapped up the nomination at a convention after three rounds of balloting, winning 272 of the 525 delegates' votes on the final ballot.
Before that, a congressional race hadn't gone to a convention since 1964, when it happened twice, on the Democratic side in Iowa's 7th Congressional District and on the Republican side in the 6th. Republicans needed a convention to decide their U.S. Senate nominee in 1960, and longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Neal Smith won his first nomination that way in 1958.
Convention to Produce a Nominee
A State nominee convention would happen concurrent with the regularly scheduled state convention. All 2,004 of the party's delegates, elected from across the state at 99 county conventions earlier in the year,—ould serve as electors.
First, delegates would nominate candidates. These candidates could be any person eligible to hold the office, not just those who appeared on the primary ballot. After nominations and speeches, the delegates vote. The first candidate to receive a 50 percent-plus-one majority wins the nomination.
If a ballot ends with no candidates receiving a majority, the lowest vote-getter is eliminated, and delegates vote again.
A GOP convention to decide a District nominee would unfold the same way, but only delegates from the counties that make up each district would participate. These conventions would be held at a time and place to be determined.
A Democratic convention is similar, albeit with one big difference: Only the candidates who appeared on the ballot are eligible to be nominated.
According to data collected by the Council on State Governments and the National Conference of State Legislatures, Iowa is one of 11 states that include a convention in their process for nominating some or all state and federal offices.
Eleven other states hold runoff elections to decide a nominee following an indecisive primary, often when a candidate fails to win more than 50 percent of the vote.
Most other states, though, provide for neither a runoff nor a convention. In those states, the highest vote-getter, no matter how small his or her plurality of votes, wins the nomination.
Do you know what states make up the 10 other states that include a convention in their process for nominating some or all state and federal offices?
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!
Michael H. Drucker
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