Can someone help me here? Is it possible for Democrats to change their support at the convention and nominate another candidate? Didn’t that happen when Rutherford B Hayes was elected or was it another President around that time? I seem to recall there was a convention that completely changed their support and nominated someone who wasn’t even on the radar that year.
never mind.
Yes. The convention delegates are not bound to particular candidates. They may be pledged to them (super delegates aren’t), but violating that pledge does not invalidate the vote.
You don’t mean electoral votes which are what the Electoral College cast in December as the final step in electing the President.
However, under Rule 12(J) of the Democratic National Committee’s delegate selection rules, any pledged delegate who expressed a candidate preference is encouraged but not required to vote for the candidate that he or she has been elected to support.
Emphasis mine. So yes it’s possible. In the Republican convention delegates are “bound” and not “pledged”.
As @LSLGuy notes, the question of whether the DNC can nominate someone besides Biden has been addressed at length in P&E. As a FACTUAL MATTER, the answer is yes, it is possible.
In regard to your historical example, party conventions are very different creatures today than they were in Hayes’ day (or James Garfield, another example of a “dark horse” arising to be nominated at the convention). There were no primaries, so delegates were not committed to any particular candidate. Some delegates may have been aligned with particular candidates, but the nomination process was much more fluid and often went to multiple votes.
Thanks for the info. I haven’t seen anyone really mention that something could change at the convention and the talking heads are making it sound like it is not possible for them to nominate a different candidate.
I’m confused by one aspect of the current media discussion… some critics mentioned “100 votes”. In Canadian leadership conventions, it’s elimination rounds - the candiate with less than X% of the vote and/or the lowest vote candidate is eliminated. If there are, say, 6 candidates, there can be at most 5 votes.
So is the Democratic convention like the vote for pope - nobody is eliminated and just keep going and going until there’s a 50% winner?
(If so, maybe they should take a page from the cardinals and get locked in until they make up their minds… 
)
It’s important to note that a Democratic or Republican nominating convention hasn’t gone to a second ballot since 1952. Modern conventions are not designed to choose the Presidential nominee, but rather to crown them.
But under current DNC rules, a candidate who receives a majority of votes on the first ballot is nominated. If it goes to a second or subsequent ballots, the “superdelegates” (high-ranking party officials and Democratic officeholders) are allowed to vote. The candidate still must secure a majority of all voting delegates.
It’s technically possible on paper for them to do whatever they want (within reason). It’s not possible in reality because they’re not fools.
This is confusing. IIRC - When Hillary originally locked up the nomination in 2016 (was that when?) one objection at first was that she’d locked up a majority using superdelegates. Those didn’t count for the first round?
The only answer is, it depends on the rules. Which can be changed on the fly. You are probably referring to the 1924 convention when it took the Dems 103 votes to nominate someone. First off, there were no primaries and no pledged delegates. Most importantly, a century ago, the Dems required a 2/3 majority to choose a candidate. I believe they were quickly down to 2 candidates, but neither could get 2/3. Until the 103rd. I think they abandoned the 2/3 requirement by 1928 (although I am not certain of that and could not get an answer from Google).
The DNC changed their rules after 2016 specifically as a reaction to the controversy over superdelgates.
From the Call to the 2024 Convention, Rule IX.E.3.d: “All delegates to the National Convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.”
I don’t think that differs at all from what I said. They are “pledged” but not “bound”. They could vote for someone else, but they’d have to have a very good reason to do so.
[Moderating]
Specifically here:
Since the factual question is answered, and since any further discussion is more appropriate for the P&E forum, and since there’s already a thread there, I’ll just close this.