What If Republicans Can’t Pick A Nominee Before Their Convention?

Fivethirtyeight.com ^

[TigerClaws]

2016 Election 9:39 PM Dec 10, 2015 What If Republicans Can’t Pick A Nominee Before Their Convention?

A FiveThirtyEight Chat A man dressed as Uncle Sam entertains the crowd at the 29th Republican National Convention in Miami in 1968.

A man dressed as Uncle Sam entertains the crowd at the 29th Republican National Convention in Miami in 1968.

Declan Haun / Chicago History Museum / Getty Images

The Washington Post published a story late Thursday that started a heated argument in the FiveThirtyEight offices. So we’re doing an extra 2016 Slack chat this week! The transcript below has been lightly edited.

[TigerClaws]

I saw a smirking commentator on Fox the other day who said, "Trump is only at 35 percent."

This is 20 points ahead of the nearest candidate.

He went on, "That's 65% of the public that's against Trump."

??

Apparently the GOPe's plan is now to steal the election. They can do this ...

(1) by disqualifying Trump - remove him as a Republican candidate in certain key states like New York. We saw that attempt was announced yesterday;

(2) through a brokered convention where all of the anti-Trump's get together, make deals, and nominate an 'acceptable candidate' who can 'win the general election'; or

(3) put up a third party candidate themselves if Trump is the nominee to 'Ross Perot' the Trump campaign.

They might also drag out Romney combined with several establishment guys (Jeb included) dropping out.

[mquinn]

I think there’s s provision now though that the nominee has to have won at least 8 primaries in order to secure the nomination, regardless of how the delegates go. So if Trump rolls through a bunch of primary victories, the rest of the winless chumps can’t just all agree to back one of their own number and the rest drop out.

[TexasFreeper2009]

Why are all these “experts” so stupid?

It only takes a few minutes of research to determine that if the polls more or less stay where they are now, Trump wins the nomination in a landslide.

Between the winner take all states (all of which Trump will win) and the proportional states that have a 20% threshold to get any delegates (which make them effectively winner take all for Trump) Trump has the nomination in the bag, unless something major happens to lower his numbers below 20% or unless someone elses numbers also go above 20%.

[freepertoo]

Does the gope realize that if they do this, a great number of Republicans will jump ship? I, for one, won’t have my decisions made for me by nameless elites who couldn’t care less for anyone besides themselves. I think we need to make this strongly known to them. I won’t be bullied.

[TexasFreeper2009]

delegates needed to win nomination 1236
winner take all states: pledged delegates
south carolina 50
Florida 99
illinois 69
missouri 49
ohio 66
arizona 58
wisconsin 42
delaware 16
maryland 38
pennsylvania 71
indiana 54
nebraska 36
california 169
montana 27
new jersey 51
south dakota 26

Proportional states with 20% threshold
Georgia 76
Texas 152
Vermont 13
Tennessee 55
Louisiana 43
Puerto Rico 23
Idaho 32
New York 92
Washington 41

Total delegates Trump guaranteed 1448
Total needed to win 1236

[proust]

I saw a smirking commentator on Fox the other day who said, “Trump is only at 35 percent.”

This is 20 points ahead of the nearest candidate.

He went on, “That’s 65% of the public that’s against Trump.”
..........
Bill Clinton never got above 42%, in the general election and MSM never said “58% is against this tool.”

[Gaffer]

Me either. If the RNC and GOPe circumvent the primary voting process, I’ll have no problem in helping to set the symbollic fire that burns that party to the ground. The match starts with no votes for any Republican anywhere.

[TexasFreeper2009]

You are falling for their scam.

Assuming the numbers more or less stay where they are now, Trump will EASILY win the nomination before the convention even starts.

Trump will have way more BOUND delegates than needed to secure the nomination, who are by law required to vote for him on the first ballot.

[capt. norm]

I remember the convention when Eisenhower won. The primaries had come and gone ad yet a candidate as strong as "Ike" had not won enough votes/states.

We've been down that road before.

[TexasFreeper2009]

The charts from this year look almost exactly like the charts from 2012, except that Trump is running 10 points ahead of where Romney was, with every else playing the part of flavor of the month.

[proust]

And Shillery is no Obama media blitz. No “yes we can” and dope posters movements.

