How an open convention works... and how it could backfire and cost Kamala Harris and the Democrats the 2024 election

President Joe Biden has dropped out of the presidential race and has endorsed Kamala Harris as his replacement at the top of the Democratic ticket. 

Most Democrats have already united behind the vice president as the nominee, but others have also said the party needs an open convention.

Barack Obama has called for an 'open contest' to chose Biden's replacement, even though Harris maybe the only realistic contender

A brokered convention is something the Democrats have not experienced in 70 years, and could sow chaos amid calls for all members to come together to defeat Donald Trump.

Biden amassed nearly 4,000 pledged delegates committed to supporting him as millions of voters cast ballots for the incumbent president during the primaries.

Biden's seismic decision opens the door to a wild and a potentially exhausting nominating process next month at the convention with voting until a nominee is chosen by a majority of eligible voting delegates. 

A brokered convention is a presidential nominating convention where delegates fail to nominate a candidate on the first ballot. It means no candidate gets the votes of more than half of delegates in the first round. 

Once upon a time, brokered conventions happened regularly because the major parties did not hold primaries to award delegates the way they currently do. 

It lead to a series of complex negotiations playing out among some party power brokers, typically federal and state leaders including party officials, lawmakers and governors. 

The voting continues on a round of ballots until a candidate receives a majority of delegates.  

The last time there was a brokered convention was in 1952. 

In the end, Democrats were able to nominate Democrat Adlai Stevenson on the third ballot. 

Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower that year was just nine votes short on the first ballot, prompting some delegates to change their votes to make him the official nominee. 

The longest brokered convention to date took place 100 years ago in 1924 when Democrats took sixteen days and 103 ballots to nominate diplomat John Davis.  It took Franklin Delano Roosevelt four ballots to secure the 1932 Democratic nomination.

'We really don't have any standards or benchmarks or known procedures,' said Leonard Steinhorn, professor at American University, of what a brokered convention would look like in 2024. 'We're sort of walking a little bit in the wild right now,' he said.

While the terms brokered convention and contested convention are often used interchangeably, there is a key difference. 

A contested convention is one where the one candidate has done well but not enough to guarantee nomination on the first ballot, so another candidate tries to convince delegates to abandon the frontrunner. 

It has been more common in the modern era than a brokered convention, according to Elaine Kamarck from the Brookings Institute. 

When Biden was in the race, the convention was seen as a more of a public relations event for the party.

But his decision to drop out opened the door for a process to choose someone to take the torch he passed on. 

Political parties have largely tried to avoid both brokered and contested conventions because history shows candidates who need multiple ballots to be nominated are less likely to win the White House.

Of the sixty Democratic and Republican nominating conventions from 1868 after the Civil War through 1984, eighteen candidates were nominated on multiple ballots according to Pew. 

Of those, only seven were elected president, and among those, four were running against other nominees who also faced multiple ballots to receive the nomination. 

The last time a Democrat vigorously argued for an open convention was late Senator Ted Kennedy in 1980. The senator challenged President Jimmy Carter for the nomination. Ultimately, delegates had to stay faithful based on their state results when voting. But Carter went on to lose the election that fall to Ronald Reagan.

Before that, Republican President Gerald Ford went into the 1976 convention with a clear majority of delegates but not a necessary number to lock up the nomination leading to a serious challenge from then-Governor Reagan. He ended up winning on the first ballot but went on to lose the election to Carter.

'You want a party united behind the person who seems to be the popular choice of the members of that party, of the voters,' Steinhorn noted.

Determining the candidate at the convention would force the party and campaign to scramble to introduce the nominee to the public, raise money and hit the campaign trail before Election Day.

What could benefit Democrats if they do hold a brokered convention in 2024 is their   opponent is Trump.

'This is going to be an unusual year because Donald Trump has very, very high negatives,' said Steinhorn.

While Democrats would be playing catchup for November in their messaging and ground game, there could be a key difference.

'Because Donald Trump is so singularly unpopular as the opposing party nominee, it potentially does give the Democratic Party is small advantage,' he added.