At one point the committee approved an amendment that would have negated a subsection of the controversial
Rule 40, which requires the GOP presidential nominee to have a majority of support in eight different states. Upon realizing what they had done, the committee membership quickly proposed an amendment to the amendment to put the subsection back in play.
...One of the items likely to be tackled at that time is the aforementioned Rule 40. The brainchild of GOP uber lawyer Ben Ginsberg in the 2012 Convention Rules meeting, it was designed to keep supporters of Ron Paul from putting on a display on the convention floor that might distract from the Mitt Romney narrative. Although it achieved this goal, the rule upset many of the party faithful—and the Republicans are apparently still stuck with it.
And in 2016, with 11 presidential candidates still in the race, several influential party officials worry that the eight-state majority requirement is too restrictive. Most presidential candidates win primaries with pluralities instead of majorities. And, if the GOP primary drags on, it could prove harder and harder for one contender to hit the eight-state threshold.
Even Rule 40 itself is open to interpretation. During Thursday’s meeting, RNC General Counsel John Ryder, the interpreter of the rules, argued that a “majority of support” could actually mean the presumptive nominee has demonstrated “enough support” in eight states. His argument: If delegates elected to support a presidential candidate who bowed out of the race moved their support to the presumptive nominee, that could count toward the majority.
That’s where the power of the lower-tier candidates could come into play.
Say, for example, John Kasich stays in the race through Ohio’s March 15 primary. As governor, Kasich is likely to win his home state and its winner-take-all 66 delegates. He’s also polling above 10 percent in New Hampshire, which is the threshold to win some delegates there in its proportional allotment system. Several other states have proportional primaries (with various thresholds to actually win delegates), giving Kasich several opportunities to pick up delegates here and there. Theoretically, he could do well enough to amass 200 or so (1,237 delegates are needed to win the nomination outright).
The same could apply to Jeb Bush. If he stays in the race until Florida’s March 15 primary, there’s a chance he could win his state’s 99 delegates in its winner-take-all contest. With Sen. Lindsey Graham’s endorsement of him on Friday, Bush could be poised to pick up a few in Graham’s home state of South Carolina, which awards its delegates proportionally. Bush could come out of the early primaries with a sizable bloc of delegates without winning anywhere but his home state.
Scenarios like that could make either man a power broker at a convention without a presumptive nominee. In a multi-ballot convention, which hasn’t happened for Republicans since 1948, the candidate who gathers support on the second or third ballots could end up as the nominee.
Kasich, Bush, Chris Christie or any other lower-tier GOP contender who has the money and the will to stay in the primary long enough to amass a few hundred loyal delegates could also prove to be a power broker in deciding a nominee by pushing their support toward one contender in the second round of voting.
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