Just learned NY, PA, NC, OR will NOT be winner take all primaries. But NY, PA, OR WILL be closed primaries. Therefore, Trump will not get 100% of these states delegates. Furthermore, delegates are bound only for the first ballot. To win, Trump will need to get 1237 delegates BEFORE the convention and win on the first ballot.
Why There's a Very Strong Chance This Year's GOP Convention Will Be Contested
Last Friday, during an onstage conversation at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s 2016 gathering, Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus told Fox News host Sean Hannity that it’s “highly, highly unlikely” that the GOP convention in July will last longer than one ballot. He placed the odds of a first-ballot nomination at “85, 90 percent.”
On Sunday, after Donald Trump won only 53 of the 155 delegates at stake in Saturday’s four contests, a senior Republican official, told me that he thinks the chances for a multi-ballot convention are more like 60%. Even if Trump wins the winner-take-all Florida and Ohio primaries on March 15 and thereby forces Marco Rubio and John Kasich from the race, said this official, who insisted on anonymity because party officials are “paranoid” about appearing to take sides, there is about a 25% chance of a “contested convention.” (“Contested,” not “brokered,” is the right word, he added, because “there are no brokers anymore.”)
What is the basis for this analysis? First is that as of today only 906 (or 37%) of the 2,472 delegates to the Republican convention have been selected. Of these, Trump has won 391 according to the Cook Political Report’s Republican Delegate Scorecard. That’s strong progress toward the 1,237 required for nomination but he’s isn’t there yet.
Second, some share of the delegates Trump has won (and will win) are state Republican regulars who are pledged by party rules to vote for the winner of their state’s contest on the first ballot, but are not Trump supporters. These include (but are not limited to) many of the 168 delegates who receive their seats automatically (three from each state and territory: the two RNC members plus the state party chair).
Inflated by the votes of these conscript supporters, this official argued, Trump’s vote tally will be at its peak on the first ballot. The second ballot, if it comes to that, will reveal the various candidates’ true support. At that point, the dealing will intensify and all bets will be off.
Third, the 112 delegates from three states (Colorado, Wyoming, and North Dakota) and two territories (Guam and Virgin Islands) will go to the convention officially uncommitted. These delegates are by definition up for grabs even on the first ballot.
Fourth, although states holding primaries or caucuses on or after March 15 are free to hold statewide winner-take-all events, some have chosen not to. This list includes New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Pennsylvania. In these states, Trump’s typical 35-40% showing probably won’t win him a majority of delegates.
Finally, Trump may be vulnerable to convention challenges on delegate credentials (unlikely), on the party platform (“Who knows what Trump will want in the platform?” says the Republican official. “He has no discernible political philosophy.”), or on convention rules (highly likely). To bring a challenge to the convention floor in the form of a minority report on any of these matters requires the support of just 25 percent of the members of the relevant committee on the subject.
The likeliest floor fight will come on a challenge to Rule 40b, which says that to be nominated as a candidate at the convention one must have majority support from the delegations of at least eight states or territories. An effort to overturn that rule could be the basis for an alliance among all of Trump’s opponents. Delegates are free to vote as they wish on rules or platform challenges regardless of which candidate they are required to support on the first ballot. If Trump were to be on the losing side of one or more such challenges, his momentum would be slowed if not checked.
All of these things are possible. Trump may end the primary season in June with all the delegates he needs to be nominated, as the Cook scoreboard very narrowly projects that he will. And even if he doesn’t, he will have moves of his own to make. His best move, the RNC official argues, would be to promise to choose a mainstream Republican leader—say, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin or even Kasich--as his vice presidential running mate. But at a contested convention, it's even unclear whether the choice would be his.
Cook Political Report |
