Republican rule changes for the 2028 cycle
The RNC's work on delegate rules isn't done, but the baseline is different on several fronts from the regulations that guided the 2024 process
ICYMI at FHQ: Missouri bill prefiled to reinstate presidential primary
FHQ has spent considerable time on the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination process thus far this fall. There have, after all, been Rules and Bylaws Committee meetings and related news about the calendar shake ups the national party may attempt to undertake among other things.
Meanwhile, on the Republican side, things have been comparatively quiet. Yes, the Republican National Committee named members to the Presidential Nominating Process Committee in accordance with the party rules and the conventional wisdom at this time is that, unlike their counterparts in the Democratic Party, Republicans will stick with the traditional early states on the 2028 presidential primary calendar. But that is about it.
Yet, the nominating rules for Republicans are already different from 2024 even before the party, either at the committee level or in full, has fully begun to consider any additional alterations to how the rules guide the process.
But let’s back up for a minute. The Republican process for setting the nominating rules is not the same as it is on the Democratic side.
Historically, Democrats would come out of the party’s national convention having passed a resolution there forming a commission with a mandate to consider specific changes to the rules for the next cycle (before handing off recommendations to the Rules and Bylaws Committee). Most recently, the Unity Reform Commission explored the rules around caucuses, superdelegates and open/closed primaries (and other delegate selection events) after the 2016 cycle. And while that has been the traditional model for Democrats to initiate any inter-cycle rules changes throughout the post-reform era, the party has skipped the commission stage in recent cycles, opting instead to start, as it has again for the 2028 cycle, with the Rules and Bylaws Committee. There typically are specific rules that are pinpointed for change in the time between the convention and when rules have to be adopted for the next cycle by late summer/early fall of the midterm election year, but the RBC also goes line-by-line through all of the Charter and Bylaws, the Delegate Selection Rules and the Call for the Convention in the process.
Again, however, Republicans have tended to run the process in a different manner. For much of the post-reform era, the GOP practice was to do little to make any changes. What came out of the convention was what stood as the Rules of the Republican Party through the intervening presidential nomination process and until the next convention. But that practice also ran the risk of leaving the national party flatfooted if any need arose to respond to changes the Democratic Party may institute or changes that might arise from the state level, particularly calendar conflicts.
The 2008 Republican convention dealt with this by empowering the Temporary Delegate Selection Committee with a specific mandate. And four years on, the 2012 convention went a step further by adopting Rule 12, which allowed changes to the wide swath of the Rules of the Republican Party outside of those pertaining to the proceedings of the national convention itself.
Coming out of any national convention in recent cycles, then, the Republican Party has emerged with a set of temporary rules for the next cycle. But that document is bifurcated, split between rules that can be amended before October 1 of the midterm election year under the provisions of Rule 12 and those that cannot be changed. The latter are, again, those rules that govern the national convention itself.
And they can be changed too, only, the question is when. The party can amend Rules 1-11 and 13-25 — rules on party organization, delegate selection/allocation/binding, enforcement and contests — between the convention and, in the 2028 cycle, October 1, 2026. Those rules are locked in once September 30, 2026 comes and goes. Then state parties have a year — until September 30, 2027 — to adopt their delegate selection rules in response to those guidelines. It is at that point that the rules governing the delegate selection process are in place for 2028 (barring any rules violations and other challenges on the state level that have to be adjudicated).
But then, once primary season concludes and preparations for the national convention kick into high gear, the RNC reexamines the full set of rules, including those beyond Rule 25. The party sends a rules package to the convention for consideration and adoption that includes tweaks to the previously mentioned rules for the next cycle and to the convention proceedings rules for the current cycle. Again, those are the rules that under Rule 12 cannot be amended until this point in time in the cycle.
So what appears below the fold is a walk through the changes that were adopted at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. They are all set up below as a comparison between 2024 and 2028. But that is only truly accurate for the new baseline set for Rules 1-11 and 13-25. Those are the heart of the delegate selection rules for 2028, the ones that can still be changed up to fall 2026. The remaining rules — those for the proceedings of the national convention — reflect changes that were made to the temporary rules coming out of the 2020 convention in Charlotte for adoption and use at the 2024 convention. They may yet be changed but that will not happen until after primary season in 2028.
Warning: What appears below is A LOT. FHQ has provided a brief synopsis of what the various changes mean (if there is any to be divined). Some deserve and will in the future get a fuller, separate treatment here at FHQ Plus.