Here’s another headache for Republicans who don’t want to see Donald Trump as their presidential nominee in 2024: There’s a mechanism that could allow him to get the party’s nomination even if he’s defeated in its primaries and caucuses.
It has to do with the decentralized way that Republicans decide their nomination — which is different from the strict procedures that Democrats have mandated for state parties since the 1970s.
Republicans do have some national rules affecting the calendar and delegate selection, but in many ways the states are free to do what they want.
The issue is the difference between delegate allocation and delegate selection. Allocation is about which candidate the delegates to the convention are bound to, or supposed to vote for. Selection is about which people are chosen as delegates.
On the Democratic side, the two are tightly connected. Candidates have “slates” of delegates; in effect, they choose their own delegates. For Republicans, allocation and selection are often separate procedures. Primaries or caucuses determine how many delegates a candidate will get at the convention. But in many states the delegates themselves are chosen separately, in procedures that generally allow party insiders to dominate.