Trump’s Louisiana Complaint Timeline
Friday, March 24th Wall Street Journal (WSJ):
Donald Trump beat Sen. Ted Cruz earlier this month in Louisiana’s Republican presidential primary by 3.6 percentage points, but the Texan may wind up with as many as 10 more delegates from the state than the businessman.
The Trump campaign’s first problem is in the overall delegate count from Louisiana. Messrs. Trump and Cruz each won 18 delegates apiece based on the Louisiana results in the primary on March 5. But the five delegates awarded to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio are now free agents because he ended his campaign, and Louisiana Republicans expect them to swing behind Mr. Cruz.
Meanwhile, the state’s five unbound delegates—who are free to back the candidates of their choice—also are more likely to back Mr. Cruz than Mr. Trump, according to GOP officials in the state.
Trump didn’t care for the WSJ reporting. He took three days to work up a lather for the Sunday morning news shows.
Sunday, March 27th Trump Interview and Afternoon Tweet
As reported in The Hill:
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump in an interview Sunday blasted reports that rival Ted Cruz will pick up extra delegates in Louisiana.
“Welcome to the Republican Party,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.” “What’s going on in the Republican Party is a disgrace.”
“I won Louisiana, and now I hear he’s trying to steal delegates,” Trump said Sunday.
“I have so many more votes and so many more delegates. And, frankly, whoever at the end, whoever has the most votes and the most delegates should be the nominee,” he added.
Trump added a further comment (from the Associated Press story in the Daily Mail):
Trump slammed the idea that a candidate who won fewer votes could end up with more delegates in an interview with ABC on Sunday, panning the process as a “crooked” and “rotten political system.”
Trump apparently has some memory issues. Perhaps he has forgotten the 2000 Presidential Election, in which George Bush became President despite having 550,000 fewer votes than Al Gore.
Trump’s interview was followed by the typical angry Tweet:
Just to show you how unfair Republican primary politics can be, I won the State of Louisiana and get less delegates than Cruz-Lawsuit coming”
In point of fact, as of today March 30, 2016, Trump has 18 delegates from Louisiana and Cruz has 18, an identical number for each. There are also 10 uncommitted delegates from Louisiana. Trump has misstated the truth here.
Monday, March 28th Campaign Clarification Walk Back
On Monday, March 28 the story continued. Senior campaign advisor Barry Bennett modified Trump’s Sunday lawsuit threat. The lawsuit is not a lawsuit, but a private internal complaint to the RNC seeking to decertify some delegates at the convention in July.
From Politico article coverage:
Donald Trump’s campaign is moving forward with its plan to contest delegates in Louisiana, a senior campaign adviser confirmed Monday, a day after Trump himself threatened to sue over the “unfair” process.
“There’s a process to deal with this. It’s in the certification process, and it’s been with our legal team for most of the morning now, and we are moving forward with the complaint to decertify these delegates.”
A story from Gabby Morrongiello in The Washington Examiner expands on Barry Bennett’s remarks::
A top adviser to Donald Trump says the billionaire’s presidential campaign fully intends to file a complaint with the Republican National Committee over its allocation of delegates.
Both candidates were originally awarded 18 delegates each, while Florida Sen. Marco Rubio received five. Since Rubio exited the race, his delegates are now able support any candidate at the convention and are more likely to back Cruz or Kasich than Trump.
“I’ve been with our legal team most of the morning now and we are moving forward with a complaint to decertify these delegates,” Bennett said Monday.
Bennett explained that the complaint will be filed “inside the party,” contradicting Trump’s original threat of a “lawsuit.”
“It’s not something you file with the court, it’s something you file inside the party,” he said, adding that “it’s a decertification so that these delegates, these rules committee members and folks don’t get seated [at the Republican National Convention].”
Despite saying the Trump campaign is “moving forward” with the claim, Bennett also suggested they’re in no rush to submit it.
“I don’t know how long it will take the attorneys to draft it up, but we’ve got plenty of time,” he said. “We’re going to protects our rights to the fullest extent possible.”
So, there is no lawsuit. There is an intention to submit a complaint inside the party sometime in the future. Not in a Court and not before a judge. And there is no hurry and the lawyers haven’t drafted any papers for the complaint or filed any legal suit. Challenges to seating of delegates will be taken up by the Credentials Committee which will meet in Cleveland a week before the Convention opens, that is in early July. This is public posturing.
Trump’s senior advisor walked back the threat of a lawsuit. No evidence has been offered to support a charge of stealing delegates by Cruz or anyone else. No one knows how many delegates Trump will ultimately get when Louisiana’s 10 uncommitted delegates vote at the convention. He has tried to intimidate with lawsuit threats, but Trump’s position has already suffered a crawfish. *
The rules based delegate allocation process in Louisiana is being repeated in numerous other states, any with a proportional allocation system, and not winner take all. There will be little or no tolerance by the RNC and most delegates if Trump tries to bully states which have followed published RNC procedures one by one in July. The business of the convention could be bogged down, even broken.
What are the Facts About Louisiana’s Delegates?
