In case you think Hillary Clinton is the only frontrunner taking it on the chin this weekend….
Excerpted from Eli Stokols and Kyle Cheney’s article at politico.com:
Donald Trump’s struggle to win loyal delegates to the Republican National Convention grew even more desperate on Saturday, with crushing losses in Colorado and South Carolina that put victory at a contested convention further from his grasp.
Trump…was swept out of delegate slots up for grabs at Colorado’s state convention. Adding to his woes, he picked up just one delegate of six on the ballot in South Carolina. The most painful result, though, may have been Trump’s failure to capture two of three slots in his strongest South Carolina congressional district.
In fact, Trump lost five of the six delegate seats on the ballot in South Carolina’s 3rd and 7th congressional districts. Ted Cruz nabbed a delegate in the 7th district, while another, Alan Clemmons, remained uncommitted despite Trump’s dominant finish there in the state’s Feb. 20 primary. (The Manhattan billionaire won 43 percent of the district’s vote, to Cruz’s 20 percent and Kasich’s 6 percent.) Cruz also won two of three delegates in the 3rd district, while a third — Susan Aiken, a supporter of Marco Rubio — will go to the convention as an uncommitted delegate.
Then there is this, from Kyle Cheney’s article about Indiana:
Indiana hasn’t cast its ballots for president yet, but Donald Trump is already losing.
Republican Party insiders in the state will select 27 delegates to the national convention on Saturday, and Trump is assured to be nearly shut out of support, according to interviews with a dozen party leaders and officials involved in the delegate selection process. Anti-Trump sentiment runs hot among GOP leadership in Indiana, and it’s driving a virulent rejection of the mogul among likely delegates.
Even before the news about South Carolina, Colorado and Indiana, it was clear that Donald Trump would have a difficult time generating a majority of delegates at the Republican convention.
But with it? The prospects for a first-ballot win have gone from difficult to borderline remote.
Why is this happening? If you use the links I’ve provided and read both articles completely, you will find the key reason Trump is getting his backside handed to him in these places is that there is no real organization behind his candidacy…which pretty much begins and ends with him going on stage and pontificating. The inside game necessary to win delegates is not there, because Donald Trump’s sole interest, it seems more and more evident, is self-promotion.
You have to wonder if Trump is doing this on purpose. You have to wonder if Trump is as surprised as most of the rest of us are that he has come this far, and now wants a way to a) get out of actually being the candidate with b) a “everyone loved me, everyone wanted me but the party stopped me” victimization story, which feeds his insatiable ego.
I’ll say again what I have said in previous blogs: if Donald Trump does not win on the first ballot, it is a virtual certainty he will not win, period. And there is no guarantee that Ted Cruz, who is clearly disliked by much, maybe most, of the Republican “establishment” will be the beneficiary.
If not Trump or Cruz, then who? John Kasich? Maybe Paul “I don’t want to run, but then again I didn’t want to be Speaker of the House either” Ryan?
Either one of them would be far more desirable – and far more electable – on the Republican ticket than either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.
Stay tuned.
