I remember having hope once.
Just 12-30 Representatives across 9 states can flip the election to Clinton.
I have poured over the entire slate of Representatives of every state in the union to determine their thoughts on Trump. To the best of my ability in such a short amount of time (I have real work to do, you know :-p), I categorized Republican Representatives into a level of Trump support, from Hardcore (nothing could deter them), Grudging (Appeared to support only to go against Clinton), Neutral (Expressed no opinion either way), Troubled (Dropped support at some point without strong rejection), Never (Strongly rejected).
As I covered in my previous diaries on the topic (Part 1: www.dailykos.com/...; Part 2: www.dailykos.com/...), a Contingent Election is when the Electoral College does not provide 270 votes for a candidate*. The House then gets to pick, by state, from the top 3 vote-getters. This would be Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and potentially a 3rd Republican. Balloting continues until one of these three candidates receives a strict majority of states, 26.
Democrats have the majority House delegation in 17 states: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington
Hardcore Trump supporters have the majority House delegation in 14 states: Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, West Virginia, Wisconsin
Based on the makeup of state delegations, there are 17 states which could potentially flip. A minimum of 12 Republicans and a maximum of 30 Republicans would be required to flip 9 of those 21 states.
In order of number of people required to convince, with names of reps in that category:
- Alaska (1 Neutral — Don Young)
- Arizona (1 Grudging — Martha McSally)
- Colorado (1 Troubled — Mike Coffman)
- Maine (1 Neutral — Bruce Poliquin)
- South Dakota (1 Grudging — Kristi Noem)
- Wyoming (1 Grudging — Liz Cheney)
- Florida (2 Never — Carlos Curbelo, Illeana Ros-Lehtinen)
- Nebraska (2 Grudging — Don Bacon, Adrian Smith)
- Virginia (1 Troubled — Barbara Comstock; 1 Grudging — Tom Garrett)
- Alabama (1 Troubled — Martha Roby; 2 Grudging — Bradley Byrne, Mike Rogers, Robert Aderholt)
- Indiana (1 Troubled — Jackie Walorski; 1 Neutral — Larry Bucshon; 1 Grudging — Susan Brooks)
- Michigan (2 Never — Justin Amash, Fred Upton; 1 Grudging — Bill Huizenga, Mike Bishop, David Trott)
- Tennessee (3 Grudging — Phil Roe, Diane Black, Marsha Blackburn)
- North Carolina (1 Neutral — George Holding; 3 Grudging — Virginia Foxx, Mark Walker, Patrick McHenry)
- Ohio (1 Never — Pat Tiberi; 4 Grudging — Jim Jordan, Bob Latta, Bob Gibbs, David Joyce, Steve Stivers, James Rennaci)
- Pennsylvania (2 Never — Patrick Meehan, Brian Fitzpatrick; 3 Troubled — Ryan Costello, Charlie Dent, Tim Murphy)
- Texas (1 Never — Sam Johnson; 2 Troubled — Kay Granger, Will Hurd; 2 Grudging — Louie Gohmert, Jeb Hensarling, Michael McCaul, Mac Thornberry, Bill Flores, Michael Burgess, Blake Farenthold)
Note: Utah is missing because it would rely on Jason Chaffetz, and there’s no way he’d vote for Clinton. Or as I refer to him in the spreadsheet, “Smarmy Douchebag Junior Witchhunter”.
Also, if you know more about the people above than I do, please make a comment and citation if you can.
This is where it gets interesting. If you were a Republican in one of those states, you would be in the position to ask for almost anything for your state and get it. What kind of deal might they want? Might they be swayed by Clinton winning (or nearly so) the popular vote in their state?
Of course, almost without exception, every “Grudging” person above publicly abhors Clinton; even some “Troubled” and “Never” do, too. There may be no possible price they would be willing to pay to give up R control… unless they can be convinced that Trump is worse, for specific reasons. They’d probably want to go for a 3rd Republican, but would enough Hardcore Trump states peel off to give the 3rd Republican a win? That’ll be something to explore later on.
A big trick will be whether there will be a chance to explore these options. Paul Ryan may attempt to have an immediate vote, whip his caucus, and hand the election to Trump or to the potential 3rd Republican. So it would be critical to begin planning and lobbying to begin as soon as the EC vote is known.
An easier path could be for Dems to make a deal with the concerned Republicans to vote for the 3rd Republican in return for major protections for core Dem values. But how that would balance out would be anyone’s guess at this point.
And who knows how the Russia hacking story—and Trump’s odd behavior around it—will play out.
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One thing I haven’t talked about yet in this series is the Vice Presidential selection in the Senate. Given that there are a few very concerned members of the Senate regarding Trump and Russia, it might be possible to urge them to vote for Kaine (the Senate votes as normal) so that even if Trump still wins in the House, Kaine could potentially be a check on Trump within the administration, and in the event the 3rd R wins in the House, then we could have a form of coalition government. For the Republicans, they might think they’d want Pence in case Hillary won in the House, but it should be easy to argue that a check on Trump inside the administration is more necessary than a check on Clinton. But I wouldn’t envy Kaine being inside the belly of the beast...
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*Note, there is another way to reduce Trump’s vote count to force a Contingent Election if the Electors themselves do not — 1 House member and 1 Senator from a state can co-sign a challenge the electoral vote from their state, which must then be considered on the merits by the respective chambers separately. h/t to Andrea Chalupa (@AndreaChalupa) on Twitter for this idea. See also www.archives.gov/… Although the outcome here is likely that objections will be rejected, raising issues and creating roadblocks would be good; lawyers and citizens can draft objections to send in. Sample objection: FBI electioneering and Russian interference throwing the result of a swing state artificially, or substantial broken voting machines, or rampant voter suppression, just to throw a few random ideas out there.
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