Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus made it clear on Sunday that the candidate who goes into the party's presidential convention this summer with the most votes does not necessarily get the nomination.
"History would show ... when someone's a little bit short, you let the process play out, and if it's that close, that's generally what happens," Priebus said on CNN's
"State of the Union."
Priebus also appeared on ABC's
"This Week" where he admitted he is not as confident as he once was that multiple convention votes will not be needed to determine a nominee.
Front-runner Donald Trump has said he is confident he will secure the needed 1,237 delegate required before the convention, but he also said that if he is close to that 50 percent-plus-1 number and no one else is, he should get the nomination.
That "plurality is a minority," Priebus said. "And a minority doesn't choose for the majority."
He pointed to the fact the he didn't win his own chairmanship until the seventh ballot, although he was the top vote-getter in every round.
"But no one called me the winner of the second, third, fourth, fifth ballot," Priebus said. "I had to get to a majority."