Posted on 03/15/2016 9:26:18 AM PDT by dlt
The Northern Marianas are a collection of 15 islands in the Pacific Ocean, located at about the focal point of the Pacific Rim. It's a United States territory, 179 square miles of land -- an area smaller than New York City -- that happens to jut out above the surface of the water. And on Tuesday morning, before you even woke up, it made Donald Trump the first man to qualify for the Republican presidential nomination.
Cruz will get the 8 he needs. He’s halfway there. At the trajectory he’s traveling, he’ll win enough winner-take-all states to get 4 more easily.
My understanding is that candidates (mostly) pick their own delegates who are loyal to them. This squares with the analysis I've heard by Newt Gingrich that around 80% of the delegates will be loyal to Trump and Cruz. Seems to me like Newt more likely to know more about the process than Rush.
Check this article for the 2-man-race hypothetical. You’re absolutely right that Cruz blows Trump away in a 2-man race.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3409335/posts
But in MOST cases, they WILL be Trump supporters. My understanding is that in most states the candidates handpick the majority of the delegates to represent them as bound delegates, with the primary exception being the 3 top party leaders of each state who are automatically delegates and may be bound to candidates they don't support. This has been my understanding for years, and I've heard Newt Gingrich offer similar analysis.
State, not "state or territory".
Only the 50 official US states count.
It depends upon the state and upon how active the campaign is AFTER the primary. In some states, the voters actually vote for a slate of delegates submitted by each candidate. In most states, however, the primary just determines how many delegates are bound to each candidate, and the actual delegates are selected at a later date, usually through a county or state convention. Delegates usually wind up being active members of the party apparatus (elected officials, county party officers, etc.) and the state party usually has more say over who is selected than the candidates. They may not even personally support the candidate to whom they are pledged. But the smart candidates make sure they have members of their campaigns at the state and county conventions to influence the delegate selection in their favor. Cruz, for example, has kept active volunteer organizations in every primary and caucus state so far that still has to select the actual delegates. Trump, from most accounts, closes up shop in a state almost as soon as the primary is over.
however, if need be, the rule can be changed by the rules committee so it is seemingly not etched in stone
per fox today
The pundits led by Bill O'Reilly are declaring that if Trump wins FL and OH, the race is over. But that simply isn't true if that causes Rubio and Kasich both to drop out.
Best outcome for Trump is to have both stay in the race even if it means he loses both states. Really great result for Trump would be to win Florida and neither Kasich nor Rubio drop out. (Which means Trump benefits by losing Ohio, since Kasich says he drops out if Trump wins.) Any other combination of results tonight makes it unlikely Trump gets 1237 before convention.
Trump winning FL and OH and Rubio and Kasich both dropping out is the best case scenario for Cruz. I don't see any way for Cruz to reach 1237 before the convention, but if Rubio and Kasich both drop out, catching and passing Trump is a legitimate possibility.
The "expert mathematical analysis" you see talking about the percentage of remaining delegates needed to reach 1237, is extremely misleading, because you only need 51% of the votes in winner-take-all states to win 100% of delegates in those same states. So if a candidate needs, say, 65% of remaining delegates, it's not nearly as hard as it sounds.
But take Arizona for example. It is a WTA contest on March 22nd and if Trump wins the state, all of the delegates will be bound to vote for him on the first ballot only. But the delegate selection process doesn't occur until April. The candidates may propose delegates, but there is no obligation for them to be considered. The district meetings select delegate candidates to send to the state convention, but only the elected precinct committee members get a vote. Then at the state convention, the final delegates are selected, in a process largely controlled by the state party. So it is possible Trump could win all of the delegates in Arizona, but have fewer than half of them actually be supporters of his that will stick with him after the first ballot.
IA, TX, OK, AK, AR, KS, ME, ID, WY.
Perhaps the reason for the discrepancy between the Gingrich analysis and your analysis is that this is a very rare case where a candidate not liked by the majority of the party is winning the majority of the delegates.
I suspect you may be more on the money than Gingrich. I hope so. That would bode well for Cruz.
WEll, then I apologize to lying Ted....
It seems unlikely they have done all that much towards this goal, considering they were in denial for so long. Plus state party people are less "establishment" than national DC-types. Even under your scenario, I think Cruz still maintains a lot of influence, if not control, over most of his delegates. Trump, maybe not.
Seems to me there was a turkey shoot around there....
If you read the definitions in the beginning of the rules, the word state in the rules includes U.S. Territories.
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