Opinion: Make the Majority Great Again – by Yosef Stein

ysFollowing Donald Trump’s blowout loss in Wisconsin’s primary on Tuesday, the likelihood of the billionaire amassing the 1,237 delegates required to clinch the Republican nomination has been greatly diminished. It is now significantly more likely that Trump will fall short, meaning that the GOP is probably headed towards an open convention for the first time since 1976. This is a prospect that has generated no shortage of whining from Trump’s supporters, who insist that the candidate with the most delegates should be the nominee.

Firstly, we must establish the meaning of an open convention (otherwise known as a contested convention). In order to secure the Republican nomination for president, a candidate must win 1,237 delegates- a simple majority of the 2,472 delegates to the GOP convention. If no candidate manages to reach this number on the first ballot of the convention, the convention becomes contested. Most delegates who were bound to vote for a specific candidate on the first ballot become free agents, meaning that they can now vote for whomever they want on subsequent ballots. Voting ensues until one person garners the votes of 1,237 delegates.

Of course, this means that even if Donald Trump has the most delegates heading into the Cleveland convention, he is still not guaranteed the nomination if he falls short of a majority. This possibility has the business mogul’s allies crying foul. Trump himself recently expressed a desire to change the rules in middle of the game, threatening “riots” in his typical thuggish style if he is not the nominee.

Another term that has been frequently uttered on television and in newspapers lately is “brokered convention.” A brokered convention is what it’s called when a contested convention ends up nominating someone who was never a candidate for president in the first place. For instance, if the 2016 convention delegates were to nominate House Speaker Paul Ryan on the fourth or fifth ballot (still an unlikely scenario), the convention would be referred to as brokered. While Donald Trump’s people have been howling at the very notion of a contested convention, it’s the prospect of a brokered convention that keeps Ted Cruz’s supporters up at night.

Ted Cruz’s only hope to be the GOP nominee is through a contested convention. In fact, I would peg the likelihood of a Cruz nomination at better than fifty percent in the event of an open convention. He is by far the best organized of the remaining candidates, and as Donald Trump’s chief rival, he is the natural choice of the Never Trump movement. That said, Cruz is a deeply polarizing figure in his own right, and many potential delegates are far from enthusiastic about the idea of selecting him as the nominee. Many of the people involved in the process want to nominate either long-shot Ohio Governor John Kasich or someone who isn’t currently running. It’s this prospect that has Cruz’s campaign up in arms. Cruz has promised a major “revolt” against the Republican Party if anyone other than him and the Donald ends up with the nomination.

At face value, Cruz and Trump’s complaints about the process seem legitimate. After all, why should a couple thousand delegates get to overturn the will of the voters? However, such an argument is as simplistic and uninformed as it may seem compelling. How so? The goal of the primary process is to produce a nominee who has the support of a majority of the party, not merely a plurality. While Donald Trump and Ted Cruz each have the support of a significant minority of the Republican Party, they cannot earn the nomination without majority support. Such a crowning would not be representative of the will of most GOP voters. 1,237 delegates is not some magic number- it’s merely fifty percent plus one. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, both polarizing figures with high negatives even within the Republican Party, may prove incapable of securing a majority of the party’s support. This being the case, delegates to the convention may determine that John Kasich or Paul Ryan is a better consensus choice- not because they received more votes, but because they are ultimately palatable to a larger percentage of the party.

This concept is not in any way unique to the Republican Party or the primary election process. In the general election as well, a candidate must secure a clean majority in the Electoral College; merely winning the most electoral votes in November is not enough to avoid having the race decided by Congress. In countries with parliamentary governments like Israel and the U.K., the party with the most votes cannot govern unless it can form a majority coalition. Even Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who Trump has accused of working against him, was elected to his current position only after he finally secured an outright majority on the seventh ballot of voting. Only through obtaining a majority of the vote can a candidate accurately claim to be the consensus choice.

