VA Politics Explainer: VA GOP Convention
Not this year, fellas
This weekend, the Republican Party of Virginia is holding their convention to select candidates for this fall’s statewide elections! Or, actually, they’re holding 37 conventions! Or, they’re not exactly conventions! Wait, what?
Let’s roll this back and talk about what conventions are, and then what the GOP is actually doing this year.
How a Normal Convention Works
In a normal year, if a state party wants to hold a convention they literally gather delegates together in the same room. Who are the delegates? Party insiders, donors, but mostly faithful volunteers - the folks who come to meetings, show up to canvass and phonebank, etc. The idea is to have the people who really care about the party do the important work of selecting candidates to represent the party in the general election.
So the main business of a convention is to hold a vote to find out who the party wants to run for, say, Governor. But you typically need multiple votes, because you are trying to get a consensus candidate that a majority of the party wants. So you have a “first ballot” vote, where every delegate votes for their favorite. If no one gets over 50% of the vote, you take a break; candidates and their allies lobby delegates, make promises, wheel and deal. Eventually everyone votes again; maybe people have changed their mind. But you vote and vote again until you get a candidate who wins a majority.
What do we mean by wheel and deal? Let's say you're a lower-tier candidate, and you realize after a few rounds of voting that you are never going to get beyond 10-15% of the vote. So you meet with another, more successful candidate (say with 25%) and agree to withdraw and endorse them, hoping to deliver most/all of your supporters. Maybe you do this for the good of the party; or maybe you get a promise of future help (endorsement in your next Delegate race) or a job (appointment to cabinet secretary or support for a judgeship). Those kinds of deals often deliver victory.
So it helps to have a strong base, but also the ability to appeal to others as their second choice. It also helped to know the convention rules inside and out – from selecting delegates to when to call for votes, all used to be a big part of winning. (Clif White, who engineered Barry Goldwater's run to the GOP Presidential nomination in 1964, was probably the greatest practitioner of this dark art.) Frustration with these kind of shady backroom deals led the country to move mostly towards primary elections at both state and federal levels.
Why a Convention?
If they are so shady, why did the GOP pick a convention for 2021? Well, primaries in VA are open to ALL voters. Some party folks are perennially concerned that Dems might vote in their primary. (There’s not a lot of evidence of crossover voting, I have to say, so these fears are probably unfounded.) A convention certainly allows greater voice for party faithful - with the disadvantage of selecting candidates who may be too extreme for the general election. (The phrase "Lt. Governor E.W. Jackson" was never, ever going to happen.)
But another push for the convention comes from the odd dynamic of the party this year, and one candidate in particular. State Senator Amanda Chase often calls herself "Trump in heels;” as with the big orange guy at the federal level, state party leaders seem to want to deny her the nomination because she might be too extreme for the general election. Chase has a fervent base but little support outside of it; a primary, where you only need a plurality of votes, would have served her better than the convention.
So What is Different this Year?
The GOP this year is running what they call an "unassembled convention." Rather than gather everyone in one room - impractical due to COVID restrictions - they have created 37 satellite locations that are spread across the state. And instead of hanging out to cast multiple ballots, every delegate casts one vote only and then goes home. Some places will allow you to walk in and fill out a ballot; others will allow drive-through voting.
Still, the goal still is a majority consensus; how can the GOP do that if everyone leaves? Ranked-choice voting is how. You can vote for more than one candidate on your ballot, and rank them in order. If your first choice doesn't get selected, your second choice is counted, and so on until the votes reach over 50% for one candidate.
How does this work specifically? Here’s an example.
Let’s say they count all the votes for Governor, and Chase leads with 25% and Pena is last with 3%.
All the "Pena #1" ballots are rounded up, and Pena is crossed out on them. Now these ballots are recounted, using the #2 candidate on each ballot. If you had Pena first and Chase second, your ballot now counts as a Chase vote.
After allocating all the Pena votes, Chase still leads, but only with 30%.
Doran is now in last place; anyone who voted for him 1st (or 2nd after Pena) get their votes allocated to the next name on their list.
And so on, and so on, until one candidate gets enough votes (1st, 2nd, 3rd, or whatever) to put them over 50%.
If this sounds time consuming, it is. Because of the “unassembled” nature of the convention, there are many more delegates this year than usual - over 50,000 registered! Plus the GOP apparently cannot trust their party to count electronically. (Long story, but for example the GOP lawyer is also Pete Snyder's campaign lawyer. Lots of chicanery.) So they are doing it by hand, with observers. So we may not get results for a week or so.
Predictions
I am not typically in the business of predictions – social science IS science, friends! But there are too many variables in human behavior for certainly. Still, if I had to make a choice, my guesses are:
Pete Snyder for Governor (multiple ballots)
Tim Hugo for Lt. Governor (1st or 2nd ballot)
Jason Miyares for Attorney General (1st ballot)
We’ll see how it goes!