Could there really be a brokered GOP convention in 2016?

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published 11 December 2015

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.

And it's not just about The Donald. "Beyond Trump, what you’re seeing is the party bracing for a potential 'Hunger Games' scenario where you have a different person win each of the first four primaries and they all have the resources to slug it out until the convention," explains former Mitt Romney adviser Stuart Stevens. "It's smart to think of contingencies, and if you actually spend time with the numbers, it's possible someone won’t quickly get the number they need to be the nominee."

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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.

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