Donald Trump. Hate him or love him he is going to be the Republican presidential nominee. Or is he? Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have their work cut out for them if they plan to route the Trump camp. The good news is, for everyone except Donald Trump, the race is far from over.
A Chicago rally was canceled and a movement was born overnight.
On Friday March 11, in Chicago, Illinois the tension had begun before the rally did. In fact, the rally was called off before Trump even made it to the stage. Hundreds of protestors waited in line for seats to infiltrate the event to disrupt it. According to the New York Times, security spent over an hour attempting to round up the protestors and escort them out with little success.
The Laquaun McDonald shooting last November has had a lasting impression on the people of Chicago and they are continuing to use their voice. Over the course of the conflict a total of five arrests were reported by the Chicago police and there were only three injuries reported. For so many people to gather in protest with so little loss of control speaks volumes of the power of the first amendment as well as the discipline of the protestors.
The violence surrounding Trump and his supporters was made evident in Fayetteville, North Carolina as well, where a White Trump supporter assaulted a Black protestor while he was being escorted from the event. In St. Louis, a Black man was filmed handcuffed and bloodied at a Trump rally. The St. Louis protest resulted in over thirty arrests. Trump also seems to have been met with resistance in Ohio where a man rushed the stage during Trump’s speech. Before the night was through, Trump would tweet that the man has ties to ISIS and should be jailed.
On Saturday March 12, protestors attended another rally in Kansas City that was followed by outside protests and resulted in two instances of pepper spray use and two arrests, according to the Kansas City Police Twitter account.
Trump, completely lacking the ability to keep a single thought to himself has been quoted calling for the arrest of protestors. Even saying, “There are no consequences to protesting anymore. There used to be consequences. There are none anymore.” This mentality is not new to Trump. On November 22, when asked on CNN about an instance of violence at one of his rallies he replied, “…rough up? Maybe he should have been roughed up.”
Who threw the first punch and when is already lost to time. What remains clear and in the present is Trump’s attitude toward anyone who opposes him. He will lie, bully, and attack both directly and indirectly any and all who stand in his way. Trump is fueling and igniting a mentality of negativity and aggression. And with so many examples of violence to investigate, one scary truth has climbed to the surface. Being Black at a Donald Trump rally is dangerous.
Can the Trump Train really be derailed?
According to an Associated Press estimate, Donald Trump currently has 459 delegates. That is just over one third of the delegates he needs to secure the nomination. Cruz only has 360 delegates. But that is still more than one fourth of the delegates he needs to secure the nomination. In comparison, Rubio weighs in with a less intimidating 152 delegates and Kasich has barely managed to scavenge his 54 delegates.
If they are so far behind, why haven’t Rubio and Kasich dropped out yet?
Kasich has won 48 of his 54 delegates in March alone. That means he is picking up momentum, even if it looks like he has no realistic chance of winning. The same can be said about Rubio who has won 112 of his delegates in March alone. The reason they are still in the race is because Super Tuesday 3 (March 15) can change everything if the winner-take-all states get pulled apart.
Super Tuesday 3? Seriously, who names this stuff?
March 15, also known as Super Tuesday 3 in the 2016 primary is the third time a large number of delegates are up for grabs in one day. 358 in five states to be exact. That’s only 2 delegates short of everything Cruz has accomplished and it will all be awarded in one day. Now, in some of these states the winner will get a bunch of delegates, the runner up will get some, and third and fourth place can hope to snag a few at best. However, with three winner-take-all states in the mix, even the Trump Train could be derailed overnight.
How can three states change the entire primary?
Meet our friends, Ohio, Florida, and Illinois. A whopping 234 delegates in total to be awarded in winner-take-all fashion. Whoever earns the most votes in these three states will walk away with every single one of that state’s delegates. The 2016 election is unique in that two of the four remaining candidates will fight for their home state on the same day.
What makes it especially noteworthy is that they are both winner-take-all states. Kasich plans to win his home state of Ohio and its 66 delegates, paying homage to the Buckeye’s in the March 10 debate. Rubio is dead set on victory in his home state of Florida for 99 delegates. If that happens, and it very well may, Rubio secures his foothold in the race and Kasich would also gain a bit of hope.
