Following the DNC’s debacle in 2016 when it was revealed that the DNC had conspired to support Hillary Clinton and undermine Bernie Sanders, the DNC took steps to revamp its nominating process. While the rules were designed to make the Democratic nominating process more democratic, the rules also increase the likelihood that the nominating process could lead to a brokered convention. The DNC convention will be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 13-16.
As a concession to the Sanders progressive wing of the party, the DNC made three significant changes that could have a big impact on the process: (i) the DNC reduced the role of super delegates by limiting their number to 766 (out of 4,745 total delegates) and preclude them from participating in the first round of voting. (ii) the DNC changed the way the delegates are allocated in each state, decreasing the number of winner take all states and increasing the number of states that use proportional allocation of delegates. (iii) the DNC condensed the primary and caucus schedule creating several multi-state primary days including March 3 (16 separate events – so called Super Tuesday which now includes California), March 10 – 29 (13 more states), April 28 (6 New England / Mid Atlantic states), and then the final events in early June.
So what could go wrong? Well, the rules increase the likelihood that no candidate will achieve a majority of the delegates. By pushing up the number of states on Super Tuesday and reducing the winner take all delegates, it could easily result in multiple candidates deciding to stay in the race. For example, if Super Tuesday is a split decision – say between Biden (winning states like North Carolina), Warren (winning Massachusetts) and Sanders (winning Vermont), each candidate will be incentivized to stay in and try to win more delegates and gain more power to influence the convention. We doubt also that the progressive wing (Sanders and Warren delegates) will concede without a fight after the rigging of the 2016 nominating process in favor of Clinton. Finally, if delegates believe that their candidate may fare better in the second round with the addition of the super delegates, there will be an incentive not to fall in line and see if they can get a better result with the addition of the super delegates.
History tells us that it is likely that Democrats coalesce around a single candidate prior to the convention. That said, we believe the rule changes make it more likely that no candidate will gain a majority of the delegates. In particular, we believe the most likely scenario for a brokered convention would be a scenario where Biden wins a plurality of the delegates while progressives split between Sanders and Warren yet control a majority of the delegates. In such a scenario, we believe progressives would hold out for the second round when they are free to switch from their pledged candidate to another candidate and to potentially benefit from the super delegates. In short, we believe that there is a not insignificant risk of a contested DNC convention.
NewEnglandPolitics.com 