Could there really be a brokered GOP convention in 2016?

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Republican Party leadership is beginning to seriously consider the prospect of a brokered convention, in which multiple candidates would come to Cleveland, Ohio this July with too few delegates to win the nomination in a single vote but too many to allow any other contender to win.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell met with party strategists to discuss the possibility on Monday, concluding that the GOP must be prepared for this eventuality, especially if Donald Trump's poll numbers stay strong through the start of primary voting. If a brokered convention did become necessary, it would be the first for either major party in more than six decades.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.