What about Illinois? And the other states that vote on Super Tuesday 3?
Illinois is also a winner-take-all state. It will award all 69 of its delegates to the winner of the popular vote. Missouri and North Carolina are also voting on March 15 for 52 and 72 delegates respectively, but they will use the standard style of awarding delegates. In these two states, you can expect at least three of the four candidates to walk away with at least a few delegates. And if we learned anything from the Sanders victory in Michigan, it’s that votes do not always mirror the polls.
How does any of this derail the Donald Trump Train? He’s so far ahead…
Trump is losing steam. It doesn’t seem to be a very popular idea. In fact, almost nobody is talking about it. But it is happening. For starters, he’s not doing nearly as well against his opponents as Romney did four years ago. In 2012, the longer the race went on, the more clear it became that Romney would be the Republican candidate. Santorum, the 2012 Republican runner up, still didn’t drop out until late in April of 2012 and none of the other candidates posed a real threat to Romney’s campaign to begin with. With that in mind, Cruz already has more delegates than Santorum did when he backed out and he’s a month ahead of schedule. Rubio is just short of Ron Paul’s final delegate count and Ron Paul remained in the race right up until the bitter end, although he did suspend campaign funding in mid-May.
In other words, the fall of Donald Trump is not nearly as farfetched as the mainstream media would have you believe. Cruz and Rubio have him reeling and Kasich is building momentum as well. Why? Because the “anybody but Trump” attitude is spreading and while he’s entertaining, people are finally getting sick of him. The proof is in the votes.
Even if Donald Trump stays ahead, the nomination is still not a guarantee.
In a previous article, we explained that as soon as a candidate secures a majority of the available delegates they have secured the nomination. But the Republican primary could go differently this year. With the party so divided against itself, it’s entirely possible that none of the candidates secure the majority of delegates. If that happens, there would be a final vote at the Republican National Convention.
Who votes at the Republican National Convention?
If none of the candidates secure the majority of delegates in the Democratic Party, the super delegates can shuffle around and break the tie as they see fit. For the Republican Party, it would mean their first brokered convention since 1948. In a brokered convention, all of the delegates are released at the Republican National Convention. In other words, everyone loses their delegates. Then, after some speeches and backroom conversations, all of the delegates vote again. This time, they are not pledged to any candidate and may vote for whoever they choose. The key difference here is that in the re-vote, every single delegate is free to vote for whoever they wish. This can technically happen in the Democratic Party as well. The super delegate factor just makes it extremely unlikely.
This is the single greatest threat to the longevity of the Trump Train.
Even if Trump can manage to stay ahead with these winner-take-all states in the mix and several others coming up, the remaining delegates can end up spread out amongst Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio in such a way that it forces a brokered convention. To be honest, it doesn’t look like Kasich really has a dog in the race. But because he is picking up momentum, the likelihood of a brokered convention only increases. To realize why this is such a danger to the Trump campaign we have to look at the Republican Party’s greatest weakness.
The Republican Party is divided against itself.
You’d be hard pressed to find two Republican presidential candidates that agree on Social Security, Foreign Policy, the economy, and immigration. However, three out of the four candidates have come together to agree on one important issue: The Donald Trump Train must be derailed! Because of this, we can expect a brokered convention to turn into a three on one battle for delegates at the Republican National Convention. Standing together on the issue of defeating Trump can actually make a brokered convention enticing to Rubio, Cruz, and Kasich.
In the event of a brokered convention, a candidate cannot truly tell their delegates who to vote for in the re-vote. What has happened in the past is that several candidates will attempt to merge their camps to create a majority before the re-vote takes place. You can rest assured that neither of the three remaining candidates have any plan to endorse Trump in the event of a brokered convention. We can imagine that as the race stands now, Rubio and Kasich would throw their support behind Cruz. If and when that happens, Trump doesn’t stand a chance at securing the nomination. The Republican National Convention is more than four months away. If Donald Trump’s opponents continue to build momentum, they will derail the Donald Trump Train.