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You are here: Home / 2016 Campaign / How a Contested Convention Could Happen

How a Contested Convention Could Happen

March 3, 2016 at 4:29 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 50 Comments

NBC News: “The delegate math is becoming increasingly clear: The March 15 Florida and Ohio contests will determine if Donald Trump is the sure-to-be Republican nominee or if there’s a contested GOP convention. And there doesn’t appear to be any other possibility, given that the nominee needs to win 1,237 delegates to win a majority.”

Here’s the delegate math:

  • If Trump wins Florida and Ohio, he needs to win 50% of remaining delegates, which is more than doable as both Rubio and Kasich would likely drop out after losing their home states.
  • But if Trump wins Florida but loses Ohio, he would need 57% of the remaining delegates. And if Trump loses both Ohio and Florida, he would need to win 66% of remaining delegates to get to 1,237 — and that could be a hard climb.

FiveThirtyEight: “The effort to stop Trump may no longer call for consolidation around one alternative; it’s now a multifront war led by multiple candidates and disparate factions of the party with the singular aim of preventing Trump from winning 1,237 delegates.”

Rick Klein: “But make no mistake about what that would mean: That would be the Republican Party burning itself down in order to save itself.”

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Filed Under: 2016 Campaign, Republicans

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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