As polls show likely Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is trailing presumptive Democratic choice Hillary Clinton, reports are again surfacing that Republicans will be making moves to try to change the rules for next month’s convention in Cleveland. And that’s a tactic that’s been used in past conventions too.
The rules committee will meet a week before next month’s convention, and it could be an interesting session, said University of Cincinnati political science professor David Niven. “Conventions can change all their own rules if their convention delegates are willing to do it. So there really aren’t rules till the convention starts," said Niven.
Niven says each state makes its choice on picking delegates – some are loyal to the candidate, some to the party. And he notes that there were efforts to change the rules at the Republican convention in 1976 and the Democratic convention in 1980, but the party’s nominees stayed the same.
