Hey y'all, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.

Every single week here at NPR Politics and in our daily lives, at the bar, at the grocery

store, on the phone with our families and friends, we get asked some variation of this question.

When it comes to the Republican Party, given the way the race is going, what is a contested

convention or an open convention or a brokerate convention, what happens there, what does it

look like, who decides?

Well, we find a guy.

A guy who can answer all those questions and that's what we'll do this episode.

First, some intros.

I'm Sam Sanders, campaign reporter.

Susan Davis, I cover Congress and I'm a Dominican Montenoro political editor.

So we have to say upfront, this is a conversation about the GOP, not the Democrats and there

is a reason for this?

Well, mostly the reason is because there's only two candidates on the Democratic side.

So the odds of there being a contested or an open convention are harder.

It's a more clear system in place for the Democrats, they have this proportional allocation

and they really do try to avoid something that looks like an open or contested convention.

Now if they do get there, if Bernie Sanders can get enough of those pledged delegates,

if he does get there a little later of the process, then we'll seek out somebody on the

Democratic side who could maybe explain some of this.

Okay.

So the guy we talked to to get some answers on all this for the GOP is a guy named Ben Gensberg.

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