Nate Silver on 12/10: 20% chance of a brokered convention

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Ah, I was thinking about 2016 myself. And the House will not flip. Thus my comment about a 20 seat loss. That is possible - maybe.

The Senate won't flip in 2016 either, unless something really drastic changes.  If Feingold, Duckworth, and Sestak/McGinty all win, that gets them to 49.  They still need to pick up another seat (from where?) and hope that Michael Bennet and Patti Murray can hold on.

Florida or Ohio. Of course, the Republicans can counter that by picking up Reid's seat in Nevada. CO/WA probably only flip in a wave.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

But if we go by who predicted TRUMP's "imminent demise" and who didn't, then the only pundits left will be Paul Krugman, Michael Tomasky and kos.

I don't think that's true at all.  The "party decides" fundamentalists like Jonathan Bernstein haven't predicted Trump's imminent demise.  They've just not aimed to predict the short term polling trends at all, because they consider them irrelevant.  Their perspective is that the party elite will get a candidate they like in the end, and who cares who's leading in the polls right now, or tomorrow?  (I think Silver has basically been in this category as well.  Did he ever predict that Trump would have an "imminent demise" in the polls?  I don't think he has, but if someone has a quote from him to that effect, please post it.  I think, like Bernstein, he doesn't get too worked up about who's going to be leading in such-and-such a state next week.)

Now, maybe the "party decides" people are going to be proven wrong in an epic way.  But let's not get ahead of ourselves, and declare them wrong yet.  No one's voted yet.  The GOP doesn't yet have a nominee.  Let's just wait and see whether they're right or wrong.

Surely a candidate who has polled a plurality with ~30% of the voters for six consecutive months makes the party's decision a bit harder to enforce? And should not the consistent failure of any of the establishment-friendly candidates to gain traction make it less likely that they will prevail in the end? (In other words, could Trump or Cruz simply beat out the clock?)

But at the convention, you need a majority of delegates to be nominated. You can't do it with 30 or 40 percent of the delegates.

Assuming that neither Trump nor Cruz implodes, the establishment is so opposed to Trump/Cruz that they will take every measure to make sure Rubio/Christie/Kasich stays in the race till the end along with Trump and Cruz, to prevent either one of them from getting a majority of delegates. At the convention, delegates are released from pledges to support a certain candidate after the first ballot, and the expectation would be that Cruz/Trump delegates would quickly switch to supporting the "establishment survivor". Of course, if this backfires and results in Cruz delegates voting en masse for Trump to get him over the top (or vice versa), then the establishment has to live with a nominee they hate.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Technically, the establishment survivor doesn't need to get many delegates in May/June - all that needs to happen is Trump and Cruz split them fairly evenly. The establishment survivor simply needs to stay in the race. What the establishment would be aiming for is something like this on the first convention ballot:

Trump 1,050
Cruz 960
Establishment Survivor 430
Abstain/Scattering 26

The number needed to be nominated this year, per the green papers, is 1,233. No one is there, so no one can be nominated via the first ballot. Under party rules, delegates are freed from pledges to support a candidate and re-vote on the nomination. The hope would be that a sizable number of Cruz/Trump delegates don't actually support them and only voted that way on the first ballot because they had to under party rules, and would therefore gravitate to Rubio (etc.) and get him nominated. Of course, Trump would be furious and blame the party for not giving him reliable delegates, but he would have no legal recourse under the party rules and it would be too late to mount a meaningful independent run.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Can someone explain how proponents of the "party decides" theory think that there will not be a revolt by GOP voters if the party nominates someone who came in third or fourth place in the delegate count by virtue of votes cast in primaries?

Easy: It's a two party system and no matter how mad they get they aren't going to vote Democrat.

You're forgetting the obvious alternative - not voting at all.