Julia Azari for Vox: The party’s halting and controversial embrace of his candidacy tells us something about the ubiquity of parties and about the limits of their capacity to shape events. But if we treat Trump as primarily a candidate … Continue reading
Category Archives: political parties
John Sides for the Monkey Cage. … Continue reading
CNN has this report. I’d be careful with this analysis, and point readers to this fascinating Brian Svoboda post.on whether RNC delegates at a contested convention could be bribed. … Continue reading
NBC News: While Trump and Cruz are locked in a bitter battle, aides to both men tell msnbc it is in their mutual interest to keep Kasich off the ballot. The convention rules control who is on that ballot — … Continue reading
NYT: The chairman of the Republican Party in American Samoa, Utu Abe Malae, began feeling the pressure almost immediately: phone calls, commitment forms, anything the presidential campaigns could do, say or send to nail down his support as a delegate. … Continue reading
Politico: If Donald Trump loses in Wisconsin next week, he will need to win roughly 60 percent of the remaining delegates to win the Republican presidential nomination outright — a daunting but not impossible challenge. But if he fails to … Continue reading
TIME: Donald Trump’s announcement that he no longer stands by a pledge to support the GOP has thrown his hold on South Carolina’s 50 delegates in doubt. The Palmetto State was one of several that required candidates to pledge their … Continue reading
Tierney Sneed: Political observers have wondered for months whether Donald Trump’s unconventional, “political outsider” campaign would put him at a disadvantage if the Republican presidential race were to come down to the wire. Now, a fight stemming from the complicated … Continue reading
Slate: Isaac Chotiner: What do you make of Bernie Sanders’ success thus far, even if he is likely to come up short in terms of delegates? Barney Frank: Remember he’s way behind not just in delegates but in votes. Yeah … Continue reading
Carl Hulse for the NYT. … Continue reading
TPM: An adviser to Donald Trump’s campaign on Wednesday clarified that the campaign will file a complaint with the Republican National Committee (RNC) over the selection of delegates in the Louisiana primary, not a lawsuit, as Trump suggested in a … Continue reading
NBC First Read: Speaking of delegate fights, Donald Trump upped the ante over the weekend by tweeting the threat of a lawsuit over last week’s maneuvering in Louisiana’s GOP delegate selection. “Just to show you how unfair the Republican primary … Continue reading
Greg Sargent for WaPo. … Continue reading
Politico: Madrid’s visit to South Dakota on Saturday marked one of the earliest signs that the shadow campaign for the Republican nomination has begun. Kasich and Cruz are scrambling to secure commitments from bound delegates to break off on a … Continue reading
The Court’s order (without any explanation or noted dissent) is here. Given how close this came to the election, the denial of relief for now is not a big surprise. But this is a case to keep an eye on … Continue reading
News from Indiana. Would this hurt down-ticket Republcians in Indiana if Trump is on top of ticket? … Continue reading
Find it at Ballot Access News. … Continue reading
Lyle Denniston on SCOTUSBlog about the petition from the Montana Republican Party pending at the Supreme Court. … Continue reading
Steve Benen: Strictly speaking, Democratic primary and caucus voters are principally responsible for choosing their presidential nominee, but the power is not entirely in their hands. While those voters elect pledged delegates for the party’s national convention, the Democratic process … Continue reading
NBC News: If no presidential candidate wins a majority of delegates and Republicans face a contested convention this summer, a small group of party insiders will have huge sway over who wins — and how to resolve a rift that … Continue reading
Bloomberg reports. … Continue reading
Mann and Ornstein in the Atlantic: Donald Trump’s emergence as the GOP frontrunner and likely nominee creates an existential crisis for the Republican Party, as the angry populism exploited and incited by Republican leaders in Congress to regain majority control … Continue reading
I have now had a chance to review the substantive election law decisions of Judge Merrick Garland that my research assistant and I have identified (listed after the jump). With the caveat that the job of a lower court judge … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
Bernie Sanders now sees path to nomination relying on Democratic superdelegates. … Continue reading
