“Could Donald Trump win the Republican presidential nomination?”

Sandy Levinson:

The quick and dirty answer to the question is yes.  And the reason has to do with the formal rules adopted by the Republican Party with regard to the allocation of delegates to the 2016 Convention, to be held in Cleveland in June.  Four states are allowed to have their primaries in February–Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Nevada–and then the scramble begins.  A whole bunch of states will have their primaries before March 15.  AND THE RULES REQUIRE THAT ALL OF THESE STATES OPERATE ON THE BASIS OF PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION(as is true for the first four states).  Then things get interesting, for it is up to the states themselves to decide whether delegates will be allocated by proportional representation or winner take all.  The current calendar for the Republican primaries indicates that the following states will be holding their primaries after March 15:  Arizona, Utah, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Indiana, Nebraska, West Virginia, Oregon, California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota, and DC.  Apparently dates are not yet firmed up for New York, North Dakota, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Washington, and Wyoming.  Game theory suggests that there will be advantages to coming late precisely because it looks almost certain that there will be at least five or six candidates still duking it out by the Spring.  (I was on a program several weeks ago with the leader of the Travis County Republican Party, who predicted that there will be at least 5 or 6 candidates in the Texas primary on Super Tuesday, March 1.  It seems altogether likely that Trump will have more delegates on March 15 than any other single candidate, even if, as I am assuming, he has, say, “only” 30% of the total.  But if six or seven others are dividing up the remaining 70%, that obviously means that none of the others is likely to be all that close to Trump.

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