Held in Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri, the convention nominated President Gerald Ford for a full term, but only after narrowly defeating a strong challenge from former California Governor Ronald Reagan.

Other notable speakers included Minnesota Representative Al Quie, retired Lieutenant Colonel and former Vietnam prisoner of war Raymond Schrump, former Democratic Texas Governor John Connally, Providence, Rhode Island mayor Vincent Cianci and Michigan Senator Robert P. Griffin.

[1] The Democrats demurred early on, citing a lack of hotel accommodations, but Republicans were more receptive because the city had a reliably enthusiastic base of the party, and "fit the Midwestern image of Jerry Ford".

Because of this, both Ford and Reagan arrived in Kansas City before the convention opened to woo the remaining uncommitted delegates in an effort to secure the nomination.

They and other conservative Western and Southern delegates particularly faulted the Ford Administration's foreign policy of détente towards the Soviet Union, criticizing his signing of the Helsinki Accords and indirectly blaming him for the April 1975 Fall of Saigon.

Reagan had promised, if nominated, to name Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania as his running mate, in a bid to attract liberals and centrists in the party.

The key vote of the convention occurred when Reagan's managers proposed a rules change that would have required Ford to publicly announce his running mate before the presidential balloting.

Ford selected Kansas Senator Robert J. Dole as his running mate, as unelected incumbent Vice President Rockefeller had announced the previous fall that he would not be a candidate for a full term in 1976.

After Ronald Reagan lost the presidential ballot to incumbent Gerald Ford, 103 of his delegates walked out of the convention, and the remainder decided to scatter their votes among 30 people.