The ‘establishment’ might not like Cruz, but the delegates likely will.
April 6, 2016
Nate Silver
It’s like something out of an Aaron Sorkin script. After their bitterly divisive primary, the Republican delegates come together to nominate John Kasich on the fourth ballot at a contested convention in Cleveland, despite his having won only his home state of Ohio. Or they choose House Speaker Paul Ryan, despite his not having run in the primaries at all. Balloons descend from the ceiling, celestial choirs sing and everything is right again with the Republican Party, which goes on to beat Hillary Clinton in a landslide in November.
As I said, it’s like something out of a TV show. In other words: probably fiction. It’s not that hard to imagine a contested convention. In fact, with Donald Trump’s path to 1,237 delegates looking tenuous, especially after his loss in Wisconsin on Tuesday night, it’s a real possibility. And it’s not hard to see how Republicans might think of Kasich or Ryan as good nominees. If Republicans were starting from scratch, both might be pretty good picks, especially from the perspective of the party “establishment” in Washington.
But Republicans won’t be starting from scratch, and the “establishment” won’t pick the party’s nominee. The 2,472 delegates in Cleveland will. And most of them will be chosen at state or local party conventions a long way from Washington. Few will be household names, having quietly attended party gatherings in Fargo, North Dakota, or Cheyenne, Wyoming, for years with little remuneration or recognition. Although the proverbial Acela-riding insiders might dream of Ryan or Kasich, there are indications that the rank-and-file delegates are into Ted Cruz — and they’re the ones who will have votes in Cleveland.
There are some states where delegates are selected directly on the ballot (as in Maryland, for instance) and others where slates are submitted by the candidates (as in New Hampshire) — these are a fairly small minority. Below, you’ll find a table showing the Republicans’ delegate selection method in all states and territories, according to the Republican Party’s rulebook.
Without getting too lost in the details,2 there are five major delegate selection methods:
Candidates choose their delegates (10 percent of delegates). In some states, candidates name a slate of delegates. These states include California, making it even more important to the Republicans’ delegate math; delegates won in California are likely to remain loyal to their candidates longer than in most places.
Directly elected (16 percent of delegates).Other delegates, as I mentioned, are chosen directly on the primary ballot. Usually, the ballot indicates which candidate the delegate prefers, and the delegates are bound to that candidate. An important exception is Pennsylvania, where 54 delegates will be elected on the ballot as uncommitted.
In these first two cases, there’s a strong link between the presidential preference vote and delegate selection. The link isn’t perfect — weird things can happen when voters are asked to choose from among a number of delegates they’ve never heard of — but it’s pretty close. However, these two groups combined will represent only 26 percent of all delegates in Cleveland (or 24 percent if Pennsylvania’s uncommitted delegates aren’t included in the tally).
The other delegate selection methods are as follows:
Selected at state or local conventions (55 percent of delegates). The majority of delegates, as I mentioned, are chosen through a series of state and local conventions or caucuses. This is grass-roots democracy at work, with somewhere between dozens and thousands of Republican activists attending these events.
Selected by state or local party committees (12 percent of delegates). In a few other cases, however, party insiders are responsible for appointing some delegates. The state executive committee names 14 at-large delegates in Tennessee, for instance, a point of contention because these delegates are thought not to be favorable to Trump even though he won the state.
Republican National Committee members (7 percent of delegates). Finally, the 168 members of the RNC — three in each state — are automatically chosen as delegates. This used to be an important group because these delegates were uncommitted even on the first ballot in many states, making them equivalent to the Democrats’ “superdelegates.” But this year, Republican rules usually bind them to the statewide winner on the first ballot. Like other delegates, they may be free to choose whom they want later on.
We know that Cruz is likely to do well among delegates chosen through state and local conventions because we’ve seen that demonstrated quite a few times already. This is most obvious in the three states — Colorado, Wyoming and North Dakota — where there was no presidential preference vote. Cruz won nine of the 12 delegates chosen at county conventions in Wyoming (Trump won one), and Cruz has gotten six of six picked so far at congressional district conventions in Colorado (more Colorado congressional districts will choose their delegates this week). In North Dakota, delegates are technically unbound, but Cruz got a highly favorable slate of delegates approved at the state convention on Sunday; only one or two delegates of the 25 chosen appear favorably disposed to Trump.
