Political Insider

Sen. Hillary Clinton's decision to suspend her presidential campaign might be the best thing to unite Democrats, but political junkies are left a little sad. Most of us have waited a long time to see the excitement of a brokered convention in our lifetimes -- where no candidate wins the nomination on the first ballot.

Reader William Arnone took a look at the history of presidential nominating conventions and found two patterns. First, open multi-ballot conventions have been common for most of their history. Second, being nominated at such a convention did not invariably result in a general election loss.

Here's an excerpt from Arnone's analysis:

Beginning with the first Democratic Party nominating convention in 1832 in Baltimore, Maryland, there have been 44 national Democratic Presidential conventions. For many years, the Democratic Party required a Presidential nominee to receive the votes of two-thirds of convention delegates. The two-thirds rule virtually guaranteed multi-ballot votes, until it was eliminated in 1936. The first Republican Party national convention was held in 1856 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There have been a total of 38 national Republican Presidential conventions.

Out of the combined Democratic and Republican total of 82 Presidential conventions, 23 renominated the incumbent President on the first ballot (10 Democratic, 13 Republican). Of the remaining 59 conventions, 26 (44%) involved multiple ballots (16 Democratic, 10 Republican) before a nominee was chosen. Prior to modern times, the vast majority of nominating conventions involved multiple ballots. The last Democratic convention with multiple ballots was in 1952 when Adlai Stevenson of Illinois was nominated on the third ballot. The last such Republican convention was in 1948 when Thomas Dewey of New York was nominated also on the third ballot. Since then, both parties have moved away from the traditional role of nominating conventions, negatively characterizing them as "smoke-filled rooms," dominated by party "bosses" making "back-room deals."

Did multiple-ballot nominees fare worse at the polls than single-ballot nominees?

Of the 26 multiple-ballot nominees, 11  (Democrat James Polk of Tennessee in 1844, Democrat Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire in 1852, Democrat James Buchanan of Pennsylvania in 1856, Republican Abraham Lincoln of Illinois in 1860, Republican Rutherford Hayes of Ohio in 1876, Republican James Garfield of Ohio in 1880, Democrat Grover Cleveland of New York in 1884, Republican Benjamin Harrison of Indiana in 1888, Republican Warren Harding of Ohio in 1920, Democrat Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey in 1912, and Democrat Franklin Roosevelt of New York in 1932) went on to win the Presidency in the general election. This represents a success rate of 42%. Of these successful multiple-ballot nominees, the most ballots it took to nominate were 49 for Pierce, 46 for Wilson, and 36 for Garfield. Three of these multiple-ballot nominees - Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt - are considered to be among our country's greatest Presidents.

Of course, Clinton didn't really end her campaign, she merely suspended it. By not releasing her delegates, they are still free to vote for her on the first ballot at the convention. So, if something caused enough superdelegates to switch to Clinton between now and late August, there is still at least the possibility of a brokered convention.

It's a long shot, of course, but political junkies can still hope.