Wisconsin meltdown puts Trump on track for convention fight

CPUd

CPUd

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Wisconsin meltdown puts Trump on track for convention fight

Senior advisers wrestle for influence as the path to an outright win nearly disappears.

By Eli Stokols
04/06/16 12:49 AM EDT


GOP rhetoric among insiders is painting a picture of Donald Trump's chances of seizing the nomination outright as unlikely.


Long frustrated by Donald Trump’s seeming invincibility, the Republican establishment’s anti-Trump brigade celebrated a clear victory in Wisconsin on Tuesday night. And while it was a long time coming, it might be just in time and just enough to prevent the GOP front-runner from winning the party’s presidential nomination.

Ted Cruz, taking upwards of 30 of Wisconsin’s 42 delegates, leaves Trump with little margin of error in the remaining contests to win the 1,237 delegates necessary to secure the nomination on the first ballot at July’s GOP convention. And if he doesn’t win it that way, many anti-Trump Republicans believe, he’s not going to win it at all.

“There is a growing consensus that Trump’s best chance to win the nomination may have come and gone,” said Saul Anuzis, a former Michigan GOP chairman who is supporting Cruz. “The path for getting to 1,237 before the convention is very limited for everybody now.”

Ahead of Tuesday’s primary, the Republican National Committee held a conference call to explain the intricacies of a contested convention to roughly two dozen veteran GOP operatives—a signal, Washington strategist Bruce Haynes said, that “everyone can see this coming now.”

Even, perhaps, Trump, whose senior advisors are wrestling for influence and the campaign looks to regain its footing as the nomination battle turns into a long delegate fight dominated by party insiders.

The Manhattan billionaire did not face the television cameras after the results came in on Tuesday night, offering only a statement from his campaign spokeswoman as noteworthy for its vitriol toward Cruz and the party establishment as was his rare absence from the Election Night airwaves. It accused Cruz of illegally coordinating with a super PAC supporting him, but offered no evidence.

“Ted Cruz is worse than a puppet— he is a Trojan horse, being used by the party bosses attempting to steal the nomination from Mr. Trump,” Hope Hicks said in the statement. “We have total confidence that Mr. Trump will go on to win in New York, where he holds a substantial lead in all the polls, and beyond. Mr. Trump is the only candidate who can secure the delegates needed to win the Republican nomination and ultimately defeat Hillary Clinton, or whomever is the Democratic nominee, in order to Make America Great Again.”

Our Principles PAC, the main organization formed to stop Trump, spent heavily in Wisconsin, targeting various anti-Trump messages to different subsets of voters. The group ran a television ad highlighting Trump’s support for eminent domain in Eau Claire after research showed it testing well with voters there; in Green Bay, the group opted to air a different spot highlighting Trump’s less than full-throated opposition to Obamacare.

But just as the group is finding success in targeting voters—in Wisconsin, of course, it came working in tandem with several influential local conservative media voices with proven success at uniting and mobilizing the GOP base in and around Milwaukee—it is about to shift from stopping Trump from winning votes to stopping him from winning delegates.

“Moving past Wisconsin, whoever wins what state becomes irrelevant,” said Katie Packer, the group’s director. “It doesn’t matter if Trump wins New York, because he can’t get to 1,237. It doesn’t matter if he wins California, because he can’t get to 1,237. From this point forward, it’s all about delegate math.

“We’re not particularly concerned about winning New York or California, because it’s irrelevant.”

Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, continues to point to the fact that the Manhattan billionaire has won the most delegates and states as proof that he remains “the clear frontrunner” as the race heads into the final three months. “He is the only person who can secure the nomination through the delegate acquisition process,” Lewandowski said Friday.

Behind the scenes, Lewandowski is fighting to preserve his own power and to box out Paul Manafort, who was hired last month to lead the campaign’s delegate corralling effort. “Corey and his people know the knives are out for them,” said one source close to the campaign, referring to Manafort as a “pretty experienced in-fighter.”

On Saturday, Lewandowski went as far as to fire a young operative named James Baker, who’d been recently put in charge of its Colorado campaign—he’d arrived in the state less than 48 hours earlier—because he’d been communicating with Manafort after Lewandowski instructed him not to do so, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation confirmed.

Manafort is scheduled to meet with Trump in New York Wednesday morning and likely to threaten to quit if he doesn’t see more cooperation, according to one source. “If Manafort walks, this thing comes apart,” they said. “And some of the people close to him are ready to walk.”

The landslide loss in Wisconsin could finally prompt Trump to make changes in the campaign structure, even if Lewandowski retains his title as campaign manager. “This campaign has outgrown the team,” one high-level Trump supporter said. “Hopefully this wakes up the candidate, because Lewandowski can’t handle it from here.”
Click to expand...

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/donald-trump-wisconsin-loss-221617
 
leaves Trump with little margin of error in the remaining contests to win the 1,237 delegates necessary to secure the nomination on the first ballot at July’s GOP convention. And if he doesn’t win it that way, many anti-Trump Republicans believe, he’s not going to win it at all.
Click to expand...

So, Trump is on track to close the deal before June 7 now, with Cruz' lukewarm Wisconsin win.

Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New York were all states that were original ratifiers of the US Constitution -
not nearly as gullible to the Cruz distortion as say, the settlers of corn fields and western tundra lands
unfamiliar with the founding document superseding the Articles of Confederation.

Pennsylvania of course is included in the above list as well, but mostly unbound delegates.
 
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Trump will go scorched Earth on the entire GOP if he's screwed out of the nomination,...and he has the backing and money to do it up right.

It should be fun to watch.