We have fewer examples of how Cruz will fare among delegates chosen by party committees, but Tennessee represents an initial success for him. Another good proxy for how state party insiders are leaning is endorsements from state legislators. Cruz has about six times more of those than Trump and more than twice as many as Kasich, according to data collected by Boris Shor and Will Cubbison. Furthermore, Cruz has been fairly popular among state legislators for some time, according to Shor and Cubbison; they’re not merely coming to him out of desperation.
Then there are the 168 RNC delegates. Perhaps they’d be favorably disposed to Ryan or Kasich, but they represent a relatively small share of the delegate pool. And with strong ties to their state parties, they don’t all fit the stereotype of Washington insiders either.
It also helps Cruz that he, like Trump, will have won a fair number of delegates from the first two categories — directly elected delegates and delegates chosen by the candidates. True, these may be only about a quarter of delegates combined, but those are delegates that a candidate like Ryan would have a hard time winning over, meaning that he’d need a supermajority of delegates from the other categories. Also, in some states, delegates are bound based on the primary or caucus results for more than one ballot. So while Cruz could be a viable choice from the second ballot onward, it might not be until the fourth ballot or so that Ryan would really have a shot.
It’s true that a contested convention is uncharted territory in the modern political era, so we can’t be completely sure what the delegates would do. The 2,472 delegates have nearly unlimited authority to rewrite the convention rules, and if most of the them really wanted to see Ryan or Kasich nominated, they could probably find a way to do it. Or, if the voting was a stalemate between Trump and Cruz for many ballots, a true dark horse — maybe someone far more obscure than Ryan or Kasich — could emerge as a compromise. We can’t rule out these outcomes.
But we’re also learning more and more about who those delegates are now that they’re being chosen. They’re not members of the Washington “establishment.” Instead, they’re mostly grass-roots activists, and many of them want Cruz to be their next president.
In Idaho, for instance, candidates submit a proposed slate of delegates, but the state convention must approve them. I put Idaho in the “candidates choose” category, but it could go either way. There are a few other ambiguous cases like this. ^
We'll see. The only one in Washington they hate more than Trump is Cruz.
I'd like to see him as president, I have doubts that he'll get any traction against the felon.
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
-- Theodore Roosevelt
Cruz is running a ground game that is one to be envied by all political hopefuls. This could be the thing that makes all the difference in this race.
And you know why his ground game is being so successful? He studied and copied Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaign strategies of having in depth voter databases and microtargeting.
I think I posted an article here a while back where Cruz openly stated his campaign would be doing as much.
In fact, he didn't just win Colorado. He pulled in 12 more delegates in Iowa recently as well South Carolina, North Carolina, and even Indiana even though they haven't even voted yet!
I've got a number of articles to post how Cruz is sucking up the delegates left and right while Trump is busy making hollow speeches about "Lyin' Ted" to the WWE crowd.
Hahaha! I just heard a clip of Trump on FNC's morning Trump and Friends (yeah, I know what the real title is but since they allow him to phone in every day the name is fitting).
He sounded like a real whiny, butthurt loser over Colorado.
Sen. Ted Cruz scooped up all 34 of the delegates available in Colorado at a Republican Party convention that was held without a public primary or caucus — causing Donald Trump to criticize the process as fixed by GOP insiders.
“How is it possible that the people of the great State of Colorado never got to vote in the Republican Primary? Great anger – totally unfair!” the billionaire tweeted Sunday.
The 34 delegates could help keep Trump from getting the 1,237 he needs to ensure his nomination at the Republican National Convention in July.
Trump’s complaints came as the Colorado GOP showed an apparent bias by tweeting, “We did it. #NeverTrump.” The party later claimed its account had been hacked.
It's not Cruz's fault Trump is 1) not investing the money and resources to put together a ground game and 2) become educated or hire people educated enough to understand the rules. So much for him hiring all the best people...
I'm on vacation this week to work on my truck but since it's raining out, I've got Hannity's radio show on while I'm playing Fallout.
The ignorance he is broadcasting is simply staggering.
Acting like no one in Colorado was allowed to vote before these delegates were awarded to Cruz, pissing and moaning about how it's not fair hardworking people trying to juggle a job can't be bothered to learn all of these complex political rules, that this was all some conspiratorial scheme by "the party elites", etc.
How does he think the delegates are chosen in the first place?