Bloomberg: With prospects for the first contested Republican convention in 40 years on the rise, GOP super-lawyer and election-law expert Ben Ginsberg says that selecting the actual delegates at state conventions in the coming months will “be sort of spring … Continue reading
The Hill: “The media has created the perception that the voters will decide the nomination,” Curly Haugland said in an interview with CNBC. “That’s the conflict here.” “The political parties choose their nominees, not the general public, contrary to popular … Continue reading
Fascinating Brian Svoboda on whether RNC delegates at a contested convention could be bribed: Can Chicago’s experience in 1860 repeat itself in Cleveland in 2016? One recentcommentator suggested that, after the first ballot, presidential contenders “would engage in a fierce … Continue reading
Following up on this post, Justice Kennedy has requested a response from Montana by March 22. … Continue reading
Ramesh Ponnuru: But the rules in the Republican primaries, as we are now seeing, are not ideally designed to create consensus. Trump hasn’t won a majority in any contest so far — and he could in theory keep failing to … Continue reading
Al.com reports. … Continue reading
Important Josh Israel report from Think Progress. … Continue reading
Al Hunt for Bloomberg View. … Continue reading
Sasha Issenberg: Donald Trump has spent much of his campaign selling himself as a maker of great deals. But in the next phase of the campaign, the author of The Art of the Deal may be confronted with the ultimate … Continue reading
Ben Ginsberg: The March 15 winner-take-all primaries in Florida and Ohio have been billed as make-or-break for the Republican candidates still holding out hope that they can topple Donald Trump. But those contests are also make-or-break for Trump, and for … Continue reading
Ross Douthat: But the party’s convention rules, in all their anachronistic, undemocratic and highly-negotiable intricacy, are also a line of defense, also a hurdle, also a place where a man unfit for office can be turned aside. So in Cleveland … Continue reading
This filing, directed to Justice Kennedy, could have implications if Trump is short of delegates in June. Right now Democrats could vote in the Republican party primary, and this seeks an order to close the primary. The logistical problem is … Continue reading
Politico: A Republican presidential candidate doesn’t have to accrue a majority of delegates in eight states to be considered for the nomination during a contested convention in July, former Republican National Committee lawyer Ben Ginsberg — the party’s preeminent election … Continue reading
Tarini Parti reports for BuzzFeed. … Continue reading
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. … Continue reading
If that’s what they want, they’d better get moving. It may already be too late. … Continue reading
How crazy is a Cruz-Rubio alliance against Trump where they leave it to *convention* to decide top of ticket and VP? I’d pay to watch that. It’s like bringing the ultimate reality television to the Republican convention: Celebrity Apprentice meets … Continue reading
Could be. Let’s hope. … Continue reading
Stuart Stevens so suggests. … Continue reading
Denver Post reports. … Continue reading
Evan McMorris-Santoro for BuzzFeed: About a half hour from the Las Vegas Strip, in a large public high school on the day the state’s Democratic nominating contest, a man stepped up onto the gym bleachers and shouted: “Let’s make sure … Continue reading
Via Playbook: BEN GINSBERG of Jones Day, the nation’s leading GOP elections lawyer, on MSNBC’s set at 30 Rock, said March 15 (including Florida and Ohio, both winner take all) “is kind of the cut-off day” for Cruz or Rubio … Continue reading
Trip Gabriel’s NYT story yesterday concludes as follows: “I think the establishment will do anything in their power to try to stop Donald Trump at the national convention,” said John Patrick Yob, the former delegate strategist for Senator Rand Paul … Continue reading
“This whole thing is a really messy mixture of unintended consequences….The R.N.C. put in a system that was designed to let either an establishment figure or a very popular conservative grass-roots figure wrap up the nomination early. And Donald Trump … Continue reading
Colorado Republican Party v. Colorado Ethics Watch: “The First Amendment ‘“has its fullest and most urgent application” to speech uttered during a campaign for political office.’” Citizens United v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 558 U.S. 310, 339 (2010) (citation omitted). ¶ 2 We … Continue reading