WASHINGTON POST
"Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is close to ensuring that Donald Trump cannot win the GOP nomination on a second ballot at the party’s July convention in Cleveland, scooping up scores of delegates who have pledged to vote for him instead of the front-runner if given the chance," reports Ed O'Keefe.
Cruz, in fact, looks poised to out-organize Donald Trump and become the Republican presidential nominee.
Cruz's plan to make that happen is two-fold:
1) Stop Trump in the states: Cruz will try to stop Trump from winning the nomination before the July convention by maneuvering the complex state rules to collect more delegates than Trump, even in states that Trump won or is expected to win, like Tuesday's contest in New York.
2) Stop Trump at the convention: If we get to the Republican convention without a nominee, The Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe reports, Cruz is working hard to convince delegates pledged to Trump to vote for Cruz on the second round of voting. This could work because there are some delegates who aren't Trump supporters but have to vote for him because #rules.
If all goes according to plan for Cruz at the convention, neither he nor Trump would get a majority of delegates on the first round of voting. But on the second round, enough Trump-pledged delegates would switch to Cruz that he'd win the nomination.
Cruz is poised to pick up at least 130 more votes on a second ballot in Cleveland, according to O’Keefe, ...if Trump falls short, the convention will cast a second ballot in which more than 1,800 delegates from 31 states — nearly 60 percent of the total — will be unbound and allowed to vote however they want. By the third round, 80 percent of the delegates would be free, sparking a potential free-for-all that could continue for several more rounds.” Meanwhile, we know of no one who is bound to Cruz or someone else on the first ballot and would like to vote for Trump on the second.
In some places, such as North Carolina, the Cruz campaign has put their most loyal and reliable grassroots supporters into the Trump delegate slots at district-level conventions.
Trump has lashed out so hard in recent days because this reality is finally sinking in. "The system, folks, is rigged … It’s a rigged, disgusting, dirty system,” he said in New York yesterday. “When everything is done, I find out I get less delegates than the guy who got his a** kicked."
This dynamic is also why he’s redoubling his focus on locking up the nomination during the primaries that remain through June.
"Here's what we know today: Trump is about to have a very good few weeks beginning next Tuesday in New York. He will go into the convention with both the most delegates and the most raw votes. He and his campaign see the first ballot as his one shot to be the nominee. If he doesn't win it on the first ballot, his prospects beyond that are dim. If he doesn't win it on the first ballot, he is laying the groundwork to declare the whole process a fraud.
"That paragraph is an absolute nightmare for the Republican establishment. It leaves Trump as either the party's nominee or the disgruntled loser who is already threatening to take his ball (and all of his supporters) and go home if the rules don't work in his favor. T-R-O-U-B-L-E."
Donald Trump, mogul, has just about anything a man could ever need or want. Donald Trump, candidate, has spent most of his campaign going without: without a pollster; without a finance team; without a convention consigilere; without an aggressive field operation. Over the past few weeks, he's come to the belated realization that just because these things are less visible doesn't mean they're optional. (A Porsche looks great. And it can definitely outpace a Pinto -- unless it's missing a spark plug.)