If there's one thing I've taken away from this election, it's that some people that I regarded as people actually being against Liberalism like Hannity, Coulter, and others are nothing more than "Rs good, Ds bad!" simpletons. When provided a chance to support an actual Conservative, they jump at the new, shiny snake oil huckster rather than turning back and taking a meaningful fight to Liberalism.
Hannity likes to claim he's not endorsing anyone but the fact that he's refused to hold Trump accountable for a ton and whines about the Colorado delegates belies his admitted near 20 year relationship with Trump.
You show up, blather about how you want to be a delegate, and then you get assigned to be one. Maybe.
LOL
We don't technically have a "primary vote" here. No paper involved, no counting is done. At least not by officials. It's all inside buildings and people's houses.
I didn't go because I was "unregistered" by these fuckers because they sent a ballot to my old house and it was returned right after we sold the house then I had a heart attack and didn't correct things.
Libertatem Prius!
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The motherfucker is trying to hornswaggle the Bundy's again.
I hope that old fart has another "accident" in his "gym" (I THINK the guy that put his eye out was "Jim" and he fucked him up because he was up to something no good).
If the people don't vote this fucker out of office, they are assholes too.
Mike Arnold responds to Senator Harry Reid's comments. (AP/Facebook)
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Mike Arnold, the lawyer representing Ammon Bundy, has responded to Nevada Senator Harry Reid’s comments criticizing Bundy, his father and his brothers.
Arnold responded to comments made by Reid last week about the Malheur Wildlife Refuge standoff, where he said “This particular episode of domestic terrorism has roots in Nevada, I’m sorry to say.”
Reid spoke out to encourage President Obama to create one more monument in his state, the Gold Butte area in southern Nevada, the ecologically fragile area where Ammon’s father Cliven Bundy led an armed standoff against government agents two years ago.
“I’ve tried to protect Gold Butte for a long time. And the reason we haven’t been able to do anything to this point is that the Bundy boys and his pals. So that’s why I’m grateful for the Antiquities Act. Because of this legislation and because of the fact that the Bundys are in jail, I’m going to reach out to the White House. And there’s no guarantee we’ll get it done. We’ll see if President Obama will protect this area. He has the authority, as any president does, to stop this sort of destruction and stop it now,” Reid said.
Arnold Law wrote on Facebook that Arnold “encouraged the good senator (and Donald Trump) to stop engaging in the politics of anger and fear and stop demonizing “The Other.” Try discussing ideas rather than attacking individuals, especially when these individual Americans can’t effectively respond in realtime; they don’t have access to social media while they are in jail while presumed innocent.”
Roger Stone has been threatening to send angry mobs of rabid Trump fans to the hotel rooms of delegates in Cleveland to make sure they vote the way he wants them to. You know, intimidating them into voting for Trump by storming their personal space. This we already know. Many of us have predicted that this was just going to be the beginning of their brownshirt tactics. The floodgates would open because they were told it was OK, just like they started beating up dissenters as soon as Donald gave them the go-ahead. Trumpbots are nothing if not compliant and obedient to their King.
And that prediction was correct. Take a look at this reaction to the legal, duly executed Colorado caucus (we blurred out the personal date even though it is widely available now):
Note the crazy number of retweets. This is just one Trump follower, but amplified 600 or more times. The screenshot of this tweet is also making the rounds on Facebook and being used in reply to threads on blogs all over. It has spread like wildfire, and almost exclusively by those who agree that this is a reasonable thing to do.
And it’s not just this one man’s info. Take a look at these tweets:
Without regard to race or gender. How open-minded.
That was it for personal information at the time of this posting. But there is another tweet that kind of says it all.
Roger Stone and Donald Trump and all their little cable news mouthpieces are the ones stoking this fire and inciting this activity. And it will only get worse. They are telling you they won’t accept the rules of the party, the convention, or even the laws of the United States. They don’t care about that. They have their messiah. They will see him crowned whatever the cost.
For people who complain about democracy and the Constitution, they sure don’t give a crap about trampling on it. And it’s just exactly what the pied piper wants.
The people of Colorado had their vote taken away from them by the phony politicians. Biggest story in politics. This will not be allowed!
