Even as he is poised to claim his biggest victory yet in Tuesday’s New York primary, Donald Trump is back on the warpath, this time against the Republican National Committee and what he has described as a “rigged” and “corrupt” nomination process. What particularly piqued Trump’s ire is the state of Colorado, which did not have an open vote to the general public and where, voila, chief rival Ted Cruz wound up with all 34 of the states’ delegates.
Does Trump have a point? Is the system corrupt? Is it rigged against Trump and in favor of Cruz, who ironically is being called the “establishment” candidate?
The answers to these questions are not as simple as “yes” or “no.” In today’s high-information world, it does seem a bit odd that some states choose their convention delegates without the input of its citizens. Colorado, Wyoming and North Dakota all have chosen nomination delegates through party conventions without holding a primary or caucus vote. In all three cases, Cruz cleaned up, winning virtually every delegate, while Trump got shut out, which he claims is “unfair” and “corrupt.” The Donald certainly has a point, that it’s a bit of a throwback to the smoke-filled rooms of yesterday to deny the people a voice in the nominating process. But of course, the rules in these states were known to all of the candidates last fall and Cruz simply has a superior campaign infrastructure while Trump is playing catch-up. Incidentally, Ohio Governor John Kasich also got shut out in these states and you don’t hear him complaining.
The truth is, overall, the GOP nominating process is tilted (not rigged, tilted) in favor of one particular candidate: the irony is that the candidate to whom it’s tilted is Donald Trump!
For years the Republican primary and caucus process has been designed to benefit a strong front runner and Trump is that front runner. Since the voting began in February, Trump has won 37% of the popular vote and been awarded 47% of the delegates chosen by the public votes. Cruz has won 27% of the vote and 30% of those delegates. Now, the Texas Senator has narrowed that spread with his “no vote for you” state victories, but he still trails Trump in total delegate share by 45% to 33%.
Trump, incidentally, forever the fair weather fan, also said “I’m not complaining about the states that I won. Those are OK.” Yes, we get it, Trump can’t stand losing and, when he does, it must be because somebody else is cheating. He shouldn’t complain about the states that he won.
- In South Carolina, Trump won 32.5% of the popular vote but, because of the rules, won all 50 delegates.
- In both Florida and Arizona, Trump won 46% of the vote and walked away with 157 of the delegates compared to zero for his competitors, because of the rules.
- In Missouri, Trump narrowly edged Cruz, 40.8% to 40.6%, but won 71% of the states delegates (37 to 15). Why? Because of the rules.
So the Republican party’s individual state rules are often there to benefit a front-runner. They accrued to the benefit of Mitt Romney in 2012, to John McCain in 2008 and so on. But Trump is a different type of front-runner, one who is completely unacceptable to half of the party.
I ran the numbers for Romney in 2012: through the Wisconsin primary in early April (the same point at which we find ourselves now), he had won 40% of the popular vote, compared to 28% for Rick Santorum, 20% for Newt Gingrich and 10% for Ron Paul. People forget that the field equally divided in 2012 as it has been this year. Just as Cruz would like Kasich to get out of the race to consolidate the anti-Trump vote, both Santorum and Gingrich were egging the other on to quit the race and consolidate the true conservative “not Romney” vote.
Well, after losing Wisconsin to Romney and looking at polls that showed him losing in his home state of Pennsylvania, Santorum dropped out of the race, leaving the field to Romney, Gingrich, and Paul. So what happened next? The primary calendar moved to the northeast (as it is doing now) and Romney thoroughly trounced his opponents. He won 60% of the votes up for grabs on April 24, 2012 (in New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Rhode Island). Gingrich dropped out a week later and Romney was on his way to clinching the nomination.
So, just as in 2012, the calendar is now in the wheelhouse of a northeastern candidate: New York votes Tuesday, followed by Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Rhode Island and Connecticut on Tuesday the 26th. Trump may very well win all six contests: certainly he will win big in the Empire State. But there’s a difference between 2012 and 2016. Romney was not only a strong front-runner but he ran a first-class, professional campaign while Gingrich was running on financial fumes. Trump has been winging his campaign from the beginning and only recently started hiring convention and delegate wrangling experts. In the meantime, Cruz has from the beginning had a well-funded and deep campaign, with tentacles that extend into the state conventions nationwide, which is why he’s dominating what some call the “shadow primary” that involves choosing delegates outside of the public voting process.
