The success of that strategy depends a great deal on what Trumps does after June/July, and I don’t think even the party insiders have any faith that they can know, much less control, what The Hair is planning. It’s probably too late at that point for a successful 3rd-party run, but if he’s out there holding rallies in the fall with the them Don’t Vote for the Nasty Republicans Who Stabbed Us in the Back, enough of the base might well be pissed come November to cost the party the WH and the Senate, which probably also means the Supreme Court.
I used to think that maybe Trump was trolling them. But if he was going to change he’d just insult unpopular groups and opponents. His moving to inciting violence shows me that he’s never going to moderate his message - at least not until he gets the nomination.
Lots of GOP plotting is getting into the papers. I wonder what plotting is not getting in. And also what percentage of Trump delegates are yahoos enough to start punching other delegates on command.
Impotent cynicism isn’t exactly impotent, if it results in lost votes for the party you’re cynical about.
I’d say that what you’re saying will hold true for most of the base.
But an essential part of Trump’s appeal is the sense among many Republican voters that the Republican Party keeps on making all these promises that they fail to come through on, keeps on getting them worked up and then letting them down.
For some of them, having the nomination ‘stolen’ from Trump - by their own sense of the term’s meaning, not by any legalistic definition - will be the final straw. Certainly for this cycle, and maybe considerably longer.
If the GOP loses 5% of its base this way, it’ll hurt. If 10%, it’ll be crippling.
And sure, if Trump gets the nomination, some normally GOP voters will stay home. But Trump is probably a one-off, and the party can pretend it’s back to normal in 2018 and beyond.
Agree that R’s losing 10% will be crippling in the Presidential contest both in 2016 & beyond.
IMO the regional distribution of hard-Red vs. hard-Blue counties ensures the R’s a solid representation in every other race right on down to Podunkville dogcatcher for my remaining lifetime of 30-40 years. The Rs today are in the ascendant in every measure of political representation except the US presidency. It would be foolish to think them a spent force no matter what the world looks like on Nov 10th.
The deep question here is: regardless of whether Trump is the nominee or not and whether he’s the winner in Nov or not, what becomes of the festering social sore that Trump has so skilfully exposed and poured salt into? (Hard on the heels of Fox, Limbaugh, et al, rubbing it raw for 20 years.)
The Ds and the Rs will be dealing with this in 2018, 2020, 2022, etc. It may just become my “sullen cynicism” flaring into an angry protest candidate at each presidential primary cycle. It may get & stay worse, with folks in the streets.
The US may well dodge the Trump Presidency bullet this time. But I would not want to keep replaying this scenario every four years until the totalitarians finally get it right. I’m sure the Kochs or the Scientologists can find a manageable actor to play tyrant for them. Or they may decide to do the job themselves.
Republicans these days have three priorites
- Their paycheck/power
- The party
- The country
Trump getting the nomination will hurt all three - even they think so - while Cruz would not hurt any in their estimation. But “stealing” the nomination from Trump in his eyes might lead to riots on the floor - he has already blown the dog whistle.
So since this will hurt #2, they might hope to subvert Trump by making a deal with him to let him be nominated.
Their other problem is that with most politicians not playing ball would require them to find a real job. Trump already has one (TV star) so they have less clout.
There are 26 Congressional districts with R+1 and R+2 Cook PVIs. That’s a hell of a lot of CDs that a small shift could flip. And another 20 with R+3 and R+4.
In 2008, Dems won a fair number of races in districts with R+5 through R+7 PVIs. So if a chunk of former GOP voters basically said ‘fuck it’ and turned their backs on politics altogether, it would make a difference down ticket as well.
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Tru dat, but just seven years ago, the same was true of the Dems, from the Presidency down to state legislatures. The GOP is not going to become a spent force, but that doesn’t mean things won’t start going against them.
I pretty much agree with Kevin Drum that voters aren’t any angrier this year than they’ve been; it’s just that Trump is a more capable rabble-rouser than we’ve seen since maybe George Wallace. I don’t think you can just grow them in a vat.
Flipping the House this cycle is no question a very tall order and usually those sorts of wave elections occur at midterms against the party of the incumbent president … but these are unusual times. The speculations/fantasies go back to November and are valid today.
Many of those R up to +4s are in suburban areas. Large numbers of suburban GOP voters just sitting it out, let alone flipping sides, could go a long way.
Or not. This cycle all bets may be off.
If you want the party destroyed and built back up again, then you don’t want it to go in the direction it’s currently going. What many Democrats seemed to be predicting was that due to demographic change, the party would have to become more liberal. Instead, it’s becoming more populist, which means being more liberal on some issues, like entitlements(Trump pledges no cuts), but pretty virulent about things like immigration and trade.
Basically, the GOP is finding its future as a European-style right-wing populist party, and those parties are gaining ground. I don’t think it’s any healthier here than it is there, and the elites need to stop screwing around in all Western countries.