[Red Badger]

The GOPe is the mirror image of the DEMe. This election cycle all ‘conventional wisdom’ and political theory is out the window.

Roosevelt was the last candidate to emerge from a brokered convention and win the presidency.

The last truly brokered conventions came in 1948 for the Republicans, who nominated Thomas Dewey, and in 1952 for the Democrats, who picked Adlai Stevenson................BOTH LOSERS........................

[pepsionice]

What about the unassigned delegates (400-500)?

[Patton@Bastogne]

.


Let's see ...


Donald Trump "clearly" (according to the article) will be checkmated by the so-far hapless GOPe-RINO political machine ...

The same Donald Trump who has brilliantly created a ten-billion dollar business empire (after being almost "flat broke" in the 1990s).

Donald Trump who's clearly a brilliant guy who exceeds at long-term planning ...

Donald Trump, who's covertly hired the "very best" genuiuses in America to advise his campaign ...



And yet, this same Donald Trump hasn't bothered to read the "fine print" in the GOP Presidential Campaign rule book book ...

These guys (Trump's opponents) are delusional ...



BTW. The History Channel has a great documentary on Donald Trump, fair, balanced, good, bad, and mistakes included.

Watch it.

You'll probably conclude (like me) that the 2016 GOPe-RINO establishment doesn't have a prayer against this guy ...

It's like George Patton winning against Pee-Wee Herman ...

http://www.history.com/shows/the-making-of-trump/about







.

[OKSooner]

If they really do pull something like that they’re not going to like the way it works out for them.

[Maelstorm]

Its not going to happen. These guys are delusional. The best hope the establishment has before primary voting starts is to pull aside the single digit losers that are hanging on and say sayonara and clear the field for someone like Rubio who has a very big problem but is at least holding his own. This is unlikely to happen. Jeb isn’t going anywhere till he’s truly embarrassed himself into political oblivion. John Kasich is living on some other planet. Christie isn’t really going anywhere though there has been some movement in New Hampshire I don’t see how he wins there. Trump is a juggernaut in the NE.His only real vulnerability is in Iowa at this point. That may change but we only have 7 weeks till the Feb 1st Iowa Caucus and I can’t envision anything that is going to take Trump down during this period. If he is intact going into January and his legion of working class disaffected voters show up at the caucuses Feb 1st its game over for the political class. If he wins Iowa he will most certainly win New Hampshire and Nevada. As the dominos start falling its going to be a delight to watch as the screaming gets louder and louder. Right now Trump isn’t like Santorum or Huckabee hes not leading in just one state there are polls showing him leading nearly everywhere. Are voters going to abandon and be less likely to get on the Trump train when it becomes clear its not hypothetically winning but really winning at the polls? I doubt it. We have none of the dynamics working that led to the downfall of Giuliani, Herman Cain, or Newt Gingrich. Actually none of the conventional wisdom is working the electorate is so fed up that even those people who in the past typically stayed home are now interested in coming out to vote.

[TexasFreeper2009]

1236 delegates are needed to win the nomination.

who the remaining delegates vote for or dont vote for is completely irrelavent.

(I already took the unassigned delegates out of each states numbers, by the way) those numbers I listed are the pledges delegate numbers only.

[jjotto]

A liittle more than 15% of the delegate total will be unpledged because they are GOP office-holders or National Committee members.

Also, delegates pledged to a candidate who drops out before the convention need to be kept in mind. How they will vote varies by state, but I think a lot of them become unpledged.

[TigerClaws]

You are assuming that Trump will still be on the ballot.

New York Republican establishment is already trying to kick Trump off the ballot for being ‘disqualified’ due to his ‘controversial’ positions.

You still believe in democracy.

The Uniparty stands above all others.

[TigerClaws]

You’ll also see the 2-3% guys sticking around. Can you imagine the deals they can cut if their small bit of delegates swing the nomination?

They are going to rewrite the rules.

Nothing else is working against Trump. He’s Kevlar to the MSM and to GOPe attacks.

NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, Paul Ryan, Dick Cheney, and the rest of them unloaded on Trump over the Muslim immigration ban.

He went up in the polls!

They got Trumped!

Their backup is to move to anti-democracy tactics.