Republican National Convention
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What is the Republican National Convention?
The Republican National Convention is a quadrennial meeting of the U.S. Republican Party where the party selects its presidential and vice presidential nominees for the upcoming presidential election. At the convention, the party also formulates its platform. The Republican National Committee (RNC) organizes the national convention, develops the party's political platform, coordinates campaign strategies, and engages in fundraising. The RNC consists of around 150 party leaders representing U.S. states and territories. The chairman of the RNC is typically selected by the party's presidential nominee. More than 40 states now select delegates to the Republican convention through primary elections, while several other states choose delegates through caucuses.
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Why does the Republican Party hold this convention?
The Republican National Convention serves multiple key purposes for the party. It formally nominates the party's candidates for president and vice president and adopts a party platform. The convention also chooses a national committee to organize the next convention and govern the party until then.
Today, the convention has largely transformed into a carefully staged, multi-day campaign rally made for television, with speeches by key figures and the formal acceptance speeches by the nominees. The nominee is typically known well in advance, as most states use a winner-take-all system in primary elections, allowing the Republicans to usually choose their presidential nominees quickly.
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What happens during the Republican National Convention?
The Republican National Convention is a quadrennial event where the U.S. Republican Party selects its presidential and vice presidential nominees. Usually held in the summer of each presidential election year, the convention gathers approximately 2,000 delegates chosen during the winter and spring.
In addition to confirming the party's presidential nominee, a key responsibility of the convention includes adopting a platform and formally choosing a national committee to organize the next convention. Key events include addresses by a keynote speaker, acceptance speeches by the vice presidential and presidential nominees, and a multiday campaign rally made for television. The presidential acceptance speech typically closes the convention.
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How do delegates choose the party's presidential candidate at the convention?
At the Republican National Convention, delegates officially nominate the party's presidential candidate. Delegates are chosen during the winter and spring, typically through primary elections or caucuses.
More than 40 states now select delegates through primary elections. Republican primaries usually allocate delegates on a "winner-take-all" basis, where the candidate with the most votes in a state gets all of that state's delegates. This contrasts with the Democratic Party, which allocates delegates based on the proportion of votes each candidate receives. Because of the winner-take-all system, the Republican Party tends to choose their nominees more quickly and often before the convention.
The national convention also adopts the party platform and chooses a national committee.
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What role do speeches and platforms play at the convention?
At the Republican National Convention, speeches and platforms serve key roles. The convention is now a carefully staged, multiday campaign rally made for television, where addresses by a keynote speaker and acceptance speeches by the vice presidential and presidential nominees are key events. The presidential acceptance speech, watched by millions, traditionally closes the convention. Another key responsibility of the convention is to adopt a [party] platform. Both the Democratic and Republican parties formulate their platforms quadrennially at national political conventions, which are held to nominate the parties’ presidential candidates.
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How has the Republican National Convention changed over time?
The Republican National Convention has changed significantly since its first gathering in 1856. Originally formed to oppose slavery's expansion, the party nominated Abraham Lincoln in 1860, whose election led to the Civil War and a long period of Republican dominance.
Until the 1970s, party leaders controlled conventions, but since then, the grass roots have gained power. Now, most states choose delegates through primary elections, often using a "winner-take-all" system, which allows the party to choose their nominees more quickly. While conventions once determined the nominee, they now typically ratify the candidate chosen by voters, turning the event into a campaign rally.
The convention adopts a platform, though in 2020, the party endorsed President Trump's first-term agenda instead. Today’s conventions feature keynote speakers and nominee acceptance speeches.
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Republican National Convention, quadrennial meeting of the U.S. Republican Party to select its presidential and vice presidential nominees for the presidential election.
History
Key conventions
1854, 1860, and the post-Civil War era
Formed in 1854 in opposition to the extension of slavery into the Kansas and Nebraska territories, the Republican Party held its first national convention in 1856. No delegates from the Deep South attended. In 1860 Abraham Lincoln narrowly captured the party’s nomination on the third ballot. Its platform opposed the expansion of slavery but included a plank allowing each state to “order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively.”