How much longer do you plan to keep supporting them, given all that? Your party has already evolved to the point where Jean-Marie Le Pen is happy endorsing your pending nominee.
If the GOP becomes a right wing populist party then I have no interest in them. The Democrats would share more of my views at that point and I’d hope that the presence of 30 million new conservative Democrats plus the realities of demographics(young people vote Democrat, old vote Republican), would change Democrats on federal spending issues, especially elderly entitlements.
Insiders seem to think Kasich could win majority support if all the delegates are unbound
The Speaker of the House is always the chairman of the party’s convention.
For the past few decades, the GOP has been a party that’s used right wing populism as a bait-and-switch to further the interests of the plutocratic class. I guess that’s preferable to the populists actually taking control, huh? 
I think I’ll pass the mic to a couple of sources via Kilgore:
And then, there’s the folks on the Rules Committee, the people who would have to implement the rules changes to allow a Romney (or a Kasich, if he fails to win 8 states) to be eligible for the nomination:
Now, there are 56 people on the Rules Committee, so it’s possible that MSNBC somehow got a really skewed sample, and there’s really a potential majority for opening the floodgates to new candidates. But unless the sample is pretty damn skewed, 19 of 56 should be more than enough to tell you what’s up.
So in all likelihood, it’s down to Trump and Cruz (and Kasich, if he can win another 7 states).
But again what happens if the delegates just refuse to give Trump or Cruz a majority and Kasich doesn’t qualify?
I guess one out is that the convention just disbands without ever nominating a candidate and the party runs an independent who isn’t really an independent.
If the bulk of the delegates are just GOP establishment types, then Trump or Cruz can’t win a majority once they are unbound.
Interesting scenario. And plausible at least at first. Within the terms of your scenario …
Once Kasich doesn’t qualify, then there are only two candidates. Once the delegates are unbound then each delegate may vote Trump (T), Cruz © , or abstain (A).
I don’t know how the rules treat abstentions, but if they aren’t counted as votes, then one or the other of T or C will have a majority on the next ballot. The odds of a tie are very slim, even if 2000 of the roughly 2500 abstain. The odds of getting 250/250 vice 249/251 or even more lopsided are negligible.
OTOH, if the rules count abstentions, so the winner needs to break 50% of total delegates then it gets a bit more interesting. Let’s say the first vote goes T/C/A = 40%/40%/20%. No winner. So they re-vote after some harranguing. It goes 41 / 41 / 18.
They continue late into the wee hours with everybody getting testier and testier. The lead position may swap between T and C a couple times. Abstentions may even grow and wane. But eventually one or the other begins to pull ahead bit by bit. There’s nobody to make (or more importantly, enforce) *en masse *deals, so we’re seeing game theory being applied by 2500 individual confused and tired amateurs. A sizeable fraction of whom don’t like either remaining candidate very much.
Eventually, just like in a rope and mud puddle tug-of-war the holdouts run out of stamina against the slowly gathering momentum of the other as the sun comes up on voting day 4. Then suddenly one team drags the other over the line.
Which man will it be? Flip a coin. The outcome of the flip will have just as much electoral or political meaning as does the exhausted surrender of 2500 sleep-deprived delegates.
A much simpler possibility is what happened in 2008 (or was it 12?) where an indistinguishably close voice vote was called by the Chair as an absolute win for one side. If every vote was roll call by named individual delegate that trick couldn’t be played. But AIUI that’s not the case here.
If the delegates decide to just nominate one of the two, it will be Cruz, no question. But Cruz hasn’t won majorities of delegates in 8 states, and there’s no guarantee that he will.
Of course, the GOP leadership could just decide that nominating nobody is the plan, in which case they’d do a dozen or so rounds and then just dismiss the convention.
There is another very, very unlikely scenario, but not entirely implausible: Disband the convention and the party elite throw their support to Gary Johnson. He’s a Republican in good standing and has the resume to be a President, being a two term governor.
BTW, doesn’t this sometimes happen at the state level, where a major party won’t field a nominee but might tacitly back an agreeable third party candidate? It would be very unusual to do that at the federal level, but at least Johnson will have the virtue of already being on the ballot, and without an official GOP candidate can draw all the usual suspects’ money. You know the Kochs won’t have a problem with him.
If Trump or Cruz are pissed off, good luck getting on the ballot that late.
Rule 40(d):
So, the winner must get a majority of the “votes entitled to be cast in the convention.”
But, in constructing your scenarios, also keep in mind Rule 32:
So does that mean in the case of an impasse they can just change the rules?
They can suspend any given rule as far as I can tell.
Rule 30 says that the convention shall be run according to the Rules of the House of Representatives, unless otherwise specified in the RNC rules. Rule XV of the House rules says that 2/3 of the members voting shall be required to suspend any rule. I don’t know if it requires a roll call or if a voice vote suffices.
That’s all I know.