Super Tuesday: 4 things to know about the Democratic Presidential Primaries

By Michael Gryboski, Editor
Tuesday, March 03, 2020

Contested Convention possible

Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton enjoys the balloon drop and confetti with her vice presidential running mate Senator Tim Kaine after accepting the nomination on the fourth and final night at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., July 28, 2016. | (Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder)

If no candidate in the Democratic field gets at least 1,991 delegates, then the party convention held this summer will be "contested."

A contested convention would involve voting at the convention to determine the nominee. For the first round of ballots, the delegates will select a candidate, with some bound to support a specific candidate and others unbound.

If the first round of ballots fails to produce a winner, then the contested convention is considered a brokered convention and can involve the selection of a nominee who was not running in the primaries.

The last contested convention for the Democratic Party was in 1984, when Walter Mondale lacked the necessary majority of delegates to secure the nomination. Mondale secured the nomination after the first ballot.