When was the last contested political convention

In the run-up to the convention, the Republican National Committee adjudicated disputes over the legitimacy of presumptive seats at the convention, most of them Taft delegates challenged by pro-Roosevelt forces. But Taft controlled that process, too, and only 19 of the disputed seats were awarded to Roosevelt partisans.

Roosevelt made one last effort to shake delegates loose on the floor of the convention by appearing in person and delivering an impassioned speech in favor of a series of progressive reforms, but despite the uproar this caused, Taft was nominated on the first ballot.

Roosevelt responded by mounting a third-party campaign in which he managed to come in second, making Taft the worst-performing re-nominated incumbent in Presidential history.

A political cartoon showing another Democratic Presidential candidate "throwing his hat in the ring" as a donkey comments worriedly on the size of the field left ; John W. Davis, the eventual Democratic nominee right. Most party platform debates go unremembered, but such was not the case in , the first year the national conventions were broadcast live on radio.

The Democrats were deeply divided on a host of cultural issues symbolized by the emergence of the second Ku Klux Klan. It therefore took them over five hours of pandemonium-inducing debate, all of it broadcast live on radio on a Saturday night, to determine whether the party platform should denounce the Klan. Anti-Klan forces lost, by a single vote. The Klan vote presaged deadlock on the nomination itself.

Davis of West Virginia. Fifty-eight different candidates received at least one vote at some point during the balloting. Wendell Willkie in left ; a campaign button opposing President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third term right. Then, between the end of the primaries in May and the beginning of the convention on June 24, Paris fell to the Nazis and party leaders became determined to find an internationalist nominee.

They had to reach well outside the usual pool of Republican candidates to find one, all the way to Wendell Willkie, a power company executive who had never run for office at any level and had been registered as a Democrat as late as the fall of This convention was also the first broadcast live on television, though there were as yet only a few thousand TVs within range of the three stations broadcasting. Democrats Television had a much larger impact on the Democratic Convention in Chicago, a year during which televised social chaos spread around the world.

Delegates arrived in Chicago riven by divisions over the Vietnam War, civil rights, and how to respond to the widespread unrest triggered by the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy who had been running for the nomination and gained Antiwar protesters also arrived in Chicago determined to publicize their cause through a combination of peaceful protest and satirical political spectacle, knowing full well that the Chicago police were likely to respond to protests with violence.

After the debacle in , the party significantly altered its delegate selection rules in an effort to make the process more transparent and more responsive to grassroots concerns. The result not only made open primaries the main form of delegate selection, it also empowered new party constituencies focused on new issues and disempowered more traditional constituencies like labor unions and urban political machines.

This led to marathon platform debates on issues like gay rights, reproductive freedom, gender equity, and personal identity, issues which today seem like normal political fodder but at the time had never been addressed so directly by a major political party. McGovern had difficulty selecting a running mate. At least four major party figures turned him down; by the time he settled on Thomas Eagleton, rank-and-file delegates were so disheartened that they turned what should have been the procedural formality of nominating Eagleton into a marathon spectacle during which seven other candidates were formally nominated and dozens more received at least one vote, including dead people, fictional characters, and the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.

Eagleton was removed from the ticket replaced by Sargent Shriver less than three weeks later when it emerged he had received electroshock therapy for depression. Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Stanton Foundation. Skip to main content. Pew Research Center now uses as the last birth year for Millennials in our work.

President Michael Dimock explains why. About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research.

Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Newsletters Donate My Account. Research Topics. Thomas E. Dewey was the last Republican presidential candidate to be nominated in a multi-ballot contest; he won on the third ballot. But should the first ballot not produce a nominee, most delegates become free to vote for whomever they wish, leading potentially to multiple ballots, horse-trading, smoke-filled rooms, favorite sons, dark horses and other colorful elements that have enlivened American political journalism , literature and.

Share this link:. Facts are more important than ever. Candidates who don't win on first convention ballot usually go on to lose. Delegates from Ohio and several other states shifted their votes to enable Smith to become the Democratic nominee on the first ballot. In November , Republican consultant Karl Rove predicted a brokered convention was possible in , as a result of the large Republican field, the number of states that award delegates proportionally and the "fluid force" of uncommitted superdelegates.

On December 10, , The Washington Post reported that the Republican National Committee had begun to make preparations for a potential brokered convention. In response, Trump said he would be "disadvantaged" if one occurred. In an interview on Fox News later in the day, Carson clarified that he would not run as a third-party candidate. Mitt Romney supporters have also reportedly "mapped out a strategy for a late entry to pick up delegates and vie for the nomination in a convention fight, according to the Republicans who were briefed on the talks.

On March 3, , Romney publicly condemned Trump's candidacy and encouraged voters to support Marco Rubio and John Kasich in their respective home states of Florida and Ohio. Reuters reported, "By calling for targeted voting, Romney was setting up the possibility of a contested convention when Republicans gather in Cleveland in mid-July to select their nominee for the November election to succeed Democratic President Barack Obama.

That could create a pathway to deny Trump the 1, delegates needed for nomination. The following day, Ted Cruz argued against a brokered convention. He said, "A brokered convention is the pipe-dream of the Washington establishment. It is their hope they can snatch this nomination from the people. If the Washington deal-makers try to steal the nomination from the people, I think it will be a disaster.

It will cause a revolt. John Kasich appeared to support the possibility of a brokered convention while speaking to reporters on March 7, He said that he would not need a plurality of delegates to be competitive for the Republican presidential nomination. I was at a convention where Ronald Reagan challenged Gerald Ford.

Ford won and the party was unified. But, you know, to say — I have more than you, therefore I should get it? Go out and earn it! Go get what you need to be the legitimate winner! Ballotpedia features , encyclopedic articles written and curated by our professional staff of editors, writers, and researchers. Click here to contact our editorial staff, and click here to report an error. Click here to contact us for media inquiries, and please donate here to support our continued expansion.

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