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Donald Trump Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 15, 2016 85 Comments
This video really serves as a metaphor for the campaign so far. Michael Cohen, Trump's legal and campaign adviser, is demanding that Republicans unite around "Mr. Trump." Of course, it is revealed near the end of the clip below, after a lengthy harangue of the RNC and Reince Priebus by Cohen, that Cohen is a Democrat and can't even vote for "Mr. Trump." Much like some of "Mr. Trump's" own family members who campaign for him, who also are Democrats.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 14, 2016 136 Comments
As Professor Jacobson blogged yesterday, reports suggested the Florida prosecutor would not be filing charges against Donald Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, for the alleged assault of former Breitbart News reporter, Michelle Fields. The backstory on that dramatic saga here.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 13, 2016 101 Comments
Back to the Corey Lewandowski saga and his grab of Michelle Fields. Politico reports that the local prosecutor will not pursue the case despite a finding of probable cause by the police:
A Florida prosecutor has decided not to prosecute Donald Trump’s campaign manager for battery after a March run-in with former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields, sources with knowledge of the situation told POLITICO. The decision not to press charges against Corey Lewandowski is scheduled to be announced on Thursday afternoon by Palm Beach County State Attorney David Aronberg....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 13, 2016 77 Comments
Donald Trump inexplicably waited until YESTERDAY to name a State Political Director in California. The California primary on June 7 could determine whether Trump reaches the magic 1237 majority delegate number prior to the July convention. By all reports, Cruz is far ahead in the ground game in California, which awards delegates not only on the statewide vote but also by congressional district. Even if Trump wins the state, he may underperform in enough congressional districts due to Cruz's superior campaign preparation that Trump is stopped short. Or he may fail to file delegate slates in all districts. Erick Erickson reports:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 12, 2016 222 Comments
Donald J. Trump got crushed at the Colorado Republican state convention, where Ted Cruz swept the national delegate selection. This sweep happened not because the convention was rigged, but because Trump did a horrible job of working the caucus process that led to the convention. Trump all but ignored the electoral process leading up to the convention, and didn't even bother to go make a pitch himself at the convention, unlike Cruz who gave a speech on stage as Trump surrogates were furiously working to convince delegates to vote for Trump. Throughout the process, there was no discernible complaint by Trump and his supporters so long as they thought they had a shot at winning, or at least eating into Cruz's likely win. Only after it was over, and Colorado together with Wisconsin created momentum for Cruz, did Trump and his supporters start alleging fraud and deceit. This was a classic "change the narrative" Trump ploy, much as he would roll out high-profile endorsements that morning after a debate. Had Trump done better, there would not have been a peep. This controversy is not about principle, fairness or anything other than Trump losing and fearing his chance to win on a first ballot is slipping away.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on April 10, 2016 86 Comments
As I noted yesterday, Donald Trump is having problems with delegates, and it sometimes seems that he doesn't understand how GOP nomination rules work or that the rules are different in different states or even that there are rules at all.  Whatever the reason for this impression, it's backed up by the fact that he's only recently begun to organize his team to work on delegates. One Trump campaign shake-up following his discouraging last month or so is his new hire Paul Manafort, a move announced less than two weeks ago.  Manafort is a long-time GOP political operative who has served as an adviser on the campaigns of Bob Dole, John McCain, and Gerald Ford, among others. The New York Times reports:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 09, 2016 81 Comments
The Boston Globe published a curious tweet yesterday, warning of a front page it "hope[d] never to publish." https://twitter.com/BostonGlobe/status/718537190704353282 Drudge has obtained images of what purports to be the Sunday front page, plus some:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on April 09, 2016 51 Comments
As we await final results from Colorado, it appears that Ted Cruz will obtain more delegates in addition to the 17 he already has. ABC News reports:
Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has locked up the support of 21 Colorado delegates and may scoop up even more Saturday. Slates loyal to Cruz won every assembly in the state's seven congressional districts, which began April 2 and culminated Friday with 12 delegates selected. The Texas senator is well-positioned to pad his total Saturday, when 13 more delegates were to be chosen at the party's state convention. According to an Associated Press count, Trump has 743 delegates, Cruz has 532 and Ohio Gov. John Kasich has 143. It takes 1,237 to clinch the nomination, though there's a real chance no candidate will reach that mark by the national convention in Cleveland in July. Of Cruz's Colorado delegates so far, only 17 were formally pledged to him, and in theory the other four could change their vote in Cleveland. But they were all included on the senator's slates and are largely state party officials who said they were barred from signing a formal pledge for Cruz but have promised to back him in balloting at the convention.
ABC goes on to note that Cruz's "superior organization" has helped him substantially in Colorado, and NBC News is reporting that Trump's performance in Colorado reveals a "chaotic, overwhelmed Trump campaign."

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 08, 2016 88 Comments
If you've spent any time on social media, particularly in the politicalsphere, chances are you've encountered an internet troll or two. This election cycle has been er, um... interesting. I never thought I'd long for the days the so-called Paulbots would troll my feeds lecturing me about liberty and the Constitution and Dr. Paul. At least most of those accounts were real. Alas... Not so in 2016. The Trumpbots, or accounts that seem to exist solely to attack those with unfavorable views of The Donald, are a special breed of vicious. I've learned it's best to ignore, block, and move on. Why waste time on people, or bots rather, not interested in positive engagement, I say. I've also suspected there was a concerted effort to derail conversation on social media and to attempt to fluster influencers. It all reeked of some kind of psychological web warfare. Turns out, I might have been right.