Donald Trump got demolished in Colorado last week, a slow, brutal process in which congressional district after congressional district selected delegates to the national convention and delegate after delegate was pledged or verbally committed to Sen. Ted Cruz. Trump didn't just lose, he lost while demonstrating an organizational incompetence that was stunning, particularly coming from the guy who still leads the Republican presidential field by a wide margin. On Friday, we outlined the problems Trump's campaign had seen the night before, but similar problems cropped up over the weekend. He left Colorado without a single pledged delegate.
Both Trump and his newly assigned delegate wrangler subsequently whined about the process, each taking a different tack. The wrangler, Paul Manafort, appeared on "Meet the Press," where he was asked about having been shut out in Colorado.
He started by complaining about Cruz.
"You go to these county conventions, and you see the tactics, Gestapo tactics, the scorched-earth tactics," Manafort said, prompting surprise from host Chuck Todd.
"Well, you look at, we're going to be filing several protests because reality is, you know, they are not playing by the rules," Manafort replied. But what happened in Colorado was a "side game." "The only game I'm focusing on right now is getting delegates," Manafort said. "And the games that have happened, even this past weekend, you know, are not important to the long-term game of how do we get to 1,237."
So, getting delegates in Colorado is a side game to the real game of getting delegates? Interesting. It also seems more fair, based on the evidence at hand, to assume that Cruz did play by the rules, which was why he won so many more delegates. It was Trump's campaign that wasn't prepared for the process.
Trump himself issued two 140-character press releases on the subject.
How is it possible that the people of the great State of Colorado never got to vote in the Republican Primary? Great anger - totally unfair!
The answer to Trump's first question is that the Colorado Republican Party opted to eliminate its presidential preference vote, apparently in response to the party mandating that delegates be bound to a candidate. But that the party opted for its delegate election system doesn't mean the system was sprung on the candidates at the last minute. Cruz's campaign certainly knew how to win the contest as formulated. Trump simply and obviously got out-organized.
But then, on Monday morning, Trump called in to "Fox and Friends," where he was presented with another utterly baffling sign that his team hasn't yet found its sea legs: His children Ivanka and Eric are not registered to vote in New York state, so he won't have their votes in the state's primary next week.
"They had a long time to register, and they were unaware of the rules and they didn't register in time," Trump said. "So they feel very, very guilty. They feel very guilty. But it's fine, I mean, I understand that. I think they have to register a year in advance, and they didn't."
A year in advance? The state Board of Elections has a slightly smaller window: The new voter registration would have needed to have been filed by March 25. Of 2016. Those two votes probably wouldn't have mattered much, but it's impossible not to see how their inability to register mirrors the campaign's inability to figure out the process elsewhere.
It's not clear whether the two weren't registered or whether they needed to change their party registration to vote in the closed primary. If it's the latter, the deadline was earlier. They'd have needed to change their registrations by Oct. 8 of 2015. But they had an expert who could have guided them through it: Donald Trump.
Trump's success has been a function of voters rewarding his unorthodox candidacy with an unexpected wave of votes. Were the process of earning a party nomination simply a function of who gets the most votes, Trump would win easily. But party nominations aren't normal elections. They're contests put on by the party itself to serve its own internal functions — meaning that it's messy and weird and at times undemocratic.
That contest, Trump has been unable to figure out. He's been unable to figure out how to do much beyond ask voters to pledge to support him.
Even if those voters share his DNA.
Update: The campaign sent a statement signed by Ivanka and Eric Trump.
New York is one of the most onerous states in terms of timeframe to change party affiliation for a closed primary, and the deadline unfortunately passed in October of 2015. Our experience in New York, and inability to change our party affiliation so that we could vote for our father in the NY primary, was the reason that we proactively began making videos last year to educate voters on a state-by-state basis on what is required in order for them to vote in their own state primaries. Each state differs greatly in terms of the rules and requirements--most allowing you to change your status on or close to the date of voting, if even required. Eric and I are fully supportive of our father and look forward to casting our vote for him in November.
Guess they figured the jig would be up on Dad's joke by now.
My oldest daughter gets to vote for the President for the first time being 18 now. She's a staunch conservative, but she has her mother's sense of humor so is always messing with me. Like saying she's gonna vote for the one with the best hair, or that Cruz's nose is too long to vote for him, or Trump's comb over makes her want to vote Democrat, and worst of all that Bernie Sanders looks like a cute grandpa type. Now whether she votes conservative or liberal is up to her, but she knows that I get upset when people vote based on looks and crap rather than what they bring to the table. So she uses that to see if she can get me to have an aneurysm.
