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Based on the raw vote and delegate counts at Real Clear Politics, consider the following: Raw vote %: Trump - 40% Cruz - 29% Delegate %: Trump - 49% Cruz - 32% Bump created by the "system" (delegate % divided by raw vote%): Trump - 22% Cruz - 10% Votes per delegate (how many votes did it take on average to get one delegate): Trump - 10,322 Cruz - 11,430

GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz lashed out at Fox News over coverage of Donald Trumpafter a heated interview with Sean Hannity earlier this week. When asked on “The Dom Giordano Program” about coverage of Trump’s claims of unfair “voterless elections” in states like Wyoming and Colorado, Cruz said, “They know it’s not true.” “Donald doesn’t handle losing well, and when we loses, he cries and he screams and he whines and he curses and he insults everybody,” Cruz said. “So when Donald lost five states in a row in landslide elections, that’s when they began making up this nonsense about...

One of Trump’s most enduring and arguably most endearing campaign lines has been his promise to treat American vets better. When Trump dropped out of a Fox News debate in January he held a separate event at which he raised money for veterans. But three months later, Trump’s campaign adviser for veterans, Al Baldasaro, doesn’t seem too concerned about it. He told the Daily Beast, “I’m not concerned about it, because I know [Trump is] an honorable, honest guy… you guys just want to say, ‘gotcha.’”To be fair, Baldasaro is not a Trump staffer. The real problem is that...

Donald Trump aims to win most, if not all, of Connecticut’s delegates in the state's presidential primary Tuesday; and with more to lose than his opponents, his campaign will pick a slate carefully scrutinized for their loyalty.The Trump campaign will come into the July convention with many more delegates than his rivals, but perhaps not the 1,237 that would clinch the nomination on the first ballot. In that event, he is worried delegates might stray in subsequent votes, while Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich will be encouraging the Trump delegates to change their support.Connecticut will send 28 GOP delegates and 25 alternates to the...

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, “hates” the new Trump. Coulter tweeted Friday that she wishes “Trump would go back to retweeting juvenile photos of Heidi Cruz.” “I hate the new Manafort and Black Trump,” she added. Trump’s convention manager Paul Manafort on Thursday told members of the Republican National Committee that the GOP presidential front-runner is “evolving.” “The negatives will come down, the image is going to change,” Manafort said. Trump hired Manafort weeks ago to oversee the campaign’s delegate efforts. He has since been promoted to convention manager. Once a regular on the Sunday...

As his top aides spent the week gingerly courting Republican insiders at a seaside resort in Florida, Donald Trump was busy railing against them. "The system is all rigged," Trump told supporters at a rally Friday at the Delaware State Fairgrounds ahead of the GOP primary. "That's why we have to win big. That's why on Tuesday, everyone has to go out and vote. We have to win big because the system is rigged."

Now that the 2016 presidential election season is in full swing, which candidate(s) are people in the adult industry supporting? Every election year is a nail-biter for pornographers, who are wracked with worry over potential persecution from the next presidential administration. Demonizing the porn industry under the guise of protecting the public’s morality is an old politician’s trick. Charge XXX producers with obscenity, collect fines and put a dent in the debauchery. “Obscene” porn is illegal but not all porn is obscene. Content that was considered extreme 15 years ago might be closer to the norm now. In the late...

As Donald Trump hurtles toward the Republican convention, he is on a collision course with the anti-abortion movement — a crucial conservative constituency that contends Republicans must own that issue to win a general election. Leaders of the movement are suspicious, if not outright opposed, to the three-time married billionaire who only recently came to oppose abortion and whose gaffes suggest he does not understand the issue. The latest flap exploded Thursday after Trump vowed he would "absolutely" change the Republican platform opposing abortion "for the three exceptions" — rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother. The...

On Friday's regular "Shields and Brooks" segment on the PBS NewsHour, pretend conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks slammed the North Carolina bathroom law -- which tries to protect women and girls from men intruding into women's restrooms in state buildings -- as he declared that the law is "so bad now I have to praise Donald Trump" for the GOP candidate's criticism of the law on NBC's Today show. He went on to complain that the Republican party "should have moved on" from "1980s socially conservative culture war politics," and concluded by lauding "moderate" Trump as "not stuck...

Despite his big win in New York on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has had a pretty bad week. But will it matter? It should -- and just might. During an NBC "Today" show town hall Thursday, the host read a question from Twitter concerning Trump's views on LGBT issues and how he plans to be inclusive as president. "Speak about North Carolina bathroom law in particular." Trump responded: "I had a feeling that question was going to come up, I will tell you. Well, look, North Carolina did something that was very strong, and they're paying a big...

