RNC Policymaker Official: Trump Needs 1,100 Delegates to Secure Nomination

[Madmick]

From two days ago, but I just caught this in my Flipboard feed last night stemming from an interview with Morning Joe that day:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-...016/04/trump-necessary-delegate-number-221884

“If Donald Trump exceeds 1,100 votes, he will become the nominee, even though he may not have 1,237,” Georgia lawyer Randy Evans told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“And then in the middle there’s that gray area between 1,000 and 1,100, and that’s where the unbound delegates or the delegates that have been released by other candidates come into play to see if there are enough of those to get either [Ted] Cruz or Trump over the finish line,” he said.

I should add from the same article:

RNC spokesman Michael Short rebutted Evans, tweeting that the eventual nominee needs 1,237 delegates. “Period. No ands, ifs or buts,” he wrote.

I found this most interesting in the context of a speculative political analysis I read in a Washington Post article a few articles later:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-win-on-the-2nd-ballot-at-the-gop-convention/

In a terrific new piece by The Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe detailing Ted Cruz's multiple-ballot strategy at this summer's Republican National Convention, there is a startling acknowledgment by Donald Trump's chief strategist, Paul Manafort.

“Just because [Cruz] has won some delegates in a state where we have the delegates voting for us is not relevant until and unless there’s a second ballot," Manafort said. "There’s not going to be a second ballot.”

Read one way, Manafort's quote is simply an assertion of what he has been saying since he came into the top job last week: Trump is going to get to the 1,237 delegates he needs to be the nominee before the convention. So when the first ballot happens, Trump will be over the number he needs. Case closed.

But what if he doesn't? Read between the lines only slightly and you are left with the distinct impression that Manafort knows it's the first ballot or bust for Trump.

Until now, everyone has procrastinated on talking about how they would actually deal with a brokered convention.

Right now Trump is rolling out the "system is rigged" slogan in anticipation of that, but his campaign knows (or should know) that this won't hold up to the scrutiny of a brokered convention. Cruz is schooling him on how to convert political energy into actual delegate votes according to the rules of how they are apportioned based on votes down to the district level. He's schooling him on how to negotiate deals and curry favor to cull delegates from vanquished rivals like Rubio. The rules are the same for everyone. Trump loves to talk about his New York roots and the hard knocks philosophy of life. Well, here is your hard knocks curriculum in politics, Donnie boy. It appears you don't actually like hard knocks as much as you like to talk about how much you love hard knocks.

The RNC, likewise, knows that the latter statement which has been the de facto mantra until now, "1,237 votes-- period", will also not hold up. I mean, if the guy finishes at 1,236, and you try to hand the nomination to Kasich with a few hundred delegates, the people will storm the mansion with their pitchforks. That is no joke.
They pull that, and the voters will evacuate the entire Republican Congress of incumbents. Just not an option.

So, taken together, it would appear to be the earliest REAL sentiments of strategy issued on a brokered convention that attempt to frame how it will be practically managed, in terms of nuts and bolts, if it becomes an unavoidable reality, is that Trump needs to get 1,100 votes on the first ballot. If he doesn't, he simply won't win a second ballot or beyond. At that point it will be Cruz persuading the establishment that even though they hate him they can't afford to select Kasich, and Kasich's attempts to counter that argument and stop him short of the vote goal.

What say you? How do you think Trump fares if he falls short of 1,100 on the first ballot?

 

[SiKnSiN]

I think he will be around 1,190 going in. If he's half the deal maker he claims to be, getting to 1,237 on the first ballot should be easy. If he falls short by even a few votes, he is screwed. No way he will be under 1,100 though.

 

[Madmick]

I think he will be around 1,190 going in. If he's half the deal maker he claims to be, getting to 1,237 on the first ballot should be easy. If he falls short by even a few votes, he is screwed. No way he will be under 1,100 though.

I think you're being optimistic. Nate Silver has him on course to hit a mere 1138 delegates (92% of target) now:
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate-targets/
He does have his strongest region coming up with his home state of New York on April 19th and then a cluster of New England states on April 26th (Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware) before the primaries head back to the Midwest. That could be a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand he desperately needs some momentum right now, and for people to go back to whining about him winning. On the other hand, his home state, New York, in particular, is neither a winner-take-all nor a winner-take-most state. If he does poorly in his home state, not only does it further hurt his brand, but it could put a real dent in his delegate projection total. There's a lot of delegates up and wide open in that state. Fortunately, even if he does poorly, he's unlikely to lose to Cruz in any of the other states, regardless, and Delaware is winner-take-all while Pennsylvania and Maryland are winner-take-most.

