You’d think that Federalism loving voters would get this, if not understand it. Rules (some laws, customs, habits) will and should differ from state to state, including how delegates are elected by state parties and how they are expected to behave. And they do differ!
Jim Geraghty wrote about it, and shared some more thoughts in the Morning Jolt.
A point or two to add to yesterday’s article on the claim Ted Cruz is “stealing” delegates that belong to Donald Trump . . .
The rules for each state’s delegation are set by each state’s party, and clear enough if you bother to look them up. In Trump’s defense, the rules can vary a lot from state to state. The key is the difference between the delegates that are won (through the primary results) and the delegates that are selected, usually through party meetings at the county, district, or state level.
Sometimes a campaign gets to pick the delegates themselves, like in California. Under the rules, California delegates are bound on the first two ballots or until the candidate releases them. This means a campaign can appoint their most die-hard loyalists and know they’ll be sticking with the candidate, no matter how many ballots the convention decision reaches.
In states where the delegates are elected through local caucuses and at the state convention, it may not be the case. For example, in Iowa, Republicans in each county met March 12 to select representatives to congressional district meetings; this Saturday those representatives meet to select delegates to the state convention. At the state convention May 31, the representatives select the 30 delegates who will go to the national convention in Cleveland.
No matter who gets selected to attend, on the first ballot in Cleveland, the Iowa delegation must give 8 votes to Ted Cruz, 7 votes to Donald Trump, 7 votes to Marco Rubio, 3 votes to Ben Carson, and one each to Rand Paul, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich and Mike Huckabee. On the first ballot, a delegate could end up casting a vote for a candidate he can’t stand.
But after that first ballot, under Iowa state GOP rules, those 30 delegates can vote any way they want. If they want to keep voting for the guy they voted for in the first round, they can do that. The candidates can urge them to support another candidate, but they’re not obligated to follow the candidate’s instructions.
Pennsylvania’s system may be the most bizarre, because 54 delegates will be selected from the state’s 18 congressional districts and they will all be officially unbound — meaning they can vote however they want on the first ballot in Cleveland. So does the primary mean anything? Sort of. Sixty-one of the 162 candidates for convention delegate told the Pittsburgh Tribune Review that they would cast at least their first convention ballot for the presidential hopeful who wins statewide or in their respective congressional districts. But 32 said they are committed to Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, John Kasich or Marco Rubio, who has dropped out, and the others didn’t respond to the newspaper.
This won’t convince the faithful of anything other than my having been co-opted by the ruling class; someone who should be up against the wall with the rest of the lyin’, delegate-stealing, establishment shills.
You run with that if it makes you feel better…
…of course, you should know by now that I will support Trump’s nomination if he gets the delegates in the primaries or at the convention. I’ve made that clear on the air more than a few times.
And I’ll vote for him if he wins the nomination: because even though I don’t think he’s the best choice for advancing my goals for Federalism and a smaller central government, Hillary and Bernie guarantee the opposite. Liberals must not be allowed to advance on that scale and at the level again if we can help it.