Posted by New Neo on April 08, 2016 9 Comments
On the face of it, answering the question as to what happened in the GOP primary in Wisconsin seems like a no-brainer. As Edward Morrissey writes, Trump shot himself in the foot---dissing popular governor Scott Walker, and flubbing abortion questions---and ended up losing by 13 points, 35 to Cruz's 48. To shore up this argument about a Trump reversal in Wisconsin, Morrissey cites a Wisconsin poll from late January and one from late February, the first of which had Trump leading by 6 and the second by 10. So the narrative seems to make sense---that is, until you actually look a bit deeper, when you find that something additional might have been going on.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 08, 2016 134 Comments
I still can't stand even the sound of John Kasich's voice. Now that we have that out of the way, it's pretty clear that the Republican primaries and convention come down to a choice between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Speculation otherwise -- including conspiracy theories -- does not seem to live in the real world, according to Charlie Cook:
Whenev­er I hear Re­pub­lic­ans wax on about the pos­sib­il­ity of nom­in­at­ing someone oth­er than Don­ald Trump or Ted Cruz — talk­ing up John Kasich, Paul Ry­an, Scott Walk­er, Mitt Rom­ney, or some oth­er less po­lar­iz­ing fig­ure — it makes me won­der: Ex­actly how would that hap­pen? We all have mem­or­ized two num­bers. The first is 1,237, the num­ber of del­eg­ates needed to win a ma­jor­ity at the GOP con­ven­tion. The second is 40, as in Rule 40, re­quir­ing that a can­did­ate win primar­ies or caucuses in eight states to have his name placed in nom­in­a­tion. (It was ad­ded to the party rules in 2012, pushed by al­lies of Mitt Rom­ney to stifle Ron Paul.)

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 06, 2016 190 Comments
Remember when Ted Cruz (or Marco Rubio, or Jeb Bush, or any other Republican) lost a primary and accused his opponent of criminal election activity, and then hid from the media on election night? Neither do I. You get out there on election night, congratulate the other side and give a speech to rally for the next battle. Or at least you don't act like a two-year old brat who just had a half-finished candy bar taken away. Last night Donald Trump acted like the two-year old. For the first time in his adult life he was speechless and camera-shy after getting crushed in the Wisconsin primary. Wisconsin Republican Primary 2016 Results No graceful concession speeches there. Instead Trump issued a vitriolic, bizarre statement (emphasis added):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 05, 2016 98 Comments
All eyes are on Wisconsin. Before I get to today's primary, let's take a look back at one of my favorite political periods in the history of the world - the defeat of the Recall against Governor Scott Walker after over a year of protests against the public sector union collective bargaining reform bill. It was what I called Wisconsin's Long, Strange Trip, linking to our exhaustive coverage of all the crazy:
Police insurrections.  Palace guards.  Catch a Senator contests.  Doctors behaving badly.  Massive national solidarity protests which weren’t.  Identity theft as political theater.  Shark jumping.  Legislators who run away to other states.  Busbang bangs.  Protesters locking their heads to metal railings and pretending to walk like Egyptians.  Beer attacks.  Canoe flotillas.  (alleged) Judicial chokeholds.  Tears falling on Che Guevara t-shirts at midnight.  Endless recalls.  And recounts.  Communications Directors making threats.   Judges who think they are legislators (well, I’ll grant you that one is common).  V-K Day.  Hole-y warriors.  Cities namedSpeculation and Conjecture.  And the funniest blog headline so far:
First They Came For The Right To Retire After 30 Years On Full Salary With COLAs
When Walker defeated the Recall late in the evening of June 5, 2012, it was Oh what a night. That was a time when the Legal Insurrection community was more united and cohesive, and thousands of us celebrated the win with the inaugural launch of website fireworks and John Phillip Sousa music:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 04, 2016 151 Comments
If Donald Trump gets 1237 delegates prior to the Republican convention, it's lights out. But that is looking less and less likely unless Trump scores a major upset in Wisconsin on Tuesday, at the Colorado convention on April 9 (where the delegates technically are unbound but the sides are fighting to get their people selected as in North Dakota), and wins big in New York on April 19. Cruz has little chance himself of getting to 1237 prior to the convention, so his strategy is focused on the second ballot. That strategy, as it is playing out in real time, has two components: Make sure only Trump and Cruz are the choices facing the convention, and make sure there are large defections on the second ballot of delegates pledged to Trump on the first ballot.

Strategy, Part 1: Keep it Trump or Cruz

When it comes to keeping it to two, Trump and Cruz are on the same page. They are planning to fight to keep Kasich from being put in nomination, much less someone not currently in the race. The NY Times reports:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 03, 2016 64 Comments
At one level, the North Dakota delegate selection today was not a big deal, because the delegates are "unbound" even on the first convention ballot. The delegates were not even required to openly state their candidate preferences as the Bismark Tribune reported:
Delegates at the North Dakota Republican Party convention elected 25 unbound delegates to be sent to the Republican’s national convention following a debate and failed request providing candidates the choice to declare their preference for president prior to the vote.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 02, 2016 104 Comments
While Donald Trump leads in delegates, it's far from certain that he will obtain the needed 1237 delegates prior to the Republican convention. We may know whether Trump is on track to a majority after next Tuesday's Wisconsin primary, or the New York primary on April 19. If Trump falls short of that majority on the first ballot vote, even by one delegate, most of the delegates are released to vote as they want on the second and subsequent ballots. The Trump campaign obviously fears that second ballot, because it is trying to create a narrative that if Trump is close to the majority of delegates, or leads others by a lot of delegates, he should be given the nomination. Anything less will be "stealing" the nomination from him. Turning a plurality into a majority without actual delegate votes has no support in the most basic of convention rules, that an actual majority is needed to win. Trump predicted riots if he was close and didn't get the nomination.
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