"GOP mulls convention challenge to Trump" LATEST: unbinding voted down in cmte

[Mr. Morden]

*bump*

Erick Erickson claims that only ~25% of the people on the Rules Committee are with Trump, and that if Trump can’t avoid embarrassing himself (meaning another Curiel-like PR disaster) in the next couple of weeks, then there’ll be a convention coup that could lead to Scott Walker being the nominee(!):

http://theresurgent.com/the-next-two-weeks-either-trump-or-unexpected-redemption-led-by-wisconsin/

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The NYT though suggests that Trump has the backing of about half the members of the rules committee:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/us/politics/donald-trump-republicans.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1

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[Mr. Morden]

It wouldn't end well for the GOP. Even if they just concede the presidential race, such a chaos, culminating with trouncing the presumptive nominee, would hurt them in downballot races.

Sometimes you have to put the country before party.  I'm ok with conceding the Presidential election in this circumstance.

I would respect a Republican who took this stance.  I have little respect for those who trash Trump, but say they're voting for him because Hillary is so bad.  That's ridiculous on its face.

It's ridiculous to believe there's a lesser of two evils?

"Trump os literally Hitler and would destroy the economy and ruin foreign policy and commit war crimes unlike any other president and cause the us to default and start a worldwide depression and risk the end of gloval capitalism. He is insane, crazy, racist, a bully, evil, mad, crass and the worst person ever . Still voting for him though, Hillary has emails"

Average NeverTrump

The average NeverTrump is someone who isn't NeverTrump? 

[Mr. Morden]

Other than two-person races and incumbent Presidents, it's rare when any candidate gets a majority of the primary vote.  Trump got FAR MORE of the vote than any other candidate. 

Every Republican presidential contest in the modern era has seen the winner get a majority of the primary vote except McCain 2008 and Trump 2016.

[Mr. Morden]

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/anti-trump-gop-delegates-224495

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The WaPo notes that the convention rules committee meets July 14-15, so those are the key dates to make something happen:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dozens-of-gop-delegates-launch-new-push-to-halt-donald-trump/2016/06/17/e8dcf74e-3491-11e6-8758-d58e76e11b12_story.html

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[Mr. Morden]

I think it's more that >1237 delegates are now Trump true believers after his month of uncontested wins in delegate-rich states...

Huh?  On what basis do you say that?  Sure, Trump has well over 1237 pledged delegates, but there aren't that many states in which a candidate picks his own delegates.  Many of Trump's delegates are either anti-Trump or ambivalent about him, yet are currently pledged to support him on the first ballot.  (With many of them having been recruited by the Cruz campaign during the shadow war over delegates.)  There's nothing to stop them from turning on him on any procedural votes, if they were really determined to do so.

[Mr. Morden]

I think it's more that >1237 delegates are now Trump true believers after his month of uncontested wins in delegate-rich states...

Huh?  On what basis do you say that?  Sure, Trump has well over 1237 pledged delegates, but there aren't that many states in which a candidate picks his own delegates.  Many of Trump's delegates are either anti-Trump or ambivalent about him, yet are currently pledged to support him on the first ballot.  (With many of them having been recruited by the Cruz campaign during the shadow war over delegates.)  There's nothing to stop them from turning on him on any procedural votes, if they were really determined to do so.

I remember that California is actually one of the few states where the candidate can pick his own delegates. If so then those 170+ loyalists should give Trump a serious advantage.

IIRC, the Trump campaign was too disorganized to even find a full delegate slate in every district in California.  I'm not sure how those slots ended up getting filled.  They probably leaned on the local GOP to come up with someone for them, or something like that.  Point is, even where they were picking the delegates themselves, their poor organization may have meant that some of these folks weren't vetted to insure loyalty.  But I don't know the details.

Anyway, even with CA, I don't think a majority of the delegates at the convention are really Trump loyalists.  Though I'd like to see Erc go through the delegations one by one to work out the math.

