What if the Dems Get to the Convention Without a Winner?
In a huge field and with weakened superdelegates, 2020 could be the presidential election when the party’s convention is an existential battle instead of a scripted party.
Photo Illustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast/Photos Getty
In every presidential election, there is talk of a brokered convention in which the finalists jostle for power in a mad scramble to amass the requisite delegates to win the nomination.
Political junkies yearn for a party convention where the outcome isn’t scripted, where real news is made. The last time that happened was 1952, when Democrat Adlai Stevenson didn’t secure the nomination until the third ballot at the convention in Chicago.
Talk of a brokered convention is starting early in this cycle and for good reason. Because of the large field of Democratic contenders, 19 and counting, the odds are quite high—40 percent, according to Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report—that the Democrats could end up in Milwaukee for their convention next July with more than one viable candidate for the nomination, and a real brawl for the remaining delegates to put any one candidate over the top.