Lincoln’s election brought Southern secession and a Civil War that eventually ended slavery and brought the Republicans to a period of prolonged dominance in the country. They controlled the White House for all but 16 years between 1861 and 1929. After the Civil War, the Republican platform advocated for civil rights, women’s rights, and a high national tariff. In the 1890s, in opposition to the Democrats, they supported continuation of the gold standard.
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1912: the party splits
In 1912 former president Theodore Roosevelt challenged the incumbent Republican president, William Howard Taft, for the Republican nomination. At the time, it was common for campaigns to cater to delegations from Southern states, which never voted Republican in national elections but supplied about one-fifth of the delegates. Taft’s campaign was masterful at the practice, and he won the near-unanimous support of Southern delegates. Roosevelt subsequently ran as a Bull Moose progressive, helping the Democrats win the presidency.
1952: a World War II general defeats the establishment
After World War II the Republican Party took an aggressive stance against communism and sought to bring the unpopular Korean War to an end. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was courted by both parties but ran for election as a Republican. In 1952, in a bitter fight with Ohio Sen. Robert A. Taft, known by the sobriquet “Mr. Republican” and a son of William Howard Taft, Eisenhower led 595–500 after the first ballot; other candidates received 111 votes. Enough delegates switched their votes, however, to allow Eisenhower to win an official first ballot majority.
1964: reaction to the Civil Rights Act
In 1964 Republicans were divided between a more libertarian conservative faction, led by Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, and a liberal-moderate one, which backed New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. Goldwater, who opposed civil rights legislation and favoured smaller government, won. In his acceptance speech he declared that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” While he lost the presidential election in a landslide, outrage in the South from passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) helped him carry five states in the Deep South.
1976–88: Rise of Reaganism
After Pres. Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974, his successor, Gerald Ford, was challenged by California Gov. Ronald Reagan from the party’s conservative wing. Ford defeated Reagan narrowly, but four years later Reagan easily won the nomination. In the 1980s and ’90s the party supported lower taxes and small government while opposing abortion and gay rights.
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African American representation at the Republican National Convention
With the Republican Party overseeing the abolition of slavery, newly enfranchised Black voters flocked to the party. Four Black delegates attended the 1868 convention; that number grew to 27 in 1872. In 1876 abolitionist Frederick Douglass gave a key speech, in 1880 Sen. Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi became the first African American to receive votes for a major party nomination (eight for vice president), and in 1884 John R. Lynch became the first Black person to serve as temporary convention chair. The percentage of Black delegates hit 6 percent in 1912. Thereafter, Black representation typically hovered between 2 and 4 percent of all delegates. It hit a high in 2004, when George W. Bush was nominated to a second term; nearly 7 percent of delegates were Black. Twelve years later, when Donald Trump won the Republican nomination, less than 1 percent of delegates were Black.
The role of modern conventions
Although primaries and caucuses had been introduced in the early 20th century, state and local party leaders controlled the conventions prior to the 1970s. Since then, the Republican grass roots has become ascendant. In several states Republicans allow for winner-take-all at the state level (see democracy: Proportional and winner-take-all systems). For example, in 2016 in Florida Donald Trump won 46 percent of the primary vote but won all 99 delegates. Most states use a winner-take-all system at the congressional district level, while others use proportional representation. Republican rules also reward states that voted for the Republican candidate in the previous election with extra delegates.
In the 19th to the mid-20th century the identity of the nominee might not have been certain prior to the convention. Now the nominee is generally known many months before, turning the convention into a carefully staged multiday campaign rally made for television. Key events are an address by a keynote speaker and the acceptance speeches by the vice presidential and presidential nominees. The presidential acceptance speech closes the convention and is typically watched by tens of millions of viewers.
One key responsibility of the convention is to adopt a platform. In 2020, in a break from tradition brought about by the pandemic, the convention did not write a new platform but instead endorsed the first term agenda of President Trump.