(Incidentally, Pennsylvania’s contest on the 24th of this month is truly bizarre and should accrue to the benefit of the well-organized Cruz campaign. While 17 delegates are allocated to the winner of the overall popular vote, the other 54 go 3 at a time to the winner of the 18 congressional districts. That sounds normal: many states do it that way. However, the Quaker State has a twist: the voters actually vote for the mostly no-name delegates directly without knowing who those potential delegates support. Thus, the first class Cruz campaign is more likely to get the grassroots activists that are known to the voters in each district onto the ballot. Because of this bizarre process, Trump could win the popular vote but Cruz could wind up with the lion’s share of the delegation and boy, there will be Twitter hell to pay then!!)
Now, Pennsylvania non-withstanding, even if Trump wins the popular vote in the next six contests and wins them handily, Cruz still will have the financial leverage to take it to the finish line. In fact, in what is a rarity, the nomination may come down to the very last day of voting, when five states’ voters take the polls (New Mexico, Montana, South Dakota, New Jersey and the big prize of California). Trump needs 1,237 delegates to guarantee the nomination and it’s possible he’ll have that total in his sights on June 7th when those fives states vote.
Now, if Trump fails to win a majority of the delegates by the time the voting ends, then the convention is officially contested. I’ve written about what a contested convention would look like at length but the short version is this: the delegates are actual human beings and almost all are required to vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged on the first nomination ballot. Thus, if a candidate has a majority (1,237) on the first ballot, that candidate wins by definition. However, if a candidate is short of the majority and nobody wins on the first ballot, those real people can start to vote for whomever they choose on the second or third ballot. Some of these are starting to be called the “double agent” delegates, those who will be pledged to vote for Trump on the first ballot but, thanks to extensive grassroots organizing, will flip to Cruz on the second ballot.
There’s also the issue of what Marco Rubio’s 173 delegates do. Technically Rubio’s delegates are “free agents” but, if Rubio puts his thumb on the scale in favor of Cruz (as expected), you can expect most of the them to follow his wishes. As for Kasich’s 145 delegates (a total which will grow slightly), he’s still in the game so his delegates would be bound to vote for him on the first round. But he could certainly influence where they go in round two, which is why you may see both Cruz and Trump start courting him with a VP offer in exchange for his delegates.
Is it fair to say that the process is rigged if Trump comes to the convention with the most delegates but is denied the nomination? That’s not entirely unfair and I could certainly see how Trump’s supporters would see it that way. I of course see it differently. The rules are set up to give the nomination to a candidate who is able to gain a majority of the delegates. The party’s rules, in totality, favor a front runner and do not require 50% of the popular vote to get more than 50% of the delegates. If you’re short, that means you haven’t closed the sale with the majority of the people. And, considering that the presidential candidate has a massive influence on the down-ballot results for the Senate, House and state legislatures, it is absolutely appropriate for members of the party to deny the nomination for a candidate who did not get a majority of the delegates (by the rules) in favor of one who they feel better represents the party it totality.
Now, as much as I would personally love to see John Kasich as the nominee, I would draw the line at Ted Cruz. If the delegates, in their collective voice, choose not to grant the nomination to Trump, Cruz should be the only other option. If the party winds up leap-frogging the strong second place finisher for Kasich (or, even worse, somebody who isn’t in the race at all), the party will essentially be extending a large middle finger to all of the voters who voted for both Trump AND Cruz.
I’ve written this before: I still doubt if Trump’s heart is really in it to actually run for president in the general election. He doesn’t like to lose and all the polls show him losing badly to Hillary Clinton. The best “out” for self-absorbed Trump would be to say, “I won but they stole it from me at the convention. The system is corrupt just as I’ve been saying all along! They cheated! I won!”
Thanks for reading,
Chris Bodig