And that includes the super delegates voting on the second ballot.

Not selecting as nominee the candidate with the most delegates entering the convention would imlode the party and get Trump re-elected.

Every candidate and the super delegates will all realize they must vote for the candidate that came in with the most delegates.

Doing otherwise would blow the party to shreds and get Trump re-elected.

It's that simple.

But you can keep dreaming

see what happens

I would hope that the Democratic nominee has the required delegates going into the Convention, and it would be a non-issue

And if that is the case, then one candidate will only have about 30% of total delegates by the time most people start coalescing around them.

It will be an open convention and, ok, let me qualify this, VIRTUALLY everyone will get behind the candidate that came in with the most delegates.

Failing to do so would blow the party apart and get Trump re-elected.

Sorry to keep repeating that, but it's the painful truth. The nomination cannot be denied to the person coming in with the most delegates. Anything else would be political suicide for the General Election.

If the person with the most delegates has, say, less than 120 more delegates than the person in second place, your point is moot.

"back-room" deal making would split the party irreparably in the General Election.

The person with the most delegates coming in will get the support of the other candidates and the super delegates and be our nominee on the second ballot.

Those people are political professionals, they know what's at stake and what the dynamic would be otherwise.

But there hasn't been a brokered convention in either party since 1952 and I really don't see one ever happening again.

The media breathlessly ponders a brokered convention every four years, The media shuts up as soon as somebody is clearly winning.

There will be a clear nominee before we ever get to the convention. The field will winnow dramatically after Super Tuesday.

The best thing would be to have a clear winner with a majority of the delegates entering the convention.

And thank you for the discussion.

There will also be questions about whether one of the candidates was stronger at the end than at the beginning. If voters begin to coalesce around one candidate after the field narrows then it would offset any candidate that came in with an early lead because the votes were divided between multiple candidates with similar policy positions.

And everyone will back the candidate with the most delegates coming into the convention.

How is it different if the non-viable candidates re-align and end up with someone who was in second or third, ending up getting the majority?

I supposed we'll be doomed if we don't have a clear frontrunner by the convention.

that candidate gets 30% of the delegates, and the 70% are divided, I think there will be a problem

Doing anything else would be a disaster in the General Election.

It would not take much to generate hard feelings and mortally wound the party in 2020. It would be handing Trump the win.

People seem to be having a hard time realizing even the slightest whiff of "deal making" would blow the party apart in the General election.

Only problem, will the other candidate(s) be accepting of THAT FACT?!

Sometime after Super Tuesday a lot of the candidates and those on the outside will be picking. That is so by the time of the convention whoever has the most delegates will be in a position for everyone to get behind. Be it Sanders or Bloomberg or Biden or anyone.

People are well aware of the disaster it could be if someone was seen as being denied at that point.

They will free their delegates and only back their choice. This will happen long before the primaries end.

Doing that, or anything except honoring their pledge on the first ballot would blow up the party. Failing to follow the will of the voters when those delegates were won would be viewed as back-room deal making.

Any "deal making" like that just can't be done without splintering the party and mortally wounding it in the General election.

Their supporters to make their votes count.

If we go into the convention with a candidate leading but not having a majority, what I laid out is the best thing. As depending on how much they are leading can allow everyone to get behind them before the convention.

But if say its Biden with 30% and Sanders with 27% and Warren with 26% and all the others making up the difference? What should the outcome be?

The concept that the candidate with the plurality of delegates going into the convention should be the nominee is very straight forward and prevents fracturing the party.

There are so many hypothetical possibilities, I am for waiting for the actual voting to clarify the issue.

So common sense is out the window. If any of the other candidates have the most I think they would all support that candidate but if Bernie has the most I could see them trying to screw him over.

And if that happen Trump would win cause it would destroy the party. No way Bernie or his supporters would be ok with being in the lead and having it taking away from him.

delegates, unless it is a clear majority, I think there will be issues

of how many delegates he arrives with; theirs is a hostage strategy.

In 1952 there were two brokered conventions. Adlai Stevenson came out of the Democratic convention with the nomination and Dwight D. Eisenhower came out of the Republican convention. Neither convention had a clear nominee going in.

There has not been a brokered convention, by either major party, since 1952.

I sincerely doubt there will be one this year.

They will be a political minority for decades to come (to quote David Plouffe just now on Chris Hayes)

And people must realize that delegates cant be "released and reassigned" prior to the convention. Voters expect those pledged delegates to honor the pledge they took and vote as they were chosen to do on election day on the first ballot at the convention.

Not saying he would, but is something like that considered legal?

If we don't have a candidate settled on by July, we don't have a chance of winning.

A fusion ticket could always bring the party together.

is infinitesimally small.

And every single election year people swoon over the possibility.