[Mr. Morden]

Trump accuses Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz of plotting to steal the nomination from him:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/18/trump-accuses-jeb-bush-of-plotting-against-him-and-appears-to-slam-cruz/

[Mr. Morden]

Ryan basically says that he'll neither encourage nor discourage a revolt against Trump.  He's staying out of it:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/19/paul-ryan-its-not-my-job-to-tell-delegates-what-to-do/

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[Mr. Morden]

Anti-Trump delegates raising money for staff and a legal defense fund:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/19/anti-trump-delegates-raising-money-for-staff-and-a-legal-defense-fund/

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[Mr. Morden]

Politico surveys the members of the Rules Committee, and finds a lack of enthusiasm for dethroning Trump:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/politico-delegate-survey-dump-trump-unwelcome-in-cleveland-224796

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Meanwhile, a delegate from Virginia has filed a federal lawsuit in order to get himself (and other delegates) unbound from Trump:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/06/24/world/europe/ap-us-campaign-2016-the-latest.html?_r=0

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[Mr. Morden]

The “Dump Trump” group called “Delegates Unbound” is spending $70,000 to run this ad on Fox News:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFlgP1hnU10
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/25/us/politics/donald-trump-ad-republican-convention.html

[Mr. Morden]

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/286609-bill-kristol-encourages-floor-revolt-at-gop-convention

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[Mr. Morden]

The WSJ says that the anti-Trump forces are close to having the support of a quarter of the delegates on the Rules Committee.  What good does it do to have the support of just a quarter of the Rules Committee?  It would allow them to force a vote from the full convention on whether to unbind the delegates (or change the threshold for winning):

http://www.wsj.com/articles/anti-donald-trump-forces-see-convention-coup-as-within-reach-1467839099

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One wildcard on the Rules Committee: Its most high profile member is Sen. Mike Lee, who has spoken out against Trump in the past and has not yet endorsed him (and may very well be eyeing a presidential run of his own in 2020).  He hasn’t yet indicated if he’d be open to unbinding the delegates.

[Mr. Morden]

Okay, so as of today Trump has 1542 delegates.

But that's including unpledged delegates who've endorsed him, no?  Pledged delegates alone is more like 1400 and something.

I presume that many of unpledged delegates would have held back if he hadn't been able to make it on pledged delegates alone, and there was more of a real question as to whether he'd be nominated.

In any case, many of Trump's pledged delegates didn't personally support him in the primaries and are not Trump diehards.  In principle, they *could* defect on procedural votes about unbinding delegates or raising the threshold for victory on the first ballot.  But there aren't going to be enough of them to do so.  The question is more about whether there's a minority report coming out of the rules committee that will force the full convention to take votes on this stuff, which would be kind of embarrassing for Trump, but won't be enough to prevent his nomination.

[Mr. Morden]

One guy had predicted in April that Trump might get to 1400 delegates and he was labeled a nut.  Everyone else was saying he'd be somewhere around 1150 or 1200. 

It comes down to whether you were anticipating that both Cruz and Kasich would drop out or not.  If either of them had stayed in, then no way would Trump have gotten close to 1400 on pledged delegates alone.  (A good number of the unpledged delegates were always going to flock to him if he clinched the nomination from the pledged delegates alone.)

[Mr. Morden]

The anti-Trump delegates are pushing a rule change that would make it easier for them to put forward an alternative VP nomination, and would force a re-vote if no one gets the support of at least 2/3rds of the delegates on the first ballot:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/anti-trump-delegates-are-making-a-plan-to-pick-their-own-vic

[Mr. Morden]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/gop-delegate-seeking-to-vote-his-conscience-in-cleveland-scores-symbolic-win/2016/07/11/39b99862-47a6-11e6-acbc-4d4870a079da_story.html

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[Mr. Morden]

Here’s the timeline for the rules committee this week:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/donald-trump-convention-platform-225450

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Also:

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[Mr. Morden]

Twitter reports from the Rules Committee meeting:

https://twitter.com/TalKopan/status/753765010250272772
https://twitter.com/LACaldwellDC/status/753764221045706752

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[Mr. Morden]

https://twitter.com/DavidMDrucker/status/753765778361462785

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https://twitter.com/ballotpedia/status/753768566655160320

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https://twitter.com/TalKopan/status/753766982147649536
https://twitter.com/TalKopan/status/753768229391052800

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[Mr. Morden]

Looks like the anti-Trump people are continuing to propose new amendments, but it sounds like the early votes haven't been good for them.

Also:

https://twitter.com/TalKopan/status/753769989136457728

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[Mr. Morden]

"NeverTrump" is Republicans who won't vote for Trump in the general election even if he's the nominee.  So no, this isn't the end of NeverTrump.  It's the end of "StopTrumpFromGettingTheNomination".

If anything, you'd have to say that if Trump was denied the nomination, *that* would be the end of NeverTrump, since there'd be no need to protest vote against him in the GE if he wasn't on the ballot.