Tag: delegates
Trump Secures Delegates Needed To Clinch Nomination: AP

Trump Secures Delegates Needed To Clinch Nomination: AP

Donald Trump has reached the number of delegates needed to secure the party’s presidential nomination, the Associated Press reported on Thursday, citing its own delegate count.

A small number of unbound delegates said they would support Trump at the party’s July convention, the AP reported, pushing the billionaire businessman over the 1,237-delegate threshold he needed to avoid a contested convention ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

Trump, a billionaire New York real estate magnate and former reality TV star, had become the presumptive Republican nominee earlier this month when his final two rivals dropped out of the race. But securing the necessary delegates effectively ends Trump’s primary campaign, in which he outlasted 16 other Republicans seeking the nomination.

Republicans are expected to finalize their pick when delegates vote during the July 18-21 convention in Cleveland.

Trump would face either former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who are vying for the Democratic nomination.

Reporting by Megan Cassella; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Jonathan Oatis

Photo: Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump holds a rally with supporters in Anaheim, California, U.S., May 25, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Sanders Insistent: Hubbub In Nevada Was The Party’s Fault

Sanders Insistent: Hubbub In Nevada Was The Party’s Fault

Bernie Sanders didn’t budge Wednesday after Democratic Party Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz called out the Vermont senator for failing to adequately address the reports of violence and harassment at Saturday’s Nevada Democratic Convention.

Sanders and his supporters allege that they were treated unfairly at the convention by party leadership, citing concerns that Roberta Lange, the chair of the Nevada Democratic Party, deemed 58 of Sanders’ delegates ineligible without allowing them to offer a chance to respond to the convention’s delegate credentials committee.

But the convention’s dramatic conclusion Saturday night had many Democratic leaders calling for Sanders to heed caution before things get ugly. California Sen. Barbara Boxer, who spoke at the convention in support of Hillary Clinton, said she feared for her safety following the reaction from Sanders’ supporters, but expressed optimism following a phone call with Sanders.

“Now we will see, but in my mind when he says he does not support any type of violence, I believe him,” she said. “And he’s got to make sure it doesn’t happen. People will follow his lead.”

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Sanders is facing a “test of leadership” and Sen. Tim Kaine told CNN that Sanders was blaming the party while deflecting responsibility.

But the Sanders campaign has maintained that it is more upset at Wasserman Schultz and Nevada’s Democratic Party leadership than the party as a whole, with Sanders saying that the Nevada Democratic Party “used its power to prevent a fair and transparent process from taking place.” Sanders said “good discussions” were had at other democratic conventions and that “democratic decisions were reached,” unlike in Nevada.

Sanders said in the statement Tuesday that his campaign condemns any forms of violence.

The tension within the Democratic Party indicate the early stages of a dramatic race to the finish line at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in July. Despite having practically no shot at winning the party’s nomination, Bernie Sanders has said he will stay in the race until the convention, which raises the question: What is Sanders’ plan moving forward?

In short, Sanders wants an open Democratic Party.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday morning, Sanders hinted that the campaign is seeking to change the party so it is more welcoming to those who did not previously register as a Democrat.

“The Democratic Party has to make an important decision and I say to them: Open the doors. Let the people in!” he wrote. He has long called for open primaries, in which independents are allowed to vote for Democratic candidates.

But Sanders may struggle to bring about immediate, widespread change: States decides on their own voting procedures — from open to closed to semi-closed, caucuses to primaries, and in the apportionment of delegates. America’s ranks of independent voters have swelled by ten percent in the last decade.

Sanders may simply use the convention to make a case for more open primaries, making “insurgent” candidacies like his easier in the future. After all, he has already proven that a campaign can be funded without super PACs, an example for other daring grassroots campaigns.

Photo: U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks to a large crowd of supporters in Carson, California, U.S., May 17, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Republican Elites Are Lining Up Behind Trump

Republican Elites Are Lining Up Behind Trump

Donald Trump’s strong showing in the last round of primaries looks set to continue today as Indiana voters go to the polls. As he has continued to win primary contests, he’s also forced supposedly committed Ted Cruz delegates and allies to reconsider their support.

