Ohio will be part of the Super Tuesday presidential primary in March 2010. Attempts to move that primary to May were unsuccessful so that means the Ohio Republican Party had to make a change to its bylaws in the way it handles delegates to the national convention next summer. It’s doing that because of rules set by the national party. So, as Ohio Republican Party Chair Kevin DeWine explains, instead of allowing the winner of the Ohio primary to get all of the delegate votes, the State’s Republican party will now have to allow proportional delegates.
DeWine says "What this means is that a presidential candidate can win a congressional district and with that, earn the delegates associated with that congressional district and then be eligible for a portion of the “at large” delegates that the state has to award."
DeWine says the state party made changes to its bylaws to allow for this change. By not having a winner takes all system anymore, DeWine says Ohioans will likely see more of the presidential candidates.
"I think it will generate a lot more interest from presidential candidates who feel they cannot compete on the overall vote but that they can compete congressional district by congressional district and so I think you’ll see some candidates make strategic decisions to be focusing on winning a handful of congressional districts and coming to Ohio and participating in that process more so than when it was winner take all and they didn’t feel, really, that they had much of an opportunity to win it all."
The Republican National Convention will be held in Tampa in August of next year and it’s now possible two or more presidential candidates will go there with some backing from buckeye GOP voters.