WASHINGTON – Monday, 12:01 p.m.
Almost 2,500 delegates are gathered in Milwaukee this week for a roll call vote to select a Republican presidential candidate, formally ending the presidential primaries.
It will be a moment without suspense: Former President donald trump has been the presumptive nominee for months, having won a majority of convention delegates on March 12, but he doesn’t officially become the party’s standard-bearer until after the roll call vote, when delegates vote for the candidate.
The vast majority of these delegates are already doomed to support Trump, who only needs a majority to win the Republican nomination. However, due to state party rules, at least some are still scheduled to go to former candidate Nikki Haley, even after she released their delegates.
Although Democratic delegates are technically permitted move away from your promised candidate to vote your conscience, Republican delegates remain bound to the designated candidate regardless of their personal opinions. That means party rules all but guarantee Trump will officially become the nominee this week.
The leader of each state delegation will take turns, in alphabetical order, to announce the results. If a delegation passes their turn, they will have another opportunity to announce their results at the end of the call.
Republicans have not yet announced the time and date for the roll call vote.
At least 2,268 delegates will support Trump at the Republican National Convention, although his ceiling will be even higher than that.
Most states send delegates to the convention who are “bound” to a particular candidate, meaning those delegates are obligated to support a particular candidate at the convention. State parties use the results of primary or caucus votes and smaller party meetings to decide how to allocate these delegates to various presidential candidates.
But at least 150 Republican delegates — including all delegations from Montana, New Mexico and South Dakota — are technically “unbound,” meaning they can vote for any candidate at the convention. Dozens of those delegates have already confirmed to the AP that they plan to vote for Trump at the convention – which is reflected in the 2,268 delegates already committed to Trump. Some of those delegates also said they hope their peers will vote for Trump, even though those delegates have not confirmed their intentions with the AP.
Trump will likely be the only candidate formally in the running for the nomination because RNC rules require candidates to win a plurality of delegates in at least five states. Trump is the only candidate to win five states in the primaries — Haley won only Vermont and Washington, D.C., and no other candidate has won a race for the Republican nomination this year. However, each state’s party rules prescribe whether delegates tied to withdrawn candidates can vote for a different candidate, and some require that delegates maintain their commitment to their candidate regardless.
For example, a spokesperson for the North Carolina Republican Party confirmed that Haley’s delegates remain bound to her under state rules. She won 12 delegates in the March state primary. In New Hampshire, however, state rules say that Haley’s pledged nine delegates are free to vote for another candidate since she formally withdrew from the race, without any requirement that she formally release them.
In Iowawhere four Republican presidential candidates received delegates, a party spokesperson confirmed that state rules dictate that all 40 delegates would support the only candidate whose name will be taken into consideration: Trump.