“What I have said is I’m leaning towards Cruz, but I’m not committed to anybody,” said Dick Dever, a North Dakota state senator and Republican delegate, to The National Review. He effectively summed up the position many Cruz delegates have taken since Trump’s five state sweep last week. “And after [Tuesday’s vote], I think Trump has the momentum going forward.”

His latest position presents a reversal from remarks he made exactly a month ago. According to NBC, he said Trump would be his last choice if it weren’t for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. A meeting with Trump campaign surrogate/saboteur Ben Carson warmed him up to Trump, if only slightly.

“Yes, you’re unbound, you can vote for whoever you want,” said Rick Becker, a former North Dakotan gubernatorial candidate still committed to Cruz. “But if Trump gets really close, should you even ignore your wishes, ignore your congressional district’s wishes, and just vote for Trump to try to salvage the Republican party from being torn apart?”

In Louisiana, 10 uncommitted delegates are up for grabs, but Cruz has only secured the support of one, according to ABC. The rest were still undecided, perhaps waiting to see which way the political headwinds would blow in the upcoming weeks. They, of course, don’t have to come to a decision about who they would support until the convention in July. But if the words of Roger Villere, a longtime Louisiana state GOP chief and one of the national party’s vice chairmen, are anything to go by, a “clear supermajority” of attendees at the Republican National Committee spring meeting in early April were coming around to the idea of Trump leading the party in the election.

“There were a lot of them who Trump wasn’t their first choice, but when we got in closed rooms and everybody started talking, the general consensus was that he’s going to be our nominee, and we will rally around him,” Villere said to Business Insider. “I wouldn’t say it was even reluctance. It’s just the reality.”

Trump’s sustained dominance of the Republican nomination race has entered a new phase, one which will require delegates to make hard decisions about the party’s unity and its future. But further tipping the balance in favor of Trump has been a small but growing contingent of Republican congressmen who have embraced the man, most likely due to political survival, opportunism and a desire to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House.

“I don’t understand. I mean, it’s not ‘Never Trump.’ It’s ‘Never Hillary.’ Never, never, never Hillary. Come on. Wake up and smell the coffee,” said U.S. Representative Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania. He, along with 57 percent of Republican voters, voted for Trump during last week’s primary contest. “I’ve never seen a party attack one of its own candidates with this aggressiveness.”

Pennsylvania was a key primary victory for Trump due to the 54 unpledged delegates the state carries, the majority of whom committed to support Trump at the convention. Their lopsided support for Trump (41 of 54 delegates plan on supporting him) was a reversal from similar contests, where Cruz’s ground game allowed him to capture most unbound delegates. In Pennsylvania, however, only three delegates pledged to support Cruz.

Meanwhile, Senator Orrin Hatch, who has served in the Senate since 1977, also pledged to support Trump to stop Clinton from winning the presidency, despite his own misgivings, and despite Utahans voting overwhelmingly for Cruz. “It looks to me like he’s going to win, and if he does, I’m going to do everything in my power to help him,” he said to Business Insider.

But Hatch already has a history of taking it easy on Trump. In March, he dismissed Trump’s failure to denounce the racism espoused by his supporters as an innocent failure to communicate. “I think deep down, I don’t think Donald Trump tolerates it either. I think he is just inexperienced in expressing himself at things like that,” Hatch said. The recent announcement that he would do everything in his power to stop a Clinton presidency was the result of the open-ended remarks he made in March.

The Utah senator’s strategic decision is just the beginning of conservatives’ acceptance that Trump will be the Republican Party nominee. Even Bill Kristol, one of the leading voices of the #NeverTrump movement, indicated that he may still vote for him. “On the one hand, I’ll say #NeverTrump, and on the other hand, I’ll say ‘never say never’. I’ll leave it ambiguous,” he said on Steve Malzberg’s Newsmax show yesterday.