The Louisiana Republican Primary was held on March 5, 2016. The results as reported by Associated Press via the New York Times showed Trump won with a small plurality, beating Cruz by a margin of 11,000 votes, 41% to 38%. Hardly a massive victory. Rubio got 11% of the vote, and overall 21% of Republicans voted for neither Trump nor Cruz.
The final rules for awarding delegates to the 2016 Republican Convention were determined and published by the Republican National Committee in August 2014, more than 18 months ago. Trump made no objection to the procedures listed in these fixed rules before this past week.
Louisiana has 46 total delegates to the Republican National Convention. 18 were allocated by Congressional District and 28 at-large. According to the complete, but unofficial results: Trump Received 18 (12 At-Large and 6 CD) Cruz Received 18 (11 At-Large and 7 CD) Rubio Received 5 (All CD) 5 will be Unallocated (All At-Large) In the end, Trump received 41.44 percent of the vote and 39.13 percent of the delegates. Cruz received 37.84 percent of the vote and received 39.13 percent of the delegates. Rubio received 11.22 percent of the vote 10.86 percent of the delegates. All other candidates received a total of 9.5 percent of the vote and 10.86 percent of the delegates are unallocated.
Based on the Republican Party rules in place long before the 2016 primary, and the actual election vote totals, the Louisiana State GOP allotted the delegates as follows:
The delegates awarded each candidate mirror quite closely the proportional voting results. Remember that 18 of the delegates were distributed by proportion within each of the state’s 6 congressional districts, not statewide. The At-large delegates are distributed proportionally state-wide, but with a 20% minimum threshold for an individual candidate. Thus, Rubio who got 11% of the total vote got zero at-large delegates.
Under RNC rules, Trump’s campaign can contest the seating of the state’s delegates by filing a complaint directly to the committee. If the campaign is unsatisfied with the outcome, it can file a complaint with the credentials committee, which meets at the national convention.
Trump won 41 percent of the vote in Louisiana’s March 5 primary, versus 38 percent for Cruz. But the process of allocating the state’s 46 delegates isn’t a matter of simple proportion.
After the primary election, Trump and Cruz each had 18 committed delegates, while Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who has since dropped out of the race, had five. Under state party rules, those delegates became free agents after Rubio suspended his campaign. Another five delegates also begin uncommitted.
The rules provide that Rubio’s five delegates are now free agents, since he dropped out. They are not automatically redistributed to any other candidate. There are five unallocated delegates who may support whichever candidate they choose, independent of the primary vote totals. The current total of 18 for Trump, 18 for Cruz, and 10 combined free-agent and unallocated delegates tracks with the selection rules in place since 2014.
Trump voiced no discomfort or outrage about the settled rules until after the election. He didn’t like the results. He has a very weak state campaign structure which is why he seems to be outplayed by Cruz’ better organized campaign. Trump has only himself to blame. He neglected to spend money on political organization infrastructure last summer and fall, losing eight critical months while trying to cheap it out.
As his gamble appears not to be paying off as well as he hoped, he cries unfair. That is the ultimate point of the Wall Street Journal story. Trump is being outworked in the political ground game, and not just in Louisiana. The nomination process was never presented nor intended to be a simple exact vote % = exact delegate % system. Trump knew it and didn’t complain.
As it turns out, his lawsuit threat is not a lawsuit at all. His campaign is considering making an internal RNC complaint, not a formal legal suit in a Court, as his advisor has now readily acknowledged. We have another example of an angry legal bluff, followed by a walk back and re-explanation after a public outburst. Trump can try, but he doesn’t have a crawfish to stand on.
The Trouble With Trump’s Pre-Convention Strategy
There is a larger problem here than a non-lawsuit lawsuit, as the Wall Street Journal article and others are at pains to point out. Trump’s lack of state based political organizations, and his poor ground game, loom ever larger after the primary votes are cast in state after state.
From Laura Clawson at Daily Kos: (3/28/16)
Whoops. Turns out that running a campaign based on personality and free media, without much actual campaign organization, can turn around and bite you, something Donald Trump is starting to find out. Trump is winning primaries, but that’s not the whole ballgame. In many states, convention delegates are chosen after the primaries … and Ted Cruz’s campaign is swooping in and organizing, working to pick up every possible delegate while Trump’s campaign has been sitting back and assuming the delegates were in the bag. The big question is what happens if Trump doesn’t get to 1,237 delegates and the nomination goes to a second vote at the Republican National Convention:
“I’ve been telling the Trump campaign for eight months now that they’re making a mistake by not reaching out to RNC members to establish relationships,” said one South Carolina Republican participating in the state’s delegate selection process. “He hasn’t done any of that. … That’s usually the kind of thing that presidential candidates do.” […]
In a contested convention, the South Carolina Republican added, “Every state delegation will turn to its state chairman and RNC members and say, ‘What should we do?’ There’s no loyalty. It would be very easy for those state leaders to cut and run on Trump.”
And Cruz is working hard to ensure that they’ll cut and run toward him, while his own delegates will stand firm.
From the WSJ (3/24/16):
Mr. Cruz’s supporters also seized five of Louisiana’s six slots on the three powerful committees that will write the rules and platform at the Republican National Convention and mediate disputes over delegates’ eligibility this summer in Cleveland.