Since the debate over what he said yesterday is still raging, it’s only fair that you get to hear his latest comment about it. Skip to 8:35 of the clip below from last night’s interview on Trump TV.His response to Hannity’s question about North Carolina is a dodge but it’s a dodge with a conservative pedigree. If you’re a Republican who’s been put on the spot about a hot-button social issue, you can’t go wrong saying, “Leave it to the states.” Even righties who disagree with you on the merits will tip their caps at your nod to federalism....

One of the biggest stories of the last couple weeks was Ted Cruz's complete shutout of Donald Trump in the Colorado delegate selection at the Colorado state Republican convention. The story, pushed hard by Trump and his zombie followers, is that the election was "stolen" by Cruz in an "unfair process."Okay, fine, sour grapes and all. But on Sunday I watched Media Buzz with Howard Kurtz, and realized that real story is this: the media has not, and apparently will not, do the tiniest bit of research in order to get the grossest, most basic facts about this correct. "It...

What sort of man is lurking deep inside Donald Trump’s innards? [SNIP] Evolving? Projecting an image? Moderating? Back in the South those are code words for snookered, two-faced and phony-as-a-two-dollar-bill. Oh, Donald. What have you done? Say it isn’t so. “Donald Trump is telling the American people that he’s lying to us,” Sen. Ted Cruz said on the campaign trail Friday. “His campaign is now run by Washington lobbyists.” [SNIP] In just the past few days we’ve seen him begin to waffle on issues like abortion and religious liberty. Pro-life groups are extremely concerned by comments he made about rewriting...

I have heard that a lot of Republicans, ESPECIALLY Trump supporters, have said that the candidate who comes into the Cleveland convention with the most delegates should be (automatically?) awarded the nomination even if he cannot get 1237 votes on the first ballot. I just want to go on record as saying that this widespread notion is politically stupid--even politically monstrous. The Republican Party's rules since the very birth of the Party have specified that a prospective nominee must achieve a majority of Convention votes to become the nominee. As most FReepers already know, this longstanding fact is not disputed....

After failing to secure a single delegate in Colorado nearly two weeks ago, angry Donald Trump supporters, reacting to the candidate’s claims of a ‘rigged’ nomination process, began taking matters into their own hands. This included issuing death threats to Colorado GOP chairman Steve House, who said he’s received emails warning him to hide his family and “pray” he makes it to the convention in Cleveland, as well as phone calls from people telling him to put a gun down his throat, and if he doesn’t they will come help him out. But it seems House hasn’t been the sole...

Donald Trump had waded into one of the most bizarre controversies to have roiled American politics, that being whether or not transgendered people should be allowed to use the public bathroom according to the gender they identify with rather the one that biology has assigned them. North Carolina recently passed a law that mandates that people use the bathroom according to which gender is recorded on their birth certificate. The law has caused an uproar in the LBGT community. Some businesses and performance artists have decided to boycott the state, even those who do business and perform in countries that...

Our convoluted primary system evolved to allow voters a more direct voice in choosing a candidate who can win a general election. Voters don’t always choose wisely -- after all, one party always loses. It’s a shame then -- in what should be a Republican year -- that GOP primary voters appear to want to lose the presidency once again.If the candidate at the top of the ticket is roundly defeated, the toll could also take down many Republicans running for the House and the Senate.The latest polls show that only one Republican candidate has a sure chance of...

Donald Trump might have rolled to 60 percent of the Republican vote in New York Tuesday night, but he came in a distant third in the big scheme of things nonetheless. Keep in mind, this is the candidate and the campaign that constantly pout about one-man one-vote and popular vote totals. They threaten to both call the lawyers about this concept and to riot in Cleveland over this. Thus, by Trump's own standards, Trump got thrashed in New York. Both Hillary and Bernie Sanders destroyed Trump in raw vote totals. I'm not saying Trump didn't win the N.Y. Republican primary...

Before we begin debunking, let’s start with the obvious: It was undoubtedly a good night for Trump and unsurprisingly so, as NR’s Henry Olsen predicted on election eve. Trump looks to have taken 90 delegates and 60 percent of the vote, somewhat better than projections, although most election-eve forecasts had him taking at least 85 or so of New York’s 95 delegates (Olsen had him pegged for 87). But despite his victory, Trump got only a very modest bump from New York last night. And despite the breathless TV and print commentary from our New York–centered media, he still faces...

The political establishment on the right is mostly ignorant of the constitutional provisions that enable political stands to be taken, or, they just don’t care. It’s a terrible irony that the Left has been able to own the bubble-gum wrapper version of what our constitutional rights are, and the so-called right sits there delusional about how to respond. One of the political establishment-types I often read is Peter Wehner. I have written many posts about him, to use him as a perfect example of people who grassroots conservatives know to be following the wrong herd. Wehner does not disappoint, as...