Lately I've been thinking about bringing her onto this website so she can mess with Rick since I don't have as much time these days to do it properly.
Brian Baldwin
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil.... For I am the meanest S.O.B. in the valley.
"A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in... And how many want out." - Tony Blair on America
It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.
-Father Denis O'Brien of the United States Marine Corp.
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My oldest daughter gets to vote for the President for the first time being 18 now. She's a staunch conservative, but she has her mother's sense of humor so is always messing with me. Like saying she's gonna vote for the one with the best hair, or that Cruz's nose is too long to vote for him, or Trump's comb over makes her want to vote Democrat, and worst of all that Bernie Sanders looks like a cute grandpa type. Now whether she votes conservative or liberal is up to her, but she knows that I get upset when people vote based on looks and crap rather than what they bring to the table. So she uses that to see if she can get me to have an aneurysm.
Unfortunately, that's exactly the type of thing so many of the electorate like to base their vote on.
And then you have people like Hannity crying about how the caucus isn't fair because "people should have their voice heard" (blatantly ignoring how delegates are selected as I posted yesterday) when in reality the caucus is a great way to weed out low information, fair weather voters who otherwise couldn't be motivated to do more than participate in a national, political American Idle.
(Of course, no complaints from Hannity about the caucus states Trump won or the winner take all states Trump won with 20-30% when there were still a dozen other candidates in the race. No mention about how "unfair" it was to the other candidates.)
Over the years I've come to learn universal suffrage is a horrible idea and I don't think everyone should have their voice heard, especially those with no skin in the game via net taxes paid to the government and/or property owned.
Originally Posted by Brian Baldwin
Lately I've been thinking about bringing her onto this website so she can mess with Rick since I don't have as much time these days to do it properly.
Congress has historically low satisfaction numbers... But to be honest Ryan, it's more a reflection of the voting public than the nitwits in there. I agree with you 100% on how dumb voters in general seem to have gotten. And I'm right on board with Rick with the whole "fire their asses" thing. But so far our nation just resembles a hen yard that has a weasel loose in it. Non-stop squawking and very little thinking. I worked very hard to get my kids to understand they weren't any more special than anyone else. And that in the end it's their duty to be informed when they step into a voting booth. Society has tried at every turn to tell my kids I'm wrong. lol Maybe we can take a bit of solace in the fact that at least Cruz has the best hair. lmao
Brian Baldwin
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil.... For I am the meanest S.O.B. in the valley.
"A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in... And how many want out." - Tony Blair on America
It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.
-Father Denis O'Brien of the United States Marine Corp.
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Cruz was on Hannity's show yesterday and right out of the gate Hannity brings up the delegate situation saying he was "getting a bunch of questions from people" about the "integrity of the election", that it is extremely confusing to people, basically hinting that Cruz is trying to steal the election against the will of the people. Cruz comes back and tells Hannity that no one is asking him about this, people are much more concerned about job/economy/campaign issues than this and the only people raising the issue are hardcore Trump supporters.
Here's the segment (apologies for the Media Matters video but it's the only place I could find the audio):
Cruz's response was decent but I really would have liked to have seen him respond with: "Sean, is the ignorance about the electoral process an indictment against me or our failing education system dominated by teachers' unions and the NEA? The fact is our electoral process is not like American Idol nor should it be when you are dealing with something as serious as governance of the most powerful nation in the world. Do we really want to make it easier for poorly informed and casually involved people to decide the direction of this country or people who are passionate enough to become educated and involved? Ignorance of the masses is how the Democrats run things and is largely why we're in the shape we're in now. This is a process that has been in place in most areas for well over 100 years and has served us just fine but all of the sudden reality TV star Donald Trump comes along, doesn't understand it, loses because of that, and suddenly it's the system that is at fault, not Donald Trump. If people are confused about the process, it is on them to become educated about it and get involved with it or work at their local level to get it changed if they have a problem with it, just as the Founding Fathers intended."
But hey, that's just me.
Oh, and shame on Hannity for putting cheerleading for Trump and taking advantage of his listeners' ignorance and passion above taking the time like Mark Levin to explain this process and its history.
Transgender people should be able to use whatever bathroom they want, Donald Trump said Thursday.
"Oh, I had a feeling that question was going to come up, I will tell you. North Carolina did something that was very strong. And they're paying a big price. There's a lot of problems," the Republican presidential candidate said during a town hall event on NBC's "Today."