While Mr. Trump leads in winning primary and caucus elections, and has won more delegates, the Cruz campaign is proving superior at the arcane game of picking the people who will be the actual delegates to the convention, where they will help write the rules and ultimately choose the nominee.
From the Daily Mail (3/28/16):
Jason Dore, executive director of the Republican Party of Louisiana and one of the state’s uncommitted delegates, said he hadn’t yet decided whom to support. But he said that Cruz’s campaign has been working more aggressively than Trump’s to attract delegates since the beginning of the race.
As for Trump’s threat, Dore said: “I don’t know who he’d be suing because these 10 delegates are free to support whoever they want under the rules. The party or I can’t force them to vote any way.”
Dore added that Bennett appeared to be referring to a mandatory delegation meeting, held immediately following the state convention, which he said that Trump staffers in the state had attended.
The WSJ again:
The second step in the process is for those delegates to decide who will represent Louisiana on the three important convention committees— rules, credentials and the party platform. To make those choices, most of Louisiana’s delegates gathered at a March 12 state convention to elect two members to each panel.
No Trump backers won any of those slots. Five of the six committee members chosen back Mr. Cruz, and the sixth is uncommitted to a presidential candidate. Louisiana is the first state to name delegates to serve on the three committees.
Those panels would become critical in a contested convention, which would take place if no candidate wins a majority of delegates on the first ballot. The rules panel will determine which candidates are eligible to be nominated for president, the platform panel will write the party’s agenda, and the credentials panel will mediate disputes about which delegates can be seated. Such fights are already taking place in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam, and may happen as well elsewhere.
Ms. Katz, a former state legislator from Monroe, La., who then-Gov. Bobby Jindal appointed to a state tax commission, sought a position on the credentials committee. She lost a 22-5 vote to Kim Fralick, a Cruz supporter who has never before been involved in a major political campaign.
Ms. Katz, who said she has attended every GOP convention since 1984, said the Cruz forces out-organized Mr. Trump’s campaign, whom she said showed no concern about helping their supporters win the committee slots.
Ed Brookover, the Trump official leading the campaign’s delegate team, said Thursday that he wasn’t aware that the Trump campaign had been shut out of Louisiana’s committee slots. He expressed optimism that “other spots where this is taking place, we now have programs and plans in place to make sure that Mr. Trump’s supporters are getting to county, district and state conventions.”
Mr. Brookover added that “the good news is that when we let Mr. Trump’s supporters know about these things, they are enthusiastic and go running to them.”
There should be no surprise at this sharp elbowed post-primary delegate selection process. It has been done the same way for decades. It has never been a simple by the book percentage allocation. Trump also had no fairness concerns about the Florida winner take all victory on March 15th that boosted his delegate count to twice what he earned by percentage of votes in that state. There are 17 states left to choose their delegates.
There are 50 states, and each can have its own acceptable modifications within the general rules. Trump may be unfamiliar with this history since he has no personal experience, and his senior campaign staff have never run a presidential nominating process. Too bad for them.
A Mulligan Won’t Rescue Trump
There are no Mulligans in store for Trump in this election. A Mulligan (in informal golf play) is an extra stroke allowed a player after a poor shot, not counted on the scorecard. This election is not informal politics; it is real life in deadly earnest, with formal rules that apply to everyone, golf course owners included.
Ed Brookover, Head of the Trump Campaign National Delegate Team, didn’t know Trump supporters were shut out 0 for 6 for Louisiana’s slots on the three critical Convention Committees: Rules, Credentials, and Party Platform. The selection took place on March 12th. His comment was made nearly two weeks later on March 23rd. And he found out from a WSJ reporter.
Trump’s campaign is being outhustled, outgunned, and outclassed by people who know what they are about in presidential politics. That is the heavy downside risk Trump has courted by insulting nearly all elected officials and the entire Republican political class. His approach is starting to substantially hinder his progress.
Raising the emotional temperature of fans at mass rallies will not win the long game to the convention. Trump’s operatives do not seem to be doing any better with more experience. Instead, his special pleading grows ever more strident.
And just yesterday, he formally renounced his signed pledge to abide by the Convention results unless he is the chosen one.
*What is a crawfish? Crawfish is used as an intransitive verb.
Definition as provided by the Online Slang Dictionary:
to back up, move backwards, to deny a statement, to go back on your word – generally a southern term. He crawfished on the bet.
See this classic example from Mark Twain (1884):
Packard didn’t take no notice of that, but hung up his lantern on a nail and started towards where I was there in the dark, and motioned Bill to come. I crawfished as fast as I could about two yards, but the boat slanted so that I couldn’t make very good time; so to keep from getting run over and catched I crawled into a stateroom on the upper side.
— from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
To use the verb crawfish as a noun is a zero derivation nominalization, and usually frowned upon by careful writers. My former English teachers would be sad. However, using a Type B nominalization may also seem humorous and vivid. So says author Henry Hitchens in his New York Times opinion piece. With Trump subject matter like this, sometimes the choice is laugh or cry.