The Republican party will assign 2,472 delegates through a series of Caucuses and Primaries between February and June. To win the nomination, a given candidate requires a simple majority, or 1,237, of the total. The states holding their contests before March 15 are required by party rules to dole out their delegates proportionately, meaning 51% of the vote translates to the same percentage of the state's allotted delegates.
To further complicate the matter, there is currently the party's so-called "Rule 40". This bylaw, added in 2012, states that any potential nominee must "demonstrate the support of a majority of the delegates from each of eight or more states." There are, as we approach the CNN debate in Las Vegas on Tuesday, a total of 14 candidates in the mix. No fewer than 10 can reasonably expect to win a noteworthy proportion of delegates as the race extends into spring.
The eight-state requirement in Rule 40 is technically temporary. The Republican National Committee (RNC) will vote on a new rule at the convention in 2016 and could again change the number of states at that time.
"Contested" or "Brokered" - What's the difference?
Simply stated, if no candidate, and this goes for both parties, finishes the Primary season with majority of delegates, the summer convention can be described as "contested." The last "contested" GOP Primary came in 1976, when President Gerald Ford and an insurgent conservative named Ronald Reagan arrived at Kansas City's Kemper Arena short of a clinching total. Both campaigns sought to sway or romance their way to the necessary majority, which Ford would seal just before the first floor vote.
Because that initial ballot delivered Ford the nomination, the 1976 convention is not technically considered to have been "brokered."
For that, we have to look back more than 60 years, to the 1952 Democratic contest. Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver led the race after the last round of primary voting, but did not win the nomination after the first floor ballot. No one did. It was not until the third ballot that Adlai Stevenson, the reluctant home-state Governor with the backroom backing of outgoing President Harry Truman, finally emerged with the nomination.
The most recent "brokered" convention for Republicans came four years earlier, in 1948, when they chose New York Gov. Thomas Dewey after three ballots.
Dewey, Stevenson and Ford all lost their General Election contests.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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