What Really Happens at the Convention

If it comes to a contested convention, Sen. Ted Cruz enjoys one advantage over GOP front-runner Donald Trump — a higher percentage of his delegates will be bound to him on a second ballot.

According to a LifeZette analysis of the state-by-state rules governing convention delegates, 305 of those bound to Cruz will be committed for at least the second ballot. That is about 56 percent of his bound total. Meanwhile, the 360 Trump delegates bound on the second ballot represent 38 percent of his total.

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It is another reminder of the role chance is playing in the unfolding GOP nomination drama. Different states have different rules in all aspects of the delegate selection process. Cruz’s biggest delegate haul — 104 in his home state of Texas — is more meaningful on paper that the 95 delegates Trump won in his home state of New York. The Texas delegates must stick with their candidate through the second ballot unless they have been released by the candidate. But all of the delegates sent by New York will be free to vote with their conscience after the first ballot.

It has been 40 years since the outcome of a GOP nomination battle was even in doubt after primary voting. And a Republican nomination has not gone to a second ballot since 1948. Given how long it has been, Stanford University political science professor Morris Fiorina said, no one really knows how a contested convention would play out. But he said the longer the fight drags out on the convention floor, the more it likely damages the front-runner.

“Historically with front-runners, if they don’t make it on a first ballot, they generally lose support,” said Fiorina, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. “If they’re the front-runner, they’ve probably already tried everything they could, so they don’t have any more arrows left in their quiver.”

Cruz has badly outmaneuvered Trump at the behind-the-scenes game, winning the support of delegates selected at party conventions and committee meetings. Time Magazine reported that 26 if the 63 unbound delegate named so far are supporting Cruz — compared with only one solid commitment for Trump. Cruz’s skill at this part of the process has helped close his delegate gap with Trump and has fueled speculation that the real estate mogul is in serious peril if he cannot nail down the win on the first ballot.

But it is not clear how easily Cruz will be able to win the 1,237 votes needed to secure the nomination on the convention floor. He almost certainly will arrive in Cleveland far behind Trump in the delegate count. And some portion of Trump delegates are likely to be enthusiastic supporters of his candidacy. If Trump can’t win it on the first ballot, it is plausible that no candidate will win it on the second, either.

[lz_table title=”Delegates Bound on Second Ballot” source=”Frontloading HQ”]State,Bound to Trump
New Hampshire,11
Alabama,36
Tennessee,33
Alaska,11
Texas,48
Oklahoma,15
Kansas,9
Mississippi,25
Florida,99
Wisconsin,6
North Carolina,29
Maryland,38
|Total,360
Share of overall total,38%
|State,Bound to Cruz
New Hampshire,3
Alabama,13
Alaska,12
Tennessee,16
Texas,104
Oklahoma,15
Kansas,24
Mississippi,15
Wisconsin,36
North Carolina,27
Utah,40
|Total,305
Share of overall total,56%
[/lz_table]

“That’s pure speculation, but I would think we’d have multiple ballots,” said Curly Haugland, a GOP committeeman from North Dakota whose post will give him a delegate seat at the convention.

Haugland advocates a wide-open convention. He argues that none of the delegates are bound to anyone since the convention rules supersede the state rules. And the final convention rules are not yet written. His proposal would allow any candidate who won even a single delegate to be entered into nomination.

Haugland said primaries — some of which allow independents and Democrats to participate — dilute the influence of Republicans and have produced loser nominees like John McCain and Mitt Romney.

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“I think it’s good for the party to choose its own nominee rather than be bound by votes of primaries,” he said. “Primary votes are tainted … In my view, that’s why we’ve gotten liberal candidates in the past.”

Of course, it might not come to a messy floor fight. Trump picked up the most of the 172 delegates up for grabs in five states on Tuesday. The total awarded is equal to the number of delegates at stake in California on the last day of voting, June 7. Tim Clark, Trump’s California political director, predicted that primary would prove decisive.

“It can be ended by the time it gets here, or it could be close to being ended,” he told LifeZette. “So we just don’t know what the stakes will be when we get here. But we know that what we produce will definitely provide a needed margin, or at least a comfortable margin.”

Fiorina said Cruz will have an uphill battle even he does manage to prevent Trump from clearing the 1,237-delegate margin before the convention.

“He’s going to be so far behind Trump in votes and delegates that the idea they would give it to him is political suicide,” he said.