Anyway, to get back to the original point, with 1138 total delegates projected for him currently, that would leave him with 99 delegates needed to gain from the pools of 57 uncommitted voters and the unbound delegates currently assigned to other candidates by default: at least 37 of Rubio's current 171 delegates aren't bound to him. That's 94 total delegates up for grabs. There are only 16 delegate votes between all the other candidates who won't be on the first ballot, and I don't know how many aren't bound to that vote on the first ballot. He would need for at least 5/16 to be unbound to make up the difference:
http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/delegate-count-tracker

I don't see him hitting 1,237 on the first ballot, anymore. You appear to believe it's first ballot 1,237 or bust. I think you may be right, but I do wonder, if his total is that close, and that far above Cruz, how Paul Ryan and the RNC could justify a total abandon of him on the third ballot when I think (correct me if I'm wrong) virtually every delegate becomes totally free to vote however they please. Only a few remain that must be released by an abandoned candidacy in order to vote otherwise, but they can be released.

I just think Republicans would go batshit. It would be incumbent-wide GOP political suicide.

 

[Fawlty]

It's really hard to predict. I think 1150 is a safe number, but that's pulled from my ass based on the general likelihood of him picking up some loose delegates. I'm more optimistic than Silver on his hard numbers going into the first ballot. 1100 starts to "feel" difficult but doable.


Also I think Silver is on crack here with his 1138, which I never thought I would say. Here's a version of my SS where I feel like I'm bending all the way over for Cruz. (the Kasich numbers are placeholders, only Trump #s matter)

That assumes he gets screwjobbed in PA after winning the popular, underperforms in NY, gets crushed in WV, loses both MT and SD, and underperforms in OR and WA. I still come up with 1147. And I'm not giving Cruz Indiana- even Silver admits he has no strong reason to do so other than the shift in Wisconsin. Trump will outperform this projection or at worst, lose Indiana and make it up where I've set placeholders and underestimated him. Silver's number feels to me like a doosmday number, not a real prediction.

 

[AnGrYcRoW]

They were just saying on the radio that these delagates can be bribed and bought , there are no rules apparently and no laws to stop it.

They also said Cruz is getting a lot of Trump delagates to commit to him on a second ballot .

Interesting stuff to say the least

 

[SiKnSiN]

I think you're being optimistic. Nate Silver has him on course to hit a mere 1138 delegates (92% of target) now:

I am. I'm basically going off of fivethirtyeight's panel prediction from a few weeks ago which had him reaching 1,208. And right now he is -30 in their projection.

 

[Madmick]

I am. I'm basically going off of fivethirtyeight's panel prediction from a few weeks ago which had him reaching 1,208. And right now he is -30 in their projection.

I suspect that projection includes the unbound voters I discussed above. Their "Whose on Course" is a real-time projection of pledged candidate totals for the various candidates. The percentages are rounded, so there's a margin of error there, but otherwise, even if you go to the page for state-by-state projections and totals, then if you "Follow the Experts", where there are vote predictions that may deviate from the latest polls for those states, which is what I suspect the "Whose on Course" tracks above, then bringing in this human element still puts him at 1175 pledged delegate votes with 129 uncommitted voters lurking. That survey was taken back on March 21st (before American Samoa, Arizona, Utah, North Dakota, Colorado, and most importantly Wisconsin). So it would probably be much closer to 1138 pledged delegates in an expert panel if held today. Back on March 21st I think he was around 95% in the projection which would match 1175 perfectly:
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/can-you-get-trump-to-1237/

Highest I can recall seeing him was 114%. After he fell below 100% the first time, he briefly regained that, up to 103%, then fell below again. His current 92% projection is the lowest I have seen for him since Super Tuesday on March 1st when he cemented his frontrunner status.

 

[SiKnSiN]

I suspect that projection includes the unbound voters I discussed above.

It was from this:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features...-republican-nomination-before-the-convention/

But that was from a while ago, and as you can see, he is around -30 off. Haven't been keeping up with recent projections though. If he is around 1,100, I'm not sure why that guy is so confident Trump would win.

 

[Madmick]

Silver has him projected for 1,191 pledged delegates (meaning he could reach 1,237 from uncommitted delegates on the first ballot) after his win in New York where he claimed 90 out of 95 delegates:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/new-york-primary-presidential-election-2016/

At this point it's going to be embarrassing no matter what happens.

 

[Space]

As far as I know, Trump will clinch the first ballot with a win in either Cal. or Indiana, am I right?

He might lose to Cruz in a squeaker in Ind., but Trump likely takes Cal., in which case it's a wrap.