Does Cruz go for the nuclear option?

[Erc]

Barring a sudden reversal in fortune, a Trump win on the first ballot seems quite likely under the current rules.  The main uncertainty is whether he'll do so purely with pledged delegates, or whether he'll need his new crop of PA unbound delegates to do so.

It also looks likely that a majority of the delegates of the convention will not favor Trump as their personal first choice at the convention.

If Trump is on course to win the first ballot, does Cruz go for the "nuclear option"?  Encourage (explicitly or implicitly) the delegates to vote for a rule change that unbinds all delegates on the first ballot?  And if so, does it work?

I ordinarily wouldn't even ask this question, but if anyone would do something crazy like this, it's Cruz.

EDIT: If you think there are other crazy gambits he could and would go for (throwing out SC, raising the Rule 40 threshold so that Trump doesn't appear on the first ballot, etc.), post 'em below.

[Mehmentum]

I agree, if anybody would do this, its Cruz.

[standwrand]

Cruz and Kasich seem to have supporters on the rules committee and I could definitely see him going all out Ron Paul at the convention, but I really don't think it would work.

[PeteB]

While I believe that Cruz would try this, I am not sure it could be legally done, even with convention delegates sanctioning it.  A lot of the individual states have their own rules and the delegates would be bucking the state rules.  And you have to draw the line somewhere.  Getting Trump out through defined rules-sanctioned options is one thing; "bending" the rules is quite another.  If he can win on the first ballot, Trump will get the nomination (and lose in the GE catastrophically) - if not he is toast.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Erc, what rules bind delegates?  State law?  State party rules?  Grab bag depending on state?

I love this federal republic, I really do.

[Mr. Morden]

I actually have a similar question to the one I posed here on the Democratic side.  Let’s say Trump appears to have a majority in hand.  That is, say he’s very close to 1237 in pledged delegates at the end.  Let’s say 1225.  Many of those 1225 delegates may not want to vote for him, but they have to because they’re pledged.  Trump then needs only a handful of unpledged delegates in order to get a majority.  Let’s say he has endorsements from something like ~50 unpledged delegates, so he’s on track to be well over 1237 total.  There’s still a month to go before the convention, but Trump has enough endorsements from unpledged delegates that the outcome on the first ballot is assured.

Under normal circumstances, Trump would declare victory, and Cruz would concede.  The contest is over.  But what if Cruz *doesn’t* concede?  He could use the fig leaf that he’s going to try to convince the unpledged delegates to change their minds, but everyone can see that he’s got no hope of doing that in large enough numbers to change the winner.  It’s assumed that he’s working on some kind of “nuclear” option with the rules, in order to sabotage Trump’s nomination, but he doesn’t necessarily admit to that in public.  Or maybe he does.  Not sure if that would really matter or not.

Anyway, in such a circumstance—there’s an apparent winner, based on pledged delegates plus endorsements from unpledged delegates, and the winner declares victory but the loser doesn’t concede—what does the RNC do during the pre-convention period?  Do they turn planning of the convention (the agenda, who can speak, what they can talk about) over to Trump, as they would any other presumptive nominee?  Or do they accept Cruz’s premise that the contest isn’t actually over yet, and so they have to play it as a contested convention, where there is no presumptive nominee in place to set the agenda?

[pho]

Unbinding the delegates would be very messy legally. They are more likely to change the rules to require a super majority of the delegates to secure the nomination.

Either way it's awful and will make for fantastic television.

[Erc]

Erc, what rules bind delegates?  State law?  State party rules?  Grab bag depending on state?

I love this federal republic, I really do.

GOP rules (at present) prioritize National GOP Rules > State GOP Rules > State Law.  

Legal precedent will generally side with the RNC here; they're a private organization and can do whatever they want.

Regardless, there are enough states that don't bind their delegates according to state law that just unbinding those could make a difference on the first ballot.


And Mr. Morden, those are some very good questions.  That "fig leaf" could be very useful for Cruz, but one that will be shed if he loses IN and doesn't make it close in CA.

[IceSpear]

He might try, but the delegates won't go for it. They might hate Trump, but they're not going to steal the nomination from a guy that has been called the winner and presumptive nominee for over a month. The backlash would be unfathomable.