Referring to comments from an unnamed commentator who on Wednesday said North Carolina should "leave it the way it is right now," Trump said he agreed.
"Leave it the way it is. North Carolina, what they're going through with all the business that's leaving, all of the strife -- and this is on both sides. Leave it the way it is," he said, referring to companies that have canceled plans to move or expand businesses in the state as a result of the law, which bans transgender individuals from using a bathroom that does not match their gender at birth.
"There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go. They use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate," Trump said. "There has been so little trouble. And the problem with what happened in North Carolina is the strife and the economic -- I mean, the economic punishment that they're taking."
Matt Lauer then asked whether Trump has any transgender people working for his company.
"I really don't know. I probably do. I really don't know," Trump said, answering that he would allow, say, transgender celebrity Caitlyn Jenner to use whatever bathroom she wanted at Trump Tower.
He added, "You know, there's a big move to create new bathrooms. Problem with that is for transgender, that would be—first of all, I think that would be discriminatory in a certain way. That would be unbelievably expensive for businesses in the country. Leave it the way it is."
Ted Cruz addressed the issue in a tweet after Trump's appearance, writing, "We shouldn't be facilitating putting little girls alone in a bathroom w/ grown men. That's just a bad, bad, bad idea[.]"
The reelection campaign of North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory fired back at Trump after his remarks on what a spokesman called the state's "common sense bathroom privacy law."
"Governor McCrory has always said that North Carolina was getting along fine before the Charlotte city council passed its unneeded and overreaching ordinance. Now that it has been overturned, businesses can adopt their own policies - like Target has - instead of being mandated to allow men into women's restrooms by government," campaign spokesman Ricky Diaz said in a statement. "Where the governor disagrees with Mr. Trump is that bathroom and shower facilities in our schools should be kept separate and special accommodations made when needed. It's just common sense."
Donald Trump's chief lieutenants told skeptical Republican leaders Thursday that the GOP front-runner has been "projecting an image" so far in the 2016 primary season and "the part that he's been playing is now evolving" in a way that will improve his standing among general election voters.
The message, delivered behind closed doors in a private briefing, is part of the campaign's intensifying effort to convince party leaders Trump will moderate his tone in the coming months to help deliver big electoral gains this fall, despite his contentious ways.
Even as his team pressed Trump's case, he raised fresh concern among some conservatives by speaking against North Carolina's "bathroom law," which directs transgender people to use the bathroom that matches the sex on their birth certificates. Trump also came out against the federal government's plan to replace President Andrew Jackson with the civil-rights figure Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.
The developments came as the GOP's messy fight for the White House spilled into a seaside resort in south Florida. While candidates in both parties fanned out across the country before important primary contests in the Northeast, Hollywood's Diplomat Resort & Spa was transformed into a palm-treed political battleground.
Trump's newly hired senior aide, Paul Manafort, made the case to Republican National Committee members that Trump has two personalities: one in private and one onstage.
"When he's out on the stage, when he's talking about the kinds of things he's talking about on the stump, he's projecting an image that's for that purpose," Manafort said in a private briefing.
"You'll start to see more depth of the person, the real person. You'll see a real different guy," he said.
The Associated Press obtained a recording of the closed-door exchange.
"He gets it," Manafort said of Trump's need to moderate his personality. "The part that he's been playing is evolving into the part that now you've been expecting, but he wasn't ready for, because he had first to complete the first phase. The negatives will come down. The image is going to change."
The message was welcomed by some party officials but criticized by others who suggested it raised doubts about his authenticity.
"He's trying to moderate. He's getting better," said Ben Carson, a Trump ally who was part of the GOP's front-runner's RNC outreach team.
While Trump's top advisers were promising Republican leaders that the GOP front-runner would moderate his message, the candidate was telling voters he wasn't ready to act presidential.
"I just don't know if I want to do it yet," Trump said during a raucous rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Thursday that was frequently interrupted by protesters.
"At some point, I'm going to be so presidential that you people will be so bored," he said, predicting that the size of his crowds would dwindle if he dialed back his rhetoric.
There was evidence of drama on the Democratic side as well.
Prominent Southern Democrats urged Bernie Sanders to stop dismissing Hillary Clinton's landslide primary wins across the South, where the front-runner's popularity among non-whites has helped fuel her success.
