Would Romney lose a contested convention?

Would Mitt Romney lose a contested convention? Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich seem to think so.

Romney’s camp used delegate math as a primary talking point during key races during March. The argument: it is impossible for Santorum or Gingrich to gain the 1,144 delegates needed to clinch the nomination at the 2012 GOP convention.

Neither Santorum nor Gingrich have paid heed to the Romney message — at least as far as conceding defeat now is concerned. Both candidates appear to be staying in the race for the same two reasons: disdain for Romney and the hope of winning a contested convention.

Gingrich’s greatest reason for not withdrawing from the race at this point is spite. Romney is a notoriously negative campaigner and his attack ads were a key reason Gingrich lost momentum in the post-Trump, post-Bachman, post-Perry, post-Cain GOP race. However, while Gingrich cannot secure enough delegates to win outright, he is nonetheless justifying his continued presence in hopes of “a floor fight in Tampa.”

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Santorum’s logic behind staying in the race seems to be that of addition by subtraction, although he too has been less than fond of Romney’s attack ads. While the Romney camp has moved away from the delegate math argument, its rationale has not been lost on Santorum. His campaign has conceded it cannot secure enough delegates before the convention in August.

But for Santorum and Gingrich, it doesn’t matter if they are unable to claim enough delegates before the convention as long as they can keep Romney from doing the same. As pointed out by ABC's Amy Walter, “The bigger question for Romney is not will he have more delegates than Santorum, but will he have enough delegates to win the nomination outright.”

If no candidate manages to win 1,144 delegates before August, Republicans would face their first contested convention since Ronald Reagan was narrowly edged out by Gerald Ford in 1976.

Reagan’s presidential policy advisor, Edwin Meese described the strategy that prevailed at the time.

“The principal thing was to find delegations that were somewhat uncertain or delegations that we thought the members of which might be persuaded to support Gov. Reagan on a subsequent ballot. It was a matter of whether we could obtain enough delegates to change what was the picture going in.”

For Romney, that could spell trouble. He can still win enough delegates before Republicans meet later this year, but there remains the potential he may be unable to do so.

“In that case,” state Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times, “the nomination would be decided by the more than 2,200 delegates — from obscure local officials and activists to national figures — who will attend the party’s convention in Tampa, Fla., in late August.”

And for a candidate like Romney whose most glaring weakness is a failure to connect with voters, the lack of a solid base from which to draw support in a contested convention is concerning.

“Such weaknesses are hardly building blocks of a nomination and are liabilities Romney must mitigate to win the nomination and then win in the fall,” stated A.B. Stoddard in an article for The Hill.

Romney still has time to regain his status as the inevitable Republican nominee.

However, should he fail to secure the needed votes before August, losing a contested convention would be a distinct possibility.

Kurt Manwaring is pursuing a graduate degree in public administration at the University of Utah. He is a consultant with Manwaring Consulting, LLC and maintains a personal blog at www.kurtsperspective.blogspot.com.

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