[Green Line]

He might as well try it.  The best hope for the conservative movement surviving this election is if the Republican Party blows itself up at the convention and a new 'saner' conservative party is able to rise up from the ashes that opposes Trump.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

He might as well try it.  The best hope for the conservative movement surviving this election is if the Republican Party blows itself up at the convention and a new 'saner' conservative party is able to rise up from the ashes that opposes Trump.

I quite like this idea. Post Trump, the US could have:

the self-described "Sane Conservative" party (made of of religious and social-issues zealots)
the Trump Party (populist, nativist fascists worshipping a billionaire)
the Demopublican Party, which would wear the logos on their corporate sponsors proudly
and the Green Party, who might actually win some elections

[Wisconsin+17]

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Uh, no, it's not. Say it in June, sure, but not now.

Anyhoo, don't see why he'd try it.

[Erc]

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Uh, no, it's not. Say it in June, sure, but not now.

Anyhoo, don't see why he'd try it.

As I've stated elsewhere, Trump needs to do 1 of the following 4 things to win:

1) Win Indiana
2) Win big in California (115+ delegates)
3) Convince 10-15 additional unpledged delegates to vote for him
4) Win Montana or South Dakota or Nebraska

Obviously the probabilities are not independent of each other, but I'd say odds are (at worst) roughly even for each of the first three.  Four's a long shot, but stranger things have happened.

Assuming no nuclear option, I might take Cruz at 7-1 odds right now, at best.

[The Free North]

If anyone was going to sabotage the entire operation it would most certainly be Cruz.

[Fargobison]

If he did this I would laugh at him after somebody else is picked to be the nominee.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

I quite like this idea. Post Trump, the US could have:

the self-described "Sane Conservative" party (made of of religious and social-issues zealots)
the Trump Party (populist, nativist fascists worshipping a billionaire)
the Demopublican Party, which would wear the logos on their corporate sponsors proudly
and the Green Party, who might actually win some elections

As much as I love most of what the GP stands for (hence my avatar), any party that actively and expressly works towards the devolution of power is going to fail in US politics.

[SillyAmerican]

I actually have a similar question to the one I posed here on the Democratic side.  Let’s say Trump appears to have a majority in hand.  That is, say he’s very close to 1237 in pledged delegates at the end.  Let’s say 1225.  Many of those 1225 delegates may not want to vote for him, but they have to because they’re pledged.  Trump then needs only a handful of unpledged delegates in order to get a majority.  Let’s say he has endorsements from something like ~50 unpledged delegates, so he’s on track to be well over 1237 total.  There’s still a month to go before the convention, but Trump has enough endorsements from unpledged delegates that the outcome on the first ballot is assured.

Under normal circumstances, Trump would declare victory, and Cruz would concede.  The contest is over.  But what if Cruz *doesn’t* concede?  He could use the fig leaf that he’s going to try to convince the unpledged delegates to change their minds, but everyone can see that he’s got no hope of doing that in large enough numbers to change the winner.  It’s assumed that he’s working on some kind of “nuclear” option with the rules, in order to sabotage Trump’s nomination, but he doesn’t necessarily admit to that in public.  Or maybe he does.  Not sure if that would really matter or not.

Anyway, in such a circumstance—there’s an apparent winner, based on pledged delegates plus endorsements from unpledged delegates, and the winner declares victory but the loser doesn’t concede—what does the RNC do during the pre-convention period?  Do they turn planning of the convention (the agenda, who can speak, what they can talk about) over to Trump, as they would any other presumptive nominee?  Or do they accept Cruz’s premise that the contest isn’t actually over yet, and so they have to play it as a contested convention, where there is no presumptive nominee in place to set the agenda?

In such a scenario, I would hope that Reince Priebus and others within the party leadership would sit Ted Cruz down and explain to him that for the good of the party, the convention, and the country, he should face reality and offer his concession. If Cruz instead chooses to play games with the rules or disrupt in any way the convention planning that would otherwise be done by the presumptive nominee, he will be looked on as a bigger weasel than he already is, he will throw the convention into complete disarray, and he'll have single handedly guaranteed a win for the Dems.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I actually have a similar question to the one I posed here on the Democratic side.  Let’s say Trump appears to have a majority in hand.  That is, say he’s very close to 1237 in pledged delegates at the end.  Let’s say 1225.  Many of those 1225 delegates may not want to vote for him, but they have to because they’re pledged.  Trump then needs only a handful of unpledged delegates in order to get a majority.  Let’s say he has endorsements from something like ~50 unpledged delegates, so he’s on track to be well over 1237 total.  There’s still a month to go before the convention, but Trump has enough endorsements from unpledged delegates that the outcome on the first ballot is assured.

