Brokered convention

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Brokered convention" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (March 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

In United States politics, a brokered convention (sometimes referred to as an open convention and closely related to a contested convention) occurs when no candidate is nominated on the first ballot of a party's nominating convention.

In many cases, delegates elected to a national, state or local convention through primaries or caucuses are pledged to vote for a particular candidate on the first ballot of the convention, meaning that the candidate with the necessary number of delegate pledges in advance of the convention is considered the presumptive nominee. However, if no candidate receives the necessary number of delegates' votes on the first ballot, the nomination is decided by the delegates through a process of bargaining and voting and the convention is then considered brokered.^[1][2] In that circumstance, all delegates are "released" from any obligation to support a particular candidate and may switch their allegiance to a different candidate before the next round of balloting. In some cases, delegates change their vote during the balloting roll call, resulting in a brokered convention where only one ballot is taken.

Brokered conventions have become rare following the decline of political machines and party bosses, and the advent of national primary campaigns and mass media. The term "contested" is a more modern term for a convention in which no candidate holds a majority.^[3]