The group, which is calling itself “Conservatives Against Trump”, issued a statement after the meeting calling for a “unity ticket” to put up against Trump. If he does fall short, Trump could face an acrimonious contested convention in Cleveland in July. “I’m representing a tremendous many, many mil- lions of people”, he said.
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On Wednesday, Trump warned of riots if he is denied the party’s presidential nomination after a string of primary election victories, raising the temperature even more in the heated GOP race.
In a video accompanying the polling release, Emerson College Polling Society adviser Spencer Kimball called Trump’s towering over Cruz and Kasich a “commanding lead”.
Even though Trump now leads Texas Sen.
Yet another scenario is a “brokered” convention, which means backroom deals made by the insider Republicans that Trump and Cruz say they oppose.
If a unity ticket fails to garner a majority of the delegates in the primary process, the group agrees, “We encourage all former Republican candidates not now supporting Trump to unite against him and encourage all candidates to hold their delegates on the first ballot”.
“I still think it’s a very realistic chance that nobody’s going to have a majority of the delegates”, said Henry Barbour, a senior Republican National Committee member who worked on Marco Rubio’s delegate strategy until the Florida senator left the race Tuesday.
On the brink of a two-man race with Donald Trump, Ted Cruz is drawing more attention than ever from those organizing to prevent the billionaire from winning the Republican presidential nomination at all costs – an increasingly urgent task to some as Trump racks up delegates and momentum.
Candidates need to get to 1237 delegates to clinch the nomination *before* the convention.
One Florida Republican added, “Kasich appeals to a larger cross-section of Americans, making him the better general election candidate, obviously, his high positives in OH also play a part of his political acceptability for Republicans, many of whom want a presidential win at nearly any cost”.
“But just let me tell you, a third party guarantees – not 90 percent or 99 percent, 100 percent – that Democrats will win”, Trump said.
Trump also effectively killed the next GOP debate scheduled for Monday in Utah, saying “we’ve had enough debates”. I think bad things would happen, I really do.
The potential for a contested convention is now pushing the GOP candidates into effectively waging *two* campaigns side-by-side.
Once the vote moves to the House, I think Cruz and Manchin would have an easier time getting to the magic number of 26 state delegations to vote for them.
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Cruz pointed out that the conference hosted by AIPAC is a multi-day event, runs to Tuesday, and Trump’s schedule would likely have been accommodated. “We’ve had contested conventions but that was before we had a whole series of primaries and caucuses that let the people speak and supposedly chose the nominee”, Brady said.