Under normal circumstances, Trump would declare victory, and Cruz would concede.  The contest is over.  But what if Cruz *doesn’t* concede?  He could use the fig leaf that he’s going to try to convince the unpledged delegates to change their minds, but everyone can see that he’s got no hope of doing that in large enough numbers to change the winner.  It’s assumed that he’s working on some kind of “nuclear” option with the rules, in order to sabotage Trump’s nomination, but he doesn’t necessarily admit to that in public.  Or maybe he does.  Not sure if that would really matter or not.

Anyway, in such a circumstance—there’s an apparent winner, based on pledged delegates plus endorsements from unpledged delegates, and the winner declares victory but the loser doesn’t concede—what does the RNC do during the pre-convention period?  Do they turn planning of the convention (the agenda, who can speak, what they can talk about) over to Trump, as they would any other presumptive nominee?  Or do they accept Cruz’s premise that the contest isn’t actually over yet, and so they have to play it as a contested convention, where there is no presumptive nominee in place to set the agenda?

In such a scenario, I would hope that Reince Priebus and others within the party leadership would sit Ted Cruz down and explain to him that for the good of the party, the convention, and the country, he should face reality and offer his concession. If Cruz instead chooses to play games with the rules or disrupt in any way the convention planning that would otherwise be done by the presumptive nominee, he will be looked on as a bigger weasel than he already is, he will throw the convention into complete disarray, and he'll have single handedly guaranteed a win for the Dems.

Any shenanigans to deny Trump the nomination would result in improving our chances to beat Hillary, because Trump will get slaughtered in the general election- period.

[SillyAmerican]

In such a scenario, I would hope that Reince Priebus and others within the party leadership would sit Ted Cruz down and explain to him that for the good of the party, the convention, and the country, he should face reality and offer his concession. If Cruz instead chooses to play games with the rules or disrupt in any way the convention planning that would otherwise be done by the presumptive nominee, he will be looked on as a bigger weasel than he already is, he will throw the convention into complete disarray, and he'll have single handedly guaranteed a win for the Dems.

Any shenanigans to deny Trump the nomination would result in improving our chances to beat Hillary, because Trump will get slaughtered in the general election- period.

Sorry, but I strongly disagree. Any shenanigans which in effect work to invalidate the votes/wishes of millions of primary voters will NOT improve GOP chances in November. Quite the opposite. If Trump gets to the required 1237 and is still somehow prevented from being the nominee, whoever the nominee is won't stand a chance. I mean, why bother spending months asking those in the party who they would like to see running as their candidate, if you're simply going to toss out the person who they've selected, and instead go with someone who couldn't garner the support?

You want a recipe for ensuring that the GOP candidate gets slaughtered in the general election this cycle? Tell people their votes don't matter; that'll do it...

[Oldiesfreak1854]

I hope not.  As much as I despise Trump, I don't think it's right or fair to unbind the delegates unless there's a second ballot.

[Mr. Morden]

Ben Ginsberg was on WADR yesterday, and he said that while he thinks any version of the nuclear option is a huge longshot, if they were going to do it, the more likely version would be to pass a rule change requiring a supermajority rather than a simple majority of delegates in order to be nominated.  If Cruz really had the convention stacked with his supporters, they pass a new rule saying that you need the votes of 60% of the delegates in order to be nominated, rather than 50%+1.

So then, the first ballot is taken, and Trump is over 50% but below 60%, it goes to a second ballot, where most of the delegates become unbound.  Cruz wins on the second or third ballot if he really does have as many supporters among the delegates as he thinks he does.  Alternatively, only require a 60% supermajority on the first ballot, and 50%+1 on subsequent ballots.

[TomC]

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Uh, no, it's not. Say it in June, sure, but not now.

Anyhoo, don't see why he'd try it.

As I've stated elsewhere, Trump needs to do 1 of the following 4 things to win:

1) Win Indiana
2) Win big in California (115+ delegates)
3) Convince 10-15 additional unpledged delegates to vote for him
4) Win Montana or South Dakota or Nebraska

Obviously the probabilities are not independent of each other, but I'd say odds are (at worst) roughly even for each of the first three.  Four's a long shot, but stranger things have happened.