Sanders said the results in the South "distort reality" because they came from the country's "most conservative region."
Don Fowler of South Carolina, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and other Clinton supporters told Sanders in a letter that "our national Democratic leaders" should "invest in our races and causes — to amplify our voices, not diminish them."
Yet as Clinton's grasp on the Democratic nomination tightens, Trump's overwhelming Republican delegate lead has done little to calm concerns from GOP leaders, gathered at the resort for the party's meeting.
As Trump continues to rail against "a rigged" nomination process, he sent Manafort and his newly hired political director, Rick Wiley, to help improve relationships with party officials at the meeting.
"He might not win some of these blue states, but you can make the Democrats spend money and time," Wiley said.
Trump's team also signaled to RNC members a fresh willingness to dip into the New York real estate mogul's personal fortune to fund his presidential bid, in addition to helping the national committee raise money, a promise that comes just as Trump launches his first big television advertising campaign in a month.
His campaign reserved about $2 million worth of air time in soon-to-vote Pennsylvania and Indiana, advertising tracker Kantar Media's CMAG shows.
"He's willing to spend what is necessary to finish this out. That's a big statement from him," Manafort said in the briefing.
Trump is increasingly optimistic about his chances in five states holding primary contests Tuesday: Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. He is now the only Republican candidate who can possibly collect the 1,237-delegate majority needed to claim the nomination before the party's July convention.
Chief rival Ted Cruz hopes Trump will fall short of a nomination-clinching delegate majority so that he can turn enough delegates to his side at the convention to give him the prize.
The political posturing came as Trump sparked new criticism by addressing the debate over which bathrooms transgender people should use.
Speaking at a town-hall event on NBC's "Today" show Thursday, Trump said North Carolina's bathroom law has caused unnecessary strife and transgender people should be able to choose which bathroom to use.
"There have been very few complaints the way it is," Trump said. "People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate."
Cruz lashed out at Trump's "support of grown men using women's restrooms." The Texas senator called Trump's position "a reckless policy that will endanger our loved ones."
Trump also said the plan to swap Jackson for Tubman on the $20 bill is an act of "pure political correctness."
A New York judge decided Tuesday that a fraud case against Donald Trump over his former school for real estate investors will go to trial – raising the possibility that the Republican presidential primary front-runner could testify during campaign season.
New York County Supreme Court Judge Cynthia Kern made the decision at a hearing Tuesday, though it remains unclear whether the case will be weighed at a jury trial – which is what Trump’s team is seeking. Trump attorney Jeffrey Goldman said it’s possible the trial could be held this fall, and Trump could testify.
In the case, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, has accused Trump and others of misleading thousands of students over the school.
Schneiderman alleges that Trump University was unlicensed since it began operating in 2005 and promised lessons with real estate experts hand-picked by Trump, only one of whom had ever met him. The attorney general said the school used "bait-and-switch" tactics, inducing students to enroll in increasingly expensive seminars.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing. He has said it was "a terrific school" with 98 percent approval ratings by its students.
Schneiderman had sued Trump and the school, which changed its name to the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative before it closed in 2010, for $40 million. The lawsuit seeks restitution and damages for more than 5,000 students nationwide, including 600 New Yorkers, who paid up to $35,000 each.
A New York court earlier had refused to throw out the fraud lawsuit.
Trump filed complaints with the state's ethics commission in 2013, four months after the lawsuit was filed, alleging Schneiderman pursued it to wring out campaign contributions from Trump's daughter Ivanka. The commission dropped the complaint after a review. Schneiderman denied it, and his campaign returned the $500 donation Ivanka Trump had made in 2012.
Trump's fellow Republican candidates have attacked him over litigation against the school, including a class-action suit in California. Trump criticized the judge in that case.
Just heard some interesting numbers on Glenn Beck's show regarding current polling of Trump. Don't have time at the moment to link them but wanted to share them while they're fresh in my head.
In exit polling last night from the liberal northeast, 40% said they couldn't vote for Trump. 25% said they are actually afraid of him in office. Don't know if this was Republicans or all voters...
Also mentioned some numbers for other areas:
- Ted Cruz polls at -16% among Hispanics while Trump polls at -78%
- Trump trails Hillary with Millennials by 36 points and is at -20% with young Republicans
Re: 2016 Election
Originally Posted by Brian Baldwin
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