it's been tradition since 1831. every four years republicans and democrats gather to don funny hats wave their signs and send a message to the country we're unified we're ready let's go to the fall campaign in a normal election year thousands of delegates would travel to their party's convention to vote on procedural rules adopt a party platform and officially name the presidential and vice presidential nominees these are party decisions not public decisions even though it feels like a public decision because there's so many primaries the delegates are usually people heavily involved in state politics and they're
assigned to candidates based on the results of primaries and caucuses which take place throughout the election cycle when a candidate wins the delegates in a state they are expected to vote for that candidate at the convention for example in michigan vice president joe biden won 73 delegates in senator bernie sanders 152 to secure the nomination a candidate must win the majority of delegates this year president trump is essentially a shoe-in but the democratic candidate will need a total of 1991 delegates to win the nomination if no one reaches 1991 on the first vote at the
convention there would be a second vote in between votes campaigns would wheel and deal on the convention floor trying to convince delegates to support their candidate that would be real drama that would be drama in real time but we haven't seen that kind of drama recently there hasn't been a real nomination fight on the convention floor in decades these days by the time the conventions roll around we already know the nominees joe biden hit the magic delegate number back in june but the vote at the convention makes it official they usually make a big show
about it and who goes which state puts the candidate over the top etc so usually what will happen is by monday night tuesday night all the business business of the convention is done and they proceed to have as good a tv show as they can have part of that tv show typically includes acceptance speeches by the nominees in front of massive crowds but this year the coven 19 pandemic wrecked both parties plans the mostly virtual 2020 conventions will be like nothing we've ever seen before and experts say that might be the case in 2024 as
well for a number of years people have said that these conventions needed change the coronavirus pandemic is forcing the parties to rethink what had become something of a staid tradition and i think we will see in future years a different looking national party convention