Republican strategist Karl Rove, who clashed with the racist billionaire in March, calling his knowledge of policy “a millimeter deep,” predicted Trump would win the nomination outright if he won the Indiana primary, which he looks set to do. “If Trump wins — if the NBC/Wall Street Journal/Maris poll is correct — and he wins, the race is effectively over,” he said on Fox News yesterday.

This groundswell of change has hit the Cruz campaign hard at the worst possible time. A Gallup poll released yesterday showed Trump exceeding Cruz in favorability ratings among Republicans for the first time during the primaries. Equally important are the optics of the campaign. Cruz has suffered ambushes from Trump supporters, who called him a Canadian, slipped their hands away as he went to shake them, and in a truly bizarre scenario, had a 12-year-old who wouldn’t stop yelling “you suck!” get escorted out of a campaign event by police.

Trump Takes On ‘Corrupt System’ By Bullying Delegates

Trump Takes On ‘Corrupt System’ By Bullying Delegates

Despite ever-increasing resistance to his looney campaign, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump remains on the right path to win the Republican nomination. But in fighting what he views as a corrupt establishment, his campaign has engaged in rampant bullying to get delegates’ support.

A few days ago, Joe Uddo, a former Ben Carson aide who is now working for the Trump campaign, went to Delaware to pressure the state’s 16 Republican delegates to support Trump, should this summer’s convention go to a second ballot and they become freed to support whomever they’d like. It turns out he may have pushed too hard. According to Politico, the delegates complained that Uddo was abrasive from his first phone call, criticizing the state party’s delegate rules and threatening Twitter reprisals from Trump.

“One of our delegates is just a little old lady,” said an anonymous source to Politico. “This is not cigar chomping, tobacco spitting guys with three piece suits. These are just normal Delawareans, hardworking, retirees.”

In a deeply Democratic state, Republicans have a much smaller, less professional batch of potential delegates to draw from. Delegates are often older party faithfuls with a track record of helping Republicans get elected in the state.

Despite counting as one of the smallest primary prizes of the election cycle, Trump is keen on winning over as many of Delaware’s delegates as he can. But the arm twisting employed by his campaign could result in delegates not honoring the primary results beyond the first ballot.

Uddo wasn’t the first Trump surrogate to use coercion to pressure the delegates necessary to win the nomination on a second ballot. In early April, Trump surrogate Roger Stone said he would publish the hotel room numbers of delegates who were planning on voting against Trump at the convention on a second ballot, if they had been pledged to him on the first ballot.

“We’re going to have protests, demonstrations. We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal… I have urged Trump supporters: Come to Cleveland, march on Cleveland, join us in the Forest City,” said Stone.

There is a widespread fear among Trump supporters that anything beyond a first ballot contest would spell the end of his campaign, effectively stealing the nomination from him, they say. In Wyoming, Ted Cruz secured all 14 delegates up for grabs at the state’s Republican convention. The Texas senator had previously won the state’s popular vote, receiving 9 of 12 delegates.

The troubled, and potentially short-lived Kasich-Cruz coordination effort is another attempt by #NeverTrump Republicans to stop him from securing the nomination.

This war, between Trump supporters and the so-called Republican establishment, has been brewing for months, the latter clearly alarmed by the rise of the former. Polls have repeatedly shown the party would lose in a landslide with a Trump ticket. The divide has been further exacerbated by Trump’s accusations of corruption in the political process, which he has tied to his outsider status.

“You’re basically buying these people,” he said. “You’re basically saying, ‘Delegate, listen, we’re going to send you to Mar-a-Lago on a Boeing 757, you’re going to use the spa, you’re going to this, you’re going to that, we want your vote.’ That’s a corrupt system.”

Photo: Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives to give a victory speech after the Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Illinois and Missouri primary elections during a news conference held at his Mar-A-Lago Club, in Palm Beach, Florida March 15, 2016.   REUTERS/Joe Skipper