The Delegate Fight: 2016

[yankeesfan]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/ted-cruzs-stealth-delegate-hunt-1458604788

Interesting article about Cruz's delegate poaching strategy.

[yankeesfan]

http://www.loudountimes.com/news/article/ted_cruz_seen_as_having_leg_up_in_virginia_delegate_battle543

Why do political insiders think the Cruz campaign has an advantage [in Virginia]?

No group has shown a better mastery of intra-party maneuvering than Cruz's tea party followers in Virginia. Ahead of the 2013 gubernatorial election, Former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's supporters took control of the state party and outmuscled potential challengers for the gubernatorial nomination. Cuccinelli, a major Cruz surrogate, still has strong allies within the state party apparatus, including party chairman Whitbeck.

"It's a Cuccinelli crowd that runs this state," said Tom Davis, a former congressman who is the Virginia campaign chairman for Kasich.

State Sen. Bill Stanley, the Cruz campaign chairman in Virginia, said the campaign has long put an emphasis on being well organized and prepared for delegate elections and has been actively reminding its supporters of the importance of attending GOP district meetings and the state convention.

[yankeesfan]

@ryanstruyk: Whoops: Rules expert tells me Trump needs 1237 to win even if LA decertified. Trump suit would actually nix 18 of own delegates & hurt bid.

https://twitter.com/ryanstruyk/status/714573707398656000

Trump is so incompetent.

[yankeesfan]

In my opinion, Rove's interpretation of Rule 40 is completely wrong.  Presented below is Rule 40 in its entirety. Clause (b) is completely separate from clause (c).  They're not related at all.  Clause (b), the pertinent clause, doesn't have anything to do with speeches.  Indeed, that's why the establishment wants to change the Rule.  What does everyone else think?

* * *

RULE NO. 40
Nominations
(a) In making the nominations for President of the United States and Vice President of the United States and voting thereon, the roll of the states shall be called separately in each case; provided, however, that if there is only one candidate for nomination for Vice President of the United States who has demonstrated the support required by paragraph (b) of this rule, a motion to nominate for such office by acclamation shall be in order and no calling of the roll with respect to such office shall be required.

(b) Each candidate for nomination for President of the United States and Vice President of the United States shall demonstrate the support of a majority of the delegates from each of eight or more states, severally, prior to the presentation of the name of that candidate for nomination. Notwithstanding any other provisions of these rules or any rule of the House of Representatives, to demonstrate the support required of this paragraph a certificate evidencing the affirmative written support of the required number of permanently seated delegates from each of the eight or more states shall have been submitted to the secretary of the convention not later than one (1) hour prior to the placing of the names of candidates for nomination pursuant to this rule and the established order of business.

(c) The total time of the nominating speech and seconding speeches for any candidate for nomination for President of the United States or Vice President of the United States shall not exceed fifteen (15) minutes.

(d) When at the close of a roll call any candidate for nomination for President of the United States or Vice President of the United States has received a majority of the votes entitled to be cast in the convention, the chairman of the convention shall announce the votes for each candidate whose name was presented in accordance with the provisions of paragraph (b) of this rule. Before the convention adjourns sine die, the chairman of the convention shall declare the candidate nominated by the Republican Party for President of the United States and Vice President of the United States.

(e) If no candidate shall have received such majority, the chairman of the convention shall direct the roll of the states be called again and shall repeat the calling of the roll until a candidate shall have received a majority of the votes entitled to be cast in the convention.

[yankeesfan]

So, if the votes are not tallied, do they still impact the number of delegates needed for a majority?

Erc's link seems to confirm that the number will remain 1237

[yankeesfan]

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/trumps-uphill-delegate-scramble-221443

"If Trump heads into the convention without the magic number of 1,237, already more than a hundred delegates are poised to break with him on a second ballot, according to interviews with dozens of delegates, delegate candidates, operatives and party leaders.

In one of starkest examples of Trump’s lack of support, out of the 168 Republican National Committee members — each of whom doubles as a convention delegate — only one publicly supports Trump, and she knows of only a handful of others who support him privately."

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It's pretty clear to me that Trump has one shot at this: first ballot.

[yankeesfan]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/167RlmxSvrotSiVHmaQuIio3BbGlCmrUgObX2kHM80yQ/edit#gid=0

Here's a pretty cool delegate tracker in case you guys haven't seen it.  It's tracked by @Taniel, the founder of the site http://campaigndiaries.com/.

He's one of the people in that Nate Silver twitter chain that Erc posted.

[yankeesfan]

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/04/01/donald-trump-clears-the-air-with-republican-leaders/?_r=0

Mr. Trump was joined by his son, Donald J. Trump Jr.; his lawyer, Donald F. McGahn; his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski; the national political director Michael Glassner; and Mr. Trump’s spokeswoman, Hope Hicks.

When the discussion turned to the wrangling of delegates to the party’s nominating convention in Cleveland this July — an issue that has dogged Mr. Trump and his skeletal campaign organization for months — Mr. Priebus explained that states all had different rules governing how they were selected.

Mr. Trump has found himself at a disadvantage in some states, as his aides have allowed rival campaigns to peel some delegates away. Mr. Trump mentioned Louisiana, where he won the primary, but where Senator Ted Cruz is likely to come away with more delegates after exploiting peculiarities in the state’s system, according to those briefed on the meeting.