In the case of the Republican primary process, there is really no reliable way to know which candidate is acceptable to the most voters. While recent polls (including the Wisconsin exit polling) have indicated that about a quarter of registered Republicans will abandon the party in November if either Trump or Cruz is the nominee, it’s hard to know whether these numbers will hold up in an actual contest against Hillary Clinton. John Kasich has touted numbers like these to prove that even though he is the first choice of few voters, as the nominee he still would have the support of more GOP voters than either of his rivals would. Ultimately, it will be up to the delegates to decide who best represents the party- and it will require an absolute majority of them to nominate anyone, ensuring that the eventual nominee has broad support. The delegates represent the full spectrum of the Republican Party- while some delegates are selected by the state parties, many are chosen by grassroots conservatives who are far more likely to support Ted Cruz or Donald Trump than they are to support an “establishment”-backed candidate. This is a fact that has been demonstrated time and again over the last couple of weeks, as Cruz supporters dominated state conventions and pushed their favored delegates through without any input from the “establishment.” There remains a possibility that the delegates will choose someone other than Trump and Cruz to be the GOP standard-bearer. If that happens, though, it will be because that someone has broader support within the GOP than either of them- not because the evil party bosses are trying to thwart the will of the voters. The delegates are in many cases chosen by the grassroots, a fact which is often overlooked in analyses- and complaints- about the state of the race.

As a side note, don’t expect a lot of the delegates to be sympathetic towards Trump. The businessman’s lack of broad support among potential delegates is a combination of two factors: firstly, many Trump voters are independents and Democrats who have crossed party lines to vote for him. These non-Republicans will not be represented well in the mix of GOP delegates, nor should they be. Democrats and independents should not choose the Republican nominee. Secondly, Trump is consistently allowing himself to be outmaneuvered by the Cruz campaign at the state conventions where he has the opportunity to send his supporters to Cleveland as GOP delegates. In addition, Trump is unlikely to be the nominee at a contested convention because his high negatives among Republican voters (and his shocking 67% disapproval rating among the electorate at large) make him far from a consensus choice to lead the party. Cruz, however, will be nominated at an open convention if he can in fact unite the different factions of the party behind him. If he fails to do so, someone else who can will be nominated. The system is not rigged- it’s simply set up so that only a candidate with majority of Republicans’ support is allowed to represent the Republican Party. And that’s just the way it should be.

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11 COMMENTS

  1. Another great article. It seems like America is finally waking up and Trump as the nominee is not a forgone conclusion. Thank you for such a clear analysis.

  2. As much as I wanted a contested convention to get a decent candidate out there, it really did seem unfair. This is a very clear explanation of the system and the logic behind it. Go Ryan!

  3. I agree whole-heartedly. One thing being overlooked by all of the analysis of “could they/should they” overthrow Trump (Cruz) is that – despite the presence of many ideologues involved in the political process, including in the Republican party – the primary goal of any (legitimate) political party is simply to win elections, while protecting its brand (e.g. as a “conservative” movement). On both of these scores, nominating Trump would be disastrous.

    The truth is that even before this year’s debacle of a primary process – in which perhaps the best candidate pool in history in depth and breadth was skewered – it was clear that the whole primary system tends to deliver nominees who are far from being the best representatives of their parties. I say return to the smoke-filled room!

  4. Your article covered all the important points about the various candidates except for one very important point, if Cruz Is elected we will have the first President who can make his own shmurah matza!

  5. Yah. Wake up. Sounding educated and all doesn’t give you the right to decide for the people. If the Republican party wants to commit suicide, all they have to do is nominate anyone besides Trump. If they want a shot at the office, they should listen to the people.

  6. @y You make me laugh as you personify a “Trumpbot”. Did you argue points? Is your points based on reason? No and no, but let’s make America great again. This rhetoric is worse then the Obama supporters crying, “yes we can”.

  7. As much as I don’t like Trump and would have a difficult time deciding between him and Hillary, I don’t think a contested convention is very democratic. The nominee should be chosen by the people not a select, closed group at a so called “contested convention”. Who contested it? Not the voters. I say majority rules whether we like it or not.

  8. To piggyback on Neocon’s comment, I really don’t understand how after having such a large poll of very qualified candidates, we ended up where we are- Trump or Cruz. Men of experience and stature were beaten by “outsiders” with little or no political experience. Airy promises of being great again won over substance and real programs. I hope someone can make us great again because right now America is looking pretty pathetic.

  9. @basic sense. We can debate the issues all day – which I’m quite capable of doing – however that isn’t the/my point. If you believe that you can beat any Democrat with a contested candidate, your sorely mistaken. The voters have spoken, they don’t want the same old, same old. And as the writer above points out, Trump has attracted voters from across the aisle, giving him the best shot.

Comments are closed.