Assuming no nuclear option, I might take Cruz at 7-1 odds right now, at best.

I would think he needs to do 3 of them.

[Erc]

Ben Ginsberg was on WADR yesterday, and he said that while he thinks any version of the nuclear option is a huge longshot, if they were going to do it, the more likely version would be to pass a rule change requiring a supermajority rather than a simple majority of delegates in order to be nominated.  If Cruz really had the convention stacked with his supporters, they pass a new rule saying that you need the votes of 60% of the delegates in order to be nominated, rather than 50%+1.

So then, the first ballot is taken, and Trump is over 50% but below 60%, it goes to a second ballot, where most of the delegates become unbound.  Cruz wins on the second or third ballot if he really does have as many supporters among the delegates as he thinks he does.  Alternatively, only require a 60% supermajority on the first ballot, and 50%+1 on subsequent ballots.

That used to be the Democratic MO; they famously required a two-thirds majority at least through FDR's nomination.

[Fuzzy Bear]

I actually have a similar question to the one I posed here on the Democratic side.  Let’s say Trump appears to have a majority in hand.  That is, say he’s very close to 1237 in pledged delegates at the end.  Let’s say 1225.  Many of those 1225 delegates may not want to vote for him, but they have to because they’re pledged.  Trump then needs only a handful of unpledged delegates in order to get a majority.  Let’s say he has endorsements from something like ~50 unpledged delegates, so he’s on track to be well over 1237 total.  There’s still a month to go before the convention, but Trump has enough endorsements from unpledged delegates that the outcome on the first ballot is assured.

Under normal circumstances, Trump would declare victory, and Cruz would concede.  The contest is over.  But what if Cruz *doesn’t* concede?  He could use the fig leaf that he’s going to try to convince the unpledged delegates to change their minds, but everyone can see that he’s got no hope of doing that in large enough numbers to change the winner.  It’s assumed that he’s working on some kind of “nuclear” option with the rules, in order to sabotage Trump’s nomination, but he doesn’t necessarily admit to that in public.  Or maybe he does.  Not sure if that would really matter or not.

Anyway, in such a circumstance—there’s an apparent winner, based on pledged delegates plus endorsements from unpledged delegates, and the winner declares victory but the loser doesn’t concede—what does the RNC do during the pre-convention period?  Do they turn planning of the convention (the agenda, who can speak, what they can talk about) over to Trump, as they would any other presumptive nominee?  Or do they accept Cruz’s premise that the contest isn’t actually over yet, and so they have to play it as a contested convention, where there is no presumptive nominee in place to set the agenda?

In such a scenario, I would hope that Reince Priebus and others within the party leadership would sit Ted Cruz down and explain to him that for the good of the party, the convention, and the country, he should face reality and offer his concession. If Cruz instead chooses to play games with the rules or disrupt in any way the convention planning that would otherwise be done by the presumptive nominee, he will be looked on as a bigger weasel than he already is, he will throw the convention into complete disarray, and he'll have single handedly guaranteed a win for the Dems.

Perhaps us mere mortals have no idea what's really at stake for both the Movement Conservatives AND the GOP Establishment.  Their party's Presidential nomination has (in their eyes) been hijacked by a Populist Conservative who's not really a small-government guy.  It would have implications not only for the 2016 Presidential Election, but for public policy over the next decade, and on which side of public policy THEIR OWN PARTY would come down on.

In many ways, Trump's rise has undid not just the alliance between Bushism and Conservatism, it's also undid at least some of the work done by Barry Goldwater's campaign, which established the GOP as, clearly, the more conservative party.  It also suggests that the GOP is not the sort of party where a Club for Growth-type conservative is going to fare well in the future.  Trump's rise did not really "bring in" his supporters to the GOP; they were/are folks who've been voting GOP for some time now.  What Trump's rise HAS done, however, is bring these folks into the ranks of GOP PRIMARY DAY voters.  The statement that the GOP Primary Voter is disproportionately an ideological conservative is less true today than in 2012.  The Trump movement may not have redefined what it means to be a conservative, but it has redefined what it means to be a Republican.  Notice how the issues of being a RINO seem to have disappeared.  Trump has made the GOP that much less ideologically-based, and this has real world ramifications for those who have, for years now, thought the GOP to be their private oyster.