The situation in Louisiana infuriated Mr. Trump, who threatened this week to sue the Republican National Committee over it.

But when Mr. Priebus explained that each campaign needed to be prepared to fight for delegates at each state’s convention, Mr. Trump turned to his aides and suggested that they had not been doing what they needed to do, the people briefed on the meeting said.

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This is pretty funny.  Does Trump have people in his own campaign that are this incompetent, or are they actually double agents, working for the Establishment and Cruz?

[yankeesfan]

http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot/2016/04/01/ted-cruz-colorado-gop-delegates/125400/

Ted Cruz is the favored candidate among the 587 party activists vying for one of the 13 national delegate slots on the state level — but the majority want to remain unpledged to the Cleveland convention, according to a final list released Friday by the Colorado Republican Party.

Cruz won the support of 30 percent of the potential statewide delegate candidates, compared to just 7 percent for Donald Trump. John Kasich finished with 2 percent, while Marco Rubio and Ben Carson registered 1 percent or less, the figures show.

But 60 percent want to keep their options open and remain unbound if they advance to the national GOP convention.

[yankeesfan]

http://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Outsiders-Contested-Republican-Convention/dp/0692630163?ie=UTF8&keywords=contested%20chaos&qid=1459546792&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

I just bought John Yob's book Chaos: The Outsider's Guide to a Contested Republican National Convention.  Will let you guys know how it is.

Anyone else buy it yet?

[yankeesfan]

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/ted-cruzs-2016-iowa-new-hampshire-118799

This is an interesting article to read in retrospect.  It's from June 2015 and the Cruz camp was already predicting a contested convention and building their whole organization on that premise.

"Our strategy is taking it to the convention, which is why you’ve seen us announcing chairmen in California and New Jersey, as well as Iowa and New Hampshire,” said Mark Campbell, Cruz’s political director. “There are 2,470 [delegates] total, and you need 1,236 of them to win. None of these can be accumulated at any one time, which is why it’s a marathon more than a sprint. So we are methodically going state by state, focusing on grass roots and party activists.”

[yankeesfan]

Does Wisconsin have a 50% WTA trigger?

No.  It's 18 to the state-wide winner and 3 for the winner of each of the 8 congressional districts.  

But if someone gets 50% statewide, it's likely they've won all districts.  

[yankeesfan]

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2016/04/07/gop-delegate-fight-coming-iowa/82746800/

Trump senior adviser Tana Goertz said the front-runner’s campaign is executing a “caucus-to-convention strategy” aimed at getting as many Trump backers to Cleveland as possible, although she declined to share details on how that effort was playing out in Iowa.

“We’re doing everything that every other campaign would do and more — I mean, we do work for Donald Trump,” Goertz said. “... We’re doing everything that any other campaign would be doing that’s ethically acceptable.”

As Patrick Svitek pointed out on twitter, that's a pretty sketchy quote.

[yankeesfan]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/04/trump-washington-state-delegates-late-221725

Trump is getting his act together. But too late for Washington.  His campaign sent an email to supporters trying to get them to sign up to be delegates, but it was past the deadline already....

* * *

Donald Trump’s team is encouraging its supporters in Washington state to sign up to be a potential Trump delegate. The only problem: The campaign's local crew sent its email on Friday — two days after the filing deadline to appear on the printed ballot in Saturday's conventions and caucuses.

The email, headlined "invitation," encouraged supporters to submit their Declaration of Candidacy for Delegate form. But the very next sentence says the filing deadline was Wednesday.

“You can still be elected as a Trump Delegate at your GOP County Convention this Saturday!” the April 8 email, which was obtained by POLITICO, says. “If you have submitted a Declaration of Candidacy for Delegate form to your GOP County Chairman by the assigned deadline of 10:00am on April 6th."

[yankeesfan]

I just heard that during the convention, the delegates are unbound when voting for a VP candidate.  Meaning that if Trump wins the nomination on the first ballot, his #NeverTrump delegates could defect and nominate a VP candidate that Trump is forced to accept. 

That's an interesting scenario.

[yankeesfan]

http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2016/04/16/donald-trump-west-virginia-delegates-ceiling/

Someone did the math on Trump's West Virginia delegate slate.  Apparently he has a ceiling of 19 out of 22 potential statewide delegates (probably less).

[yankeesfan]

http://www.abqjournal.com/759486/news/gop-extends-delegates-deadline.html

SANTA FE – The Republican Party of New Mexico is keeping the door open for national delegate applicants amid a push by the Donald Trump campaign to mobilize supporters.

State party spokesman Tucker Keene announced Monday that consideration will be given for two additional weeks to applicants who missed the April 15 deadline to vie for a delegate seat at the GOP national convention this summer in Cleveland.

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“This is truly Trump,” said Rep. Rod Montoya, R-Farmington, who has applied to be a delegate to the national convention. “Rather than learning how the process works, he cries and complains to get the process changed because he doesn’t like it.”

[yankeesfan]

John Yob @strategic
Platform just replaced Rules as the committee for the cool kids in Cleveland.
11h