By James Taranto
April 6, 2016 1:45 p.m. ET
433 COMMENTS
“[Donald] Trump’s second-place finish to Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) in Tuesday’s Wisconsin Republican primary may represent no ordinary setback,” write the Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty, Jose A. DelReal and Robert Costa. “It appears to be a pivot point—although it has yet to be seen whether the trajectory from here points downward or upward.”
That is an absolutely rock-solid analysis. The likelihood that it will be proved mistaken is zero, maybe less. As the Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway observes, it illustrates “why national political reporters are so indispensable.” Our column is a solo effort, so if our work shines a bit less brightly than that of the Postly Trio, please show a little forbearance.
Anyway, Cruz did win big in the Badger State, topping Trump by 13% of the total vote, better than his margin in any poll. The Real Clear Politics average had Texas’ junior senator up by just 4.7%, though that was skewed by a late outlying poll in which Trump led by 10%. Asked the name of the firm that came up with that result, its head replied: “Argh!”
Even more intense frustration was voiced by the Trump campaign, which put out a statement accusing “Lyin’ Ted Cruz” of illegally coordinating with the super PAC backing him, and added: “Ted Cruz is worse than a puppet—he is a Trojan horse.” The statement promised victory in New York and wrapped up by claiming: “Mr. Trump is the only candidate who can secure the delegates needed to win the Republican nomination and ultimately defeat Hillary Clinton, or whomever [sic] is the Democratic nominee.”
That last statement is factually if not grammatically correct—though it’s carefully hedged. In Wisconsin Cruz picked up 36 delegates to Trump’s six, putting Trump’s overall lead (again, as per RCP) at 743-517, with 171 for Marco Rubio and 143 for John Kasich. A majority is 1,237, and it is increasingly unlikely anyone will reach that threshold before the primaries end in June.
David Wasserman of FiveThirtyEight.com writes that Trump needs 58% of remaining delegates; by our calculations that means Cruz would need 85%. Wasserman observes this gives Trump (in contrast, we’d add, with Cruz) “a realistic path to a delegate majority.” So as a practical matter, Trump is indeed the only candidate who can secure a majority.
That doesn’t mean he’s likely to do so, and it doesn’t mean he’s the only candidate who can win a majority. This column is increasingly of the view that Cruz is the likeliest nominee, notwithstanding Trump’s delegate lead.
Andrew Prokop of the young-adult site Vox maps the road ahead for Trump:
He’d need wins (sometimes big wins) in Northeastern states like New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, and New Jersey. But even those victories wouldn’t be enough. He’d likely have to win the Indiana primary on May 3 too, and pick up a good share of delegates in proportional states like Oregon, Washington, and New Mexico.
Most importantly of all, there’s the biggest delegate prize—California, which votes on June 7 and will send 172 delegates to the convention. Since the vast majority of the state’s delegates are allotted winner-take-all in its 53 congressional districts (three per district), Trump would likely need to win consistently across this very diverse state to put him over the top.
All that is doable. But it’s difficult, and there’s little room for error. It is very plausible that Trump will end up falling short of the 1,237 delegates he needs—perhaps even quite a bit short.
As we write, ElectionBettingOdds.com puts the likelihood (based on bookmakers’ odds) of a “brokered convention”—i.e., of Trump’s coming up short—at 66.4%, or just under 2 in 3. The likelihood of Trump’s winning the nomination is 50.1%. Subtract the latter percentage from the former, and the betting markets reckon there’s 1 in 6 or better chance of Trump’s winning a brokered convention.
We’re with FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver in thinking that makes little sense:
If Trump doesn’t win on the first ballot, he’s probably [at an impossible disadvantage]. The basic reason is simple. Most of the 2,472 delegates with a vote in Cleveland probably aren’t going to like Trump. . . .
In most states, the process to select . . . delegates is separate from presidential balloting. In Massachusetts, for instance, Trump won 49 percent of the GOP vote on March 1—his highest share in any state to date—to earn 22 of the state’s 42 delegates. But the people who will serve as delegates haven’t been chosen yet. That will happen at a series of congressional district conventions later this month and then a Republican state meeting in May or June. According to Politico, most of those delegates are liable to favor Ted Cruz or John Kasich rather than Trump. Twenty-two of them will still be bound to Trump on the first ballot, but they can switch after that. The same story holds in a lot of other states: in Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina, for instance—also states that Trump won.
Trump’s delegate problems stem from two major issues. One is his lack of organization: Trump just recently hired a strategist to oversee his delegate-selection efforts; Cruz has been working on the process for months. The other is his lack of support from “party elites.” The people who attend state caucuses and conventions are mostly dyed-in-the-wool Republican regulars and insiders, a group that is vigorously opposed to Trump. Furthermore, some delegate slots are automatically given to party leaders and elected officials, another group that strongly opposes Trump, as evident in his lack of endorsements among them.
While it’s possible Kasich or another candidate could emerge victorious on a second or later ballot, Cruz would be at a decided advantage by virtue of having both won multiple primaries and worked the delegate-selection process assiduously.
The Trump camp’s answer to the prospect of losing at a contested convention has been bluster about violence and intimidation. Trump himself last month spoke of “riots” if he was denied the nomination, though he later equivocated. Now Politico reports Trump trickster Roger Stone “is threatening to make public the hotel room numbers of Republican National Convention delegates who switch from Trump to another candidate”:
“We’re going to have protests, demonstrations. We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal,” Stone said Monday in a discussion with Stefan Molyneux on Freedomain Radio, as he alleged that Trump’s opponents planned to deny the democratic will of Republican primary voters.
“If you’re from Pennsylvania, we’ll tell you who the culprits are. We urge you to visit their hotel and find them. You have a right to discuss this, if you voted in the Pennsylvania primary, for example, and your votes are being disallowed,” Stone said.
Most Pennsylvania delegates, incidentally, arrive at the convention unbound. At any rate, this sounds like an empty threat, and one that would likely backfire even if carried out.
The last time he faced the prospect of venturing into hostile territory—when his rally in Chicago was overrun by left-wing disruptors—he ended up bugging out. If he fails to secure a majority of delegates, perhaps rather than endure defeat in Cleveland he will find a way to withdraw ungraciously before the convention.
