Apparently, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina had a conversation with Ted Cruz on Thursday. It occurred shortly after Graham said the party might need to unite behind Cruz in order to stop Trump from winning the Republican presidential nomination. This is how a party comes together at the end of bruising primary season.
Consider what Lindsey Graham said on January 21st about choosing between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump: “It’s like being shot or poisoned. What does it really matter?”
Consider that less than two weeks ago, Lindsey Graham made an appearance at the Washington Press Club Foundation’s annual dinner and joked that his party has gone “batshit crazy” and that if someone killed Ted Cruz in the Senate and the Senate held the trial, the murderer would be acquitted. In other words, Ted Cruz is so hated by his fellow Republicans in the Senate that they’d like to see him dead, and they would rather die themselves than see him become the party’s leader.
Last night, Cruz and Trump split the winnings, with Cruz doing better than expectations. Trump had narrower than expected victories in the racially enlightened Kentucky and Louisiana, while Cruz had a thumping win in Kansas and an upset victory in Maine.
Despite new signs of flagging momentum, Trump won 49 of the 134 assigned delegates and maintains a healthy 378-296 advantage over Cruz. Marco Rubio only earned 13 delegates and Kasich took home nine.
Ordinarily, we’d consider Trump to have had a so-so night that did little to stop his progress. Even though he didn’t get the most delegates, he won the two biggest states and the establishment’s favorite, Marco Rubio, was humiliated with three third-place finishes and a weak fourth-place finish in Maine.
But these aren’t ordinary times, and Trump is going to have to live up to a higher-than-usual standard. His opponents aren’t very optimistic about winning the majority of the delegates and getting the nomination outright in Cleveland this summer. Their goal is to hold Trump under fifty percent of the delegates and force a second ballot where they hope to be the compromise choice. By that standard, Trump only earned 36.5% of the delegates that were awarded yesterday. His chances seemingly got worse.
Looks can be deceiving, though. The Republican nomination process is complex and what’s bad in the short-term can be good in the long-term. If Rubio’s weakness last night is an indicator of how he’ll do in his home state of Florida, it’s more likely than ever that Rubio won’t be able to claim the winner-take-all delegates there. If Trump wins them instead, and last night contributes to his victory, then things may work out for the best for The Donald despite appearances.
Meanwhile, Kasich keeps hanging around, picking up small handfuls of delegates. His hope is to win Michigan and then his home state of Ohio. If he’s successful, he’ll make a major contribution to denying Trump an outright majority of the delegates. And, since the Republican establishment doesn’t feel like him winning the nomination would be the equivalent of being shot or poisoned, he figures he’ll be the most attractive compromise second-ballot choice.
He also benefits from Rubio’s weakness, especially because it reduces the cacophony of cries for him to get out of the race and stop hurting Rubio’s chances.
Finally, Cruz had the best night but may now have to take responsibility for beating Trump in Florida. There are two main reasons why Cruz can’t allow Trump to carry all the delegates from the Sunshine State. First, it would boost Trump closer to an outright majority. Second, it would give Trump a powerful moral argument in Cleveland if he has a big delegate lead even if he doesn’t have an outright majority. Trump could, after all, win on the second ballot even after failing to win on the first. That gets less likely the closer Cruz is to him in the final count.
The delegates will be bound to vote for the candidate they represent on the first ballot, but they can choose someone different on subsequent ballots. They’ll have to accept or reform Rule 40(b) which (as currently written) says that no candidate can win the nomination unless they’ve won a majority of the delegates in an at least eight states. This rule can be redrawn by the Rules Committee, so there will be opportunities for shenanigans and rewards for superior organizing at the convention. Kasich seems unlikely to win a majority (or even a plurality) of delegates in eight states, so he’ll need find a way to stack some votes on the committee. Rubio would face the same problem, but doesn’t have the advantage of being the governor of the hosting state.
Trump’s ace in the hole is ironically a moral argument that it would be wrong to change the rules to deny him the nomination if he has a clear lead in the delegate count. His delegate lead would also make it difficult to get the votes to change the rules in a way that disfavors him. And, despite sore-loser laws in some states that would make it impossible for Trump to run as an independent there, he could run in enough states to sink the Republican nominee. Finally, the delegates may make a pragmatic evaluation of the situation and determine that denying Trump would cause such a shitstorm at the convention and on national television that, combined with alienating Trump’s supporters, it would doom the party’s chances in November and cause all kinds of down-ticket blood-letting.
For now, at least, only Ted Cruz is in a position to conceivably overcome all these obstacles in Cleveland. But, to do so, he’ll have to mend a lot of fences with the Republican establishment. Making nice with Lindsey Graham is a good place to start.