Let's get ready to RUUUUUUMBLE!
Mysterious outside groups are asking state parties for personal data on potential delegates, Republican campaigns are drawing up plans to send loyal representatives to obscure local conventions, and party officials are dusting off rule books to brush up on a process that hasn’t mattered for decades.
As Donald Trump and Ted Cruz divide up the first primaries and center-right Republicans tear one another apart in a race to be the mainstream alternative, Republicans are waging a shadow primary for control of delegates in anticipation of what one senior party official called “the white whale of politics”: a contested national convention.
The endgame for the most sophisticated campaigns is an inconclusive first ballot leading to a free-for-all power struggle on the floor in Cleveland.
Oh goodness—a free-for-all ... on the floor of the Republican National Convention … could anything be better?
The details surrounding a brokered convention—where no one candidate gets the majority of delegates necessary (1,237) to secure the nomination in the first round of voting—are complicated. But here's the most important thing to know: It's a messy, messy business. What's interesting to think about is how the most combative and litigious of all the candidates, Donald Trump, would respond to such a scenario, especially if he went into the convention with more delegates than any other candidate, even if it's not a majority.
Here's a source describing what Trump knows about the process:
“He knows about the number, and he knows about the process. He’s aware of the eight states. He’s aware that it could be taken away from him. He knows about the 1,237, and he knows that they can have people stay in as long as they want just to stop him from getting over the Rubicon.”
Could be "taken away from him," eh? Wonder how well that's going to play with Trump.