Would Trump have won a contested convention in 2016?

[win win]

Would Trump have won a contested convention in 2016, if Republicans did not use winner take all rules, used superdelegates and Cruz, Rubio and Kasich stayed in until the convention.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

I feel he would've, but it might have made unifying Republicans to almost universally vote for him more difficult. 

[OSR stands with Israel]

No he would not have , as remember he does not choose the vast majority of his delegates so they are mostly establishment figures who just vote the way they are pledged and in round 2 and round 3 of balloting they get unbound where they likely will vote for some other candidate

[atheist4thecause]

Probably not. The Republican Establishment hated him. Maybe Trump would've had the most delegates, but the Republican Party probably would've found it better to hemorrhage some Republicans to keep the Establishment intact. Wasn't it Lindsey Graham who was talking about just kicking Trump out of the Party at the time?

The funny thing is that the Establishment didn't exactly like the next top choice, which is Ted Cruz. John Kasich would have been palatable to them and despite lacking delegates he got a lot of the % of the vote. Maybe they would've rallied behind Kasich.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Some different scenarios here.

1. Cruz and Kasich press on after Cruz loses Indiana: This involves Cruz or Kasich winning Nebraska, Oregon, Washington State, Montana, New Mexico and South Dakota. Trump wins West Virginia, New Jersey, and most of the delegates in California. This comes out to Trump being somewhere around 1200 pledged delegates, about 40 short of the threshold for automatic victory. Under this scenario, Trump is successful due to support from unbound delegates in Pennsylvania, several caucus states, and the U.S. Territories.


2. Cruz wins Indiana: This would be more of a Toss-Up situation. The later states probably play out similar to scenario 1, but particulars matter a ton. How much does Cruz landslide in Nebraska by? How many California delegates do Cruz/Kasich win? If Trump stays above 1150 pledged or so, he probably still wins because he walks into the convention within striking distance of the goal and all the mandate arguments one could want, but he might have to wait until the second ballot when he can win over a few cruz delegates or something.  If he's lower than 1150 pledged, he would have to cut some sort of deal with Cruz, Kasich, or Rubio (who did get 123 votes at the convention in RL) to pull it off. If a deal cannot be reached, Trump loses the convention to whoever the establishment prefers.


3. Completely alternate universe where Republicans use the Democratic Delegate Allocation Rules: Trump is well below the threshold here, as even in RL he won just 44.9% of the nationwide primary popular vote and would certainly have less in a situation where Cruz and Kasich stay in through the convention. Hence, barring some major collective deal with the party as a whole, Trump loses the convention decisively.

[brucejoel99]

If he's close enough to 1,237, then probably.