I think the first thing he will do is fund a challenger for Cruz's senate seat after Cruz loses to Hillary.
 
Smitty said:
Trump will go scorched Earth on the entire GOP if he's screwed out of the nomination,...and he has the backing and money to do it up right.

It should be fun to watch.

I think the first thing he will do is fund a challenger for Cruz's senate seat after Cruz loses to Hillary.
Click to expand...

This scenario could expose some rare opportunities...
 
Smitty said:
Trump will go scorched Earth on the entire GOP if he's screwed out of the nomination,...and he has the backing and money to do it up right.

It should be fun to watch.
Click to expand...

I'm actually beginning to expect the GOP to just forfeit the general election. I mean, why not? They've already lost.

That would make a truly interesting convention. "Sorry, folks. We've spent months and all of our remaining candidates suck. We'll just let Hillary have this and use her to fundraise for the next 4 years."
 
CaptUSA said:
I'm actually beginning to expect the GOP to just forfeit the general election. I mean, why not? They've already lost.

That would make a truly interesting convention. "Sorry, folks. We've spent months and all of our remaining candidates suck. We'll just let Hillary have this and use her to fundraise for the next 4 years."
Click to expand...

They did that a few months ago when they realized they weren't going to be able to sell Rubio to the voters. Their main concern now is the effect on the downballot races. Worst case scenario they will lose the Senate, be in position to lose the House in 2018, tell them never mind on SCOTUS nominations this year, ram whoever they want through next year.
 
CaptUSA said:
I'm actually beginning to expect the GOP to just forfeit the general election. I mean, why not? They've already lost.


That would make a truly interesting convention. "Sorry, folks. We've spent months and all of our remaining candidates suck. We'll just let Hillary have this and use her to fundraise for the next 4 years."
Click to expand...

And just let her and her team wrestle with all of the 'fun' of "The Fourth Turning" . Wheee!

https://archivesmb.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/the-fourth-turning1.pdf

The Fourth Turning, The Crisis[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman], is by far, the most perilous as societies pass through the greatest and most dangerous gates of history. As desperate solutions are sought for "sudden threats" on multiple cultural fronts, confrontation is passionate and decisions are often reactive, aggressive. "Government governs, community obstacles are removed, and laws and customs that resisted change for decades are swiftly shunted aside.
A grim preoccupation with civic peril causes spiritual curiosity to decline… Public order tightens, private risk-taking abates, and crime and substance abuse decline." Families strengthen, gender distinctions widen, and child-rearing reaches a smothering degree of protection and structure. The young focus their energy on worldly achievements, leaving values in the hands of the old. Wars are fought with fury and for maximum result.
Eventually, the mood transforms into one of exhaustion, relief, and optimism. Buoyed by a new-born faith in the group and in authority, leaders plan, people hope, and a society yearns for good and simple things.
[/FONT][/FONT]
Click to expand...
 
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On April 01, 2017

The Stupid Party finally exclaims,

"Wow, we could have supported Trump, instead we've got BOTH Clinton's back in the White House."
 
CPUd said:
They did that a few months ago when they realized they weren't going to be able to sell Rubio to the voters. Their main concern now is the effect on the downballot races.
Click to expand...

Ah, but you see a forfeit of the Presidential race will help them down ballot. Democrats won't have a boogeyman to help them drive the turn-out and it will essentially become an off-cycle election. Off-cycle elections usually benefit the party not in power.

Yeah, they'll have to accept losing the Supreme Court, but haven't they already lost that? Think of the fundraising, man!!!
 
CaptUSA said:
I'm actually beginning to expect the GOP to just forfeit the general election. I mean, why not? They've already lost.

That would make a truly interesting convention. "Sorry, folks. We've spent months and all of our remaining candidates suck. We'll just let Hillary have this and use her to fundraise for the next 4 years."
Click to expand...

And just give away a supreme court seat?
 
CPUd said:
They did that a few months ago when they realized they weren't going to be able to sell Rubio to the voters. Their main concern now is the effect on the downballot races. Worst case scenario they will lose the Senate, be in position to lose the House in 2018, tell them never mind on SCOTUS nominations this year, ram whoever they want through next year.
Click to expand...

Rand is no idiot, the RNC conceded the primary months ago. This is no hail marry for supreme court justices. The GOP is forcing this Biden rule, so they can go for 2016 and take their SC picks. Trumps anti campaign is not a real campaign, we were all suckers as soon as we started taking him seriously.
 
As of April 6th:

Trump- 743 delegates
Cruz- 517 delegates

Needed : 1237

Trump: 494
Cruz: 720

Remaining to be decided: 882

Cruz needs: 82% to lock it up
Trump needs 56%

To catch Trump and have a one vote plurality at the convention, Cruz needs 554 of the remaining delegates or 63% of them.


While it is getting harder for Trump to clinch, it is also getting harder for Cruz to catch Trump and have more delegates than him at the convention.
 
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Zippyjuan said:
To catch Trump and have a one vote plurality at the convention, Cruz needs 554 of the remaining delegates or 63% of them.
Click to expand...

Cruz or Kasich take 389+ of what is left . . . just over 44% to keep Trump short of a majority.

If Trump gets that close but under, I'd expect Rubio (or Kasich) could still release their delegates
(they can't control them and not all states allow it) for a VP nomination - Trump would have to take that chance and make that deal.
 
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That would leave Trump with a good majority of delegates even if not enough to clinch. With that large of a lead, it would be difficult to deny him the nomination.

If all those went to Cruz it would be:
Cruz: 1109 delegates
Trump: 1236 delegates

The more going to Kasich, the bigger the lead by Trump. Kasich, for example, is currently polling #2 in New York.
 
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