The man who would be Trumperor (at least in his mind) said the following recently when discussing what happens if he does not have enough delegates to win the Republican presidential nomination on the first ballot at the Republican Convention that will take place this coming July in Cleveland, OH:
"If we are millions of votes ahead of everyone else and hundreds of
delegates ahead of everyone else, I really think that whoever has that
kind of an advantage should get it," he later added. "I think it's
awfully hard to take that away."
Actually it's quite easy to have that taken away and disregarded completely. Once again Mr. Trump is proving he is not a student of history. History tells us that in the ten brokered Republican conventions, only three of the candidates with the delegate lead entering the convention ultimately received the nomination. Not a very good chance for Mr. Trump if history proves to be a good predictor of the 2016 convention's outcome.
Let's review the history of brokered Republican Conventions:
1860 - New York's U.S. Senator William Seward had the delegate lead going into the convention. But he did not prevail on the first ballot. After three ballots, the man who had come into the convention in second place in the delegate count became the nominee. His name was Abraham Lincoln.
1876 - Maine's U.S. Senator James Blaine was the delegate leader heading into the convention. He had 38% of the delegates in his pocket. In fourth place was Rutherford B. Hayes, the governor of Ohio. Hayes became the nominee. Thanks to the suppression of black votes in the South by the Democrats, he lost the popular vote but won the Electoral Vote and became president.
1880 - Former President Ulysses S. Grant was the front runner going into the convention. He had 40% of the delegates. James Garfield, a member of Congress from Ohio went into the convention without a single delegate and yet he would become the nominee. He went on to win the presidency that November.
1884 - Senator Blaine was the front runner again and this time he got the nomination on the 4th ballot. He lost to Grover Cleveland, the first win for a Democrat since 1856.
1888 - John Sherman, a U. S. Senator from Ohio was the delegate leader. Benjamin Harrison, a U. S. Senator from Indiana and way behind in delegates entering the convention won the nomination and eventually the presidency.
1916 - Charles Evans Hughes was an Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court and he resigned in 1915 to become a presidential candidate. He entered the convention with the delegate lead and after several ballots became the nominee. He lost in the general election.
1920 - Major General Leonard Wood, a Medal of Honor recipient came to the convention with 29% of the delegates. Warren Harding, a U. S. Senator from Ohio had only 6.7% of the delegates. It took ten ballots for Harding to become the nominee. He won in a landslide.
1940 - Wendell Wilkie became the nominee after delegate leader Thomas Dewey failed to prevail on the first bllot. He lost to FDR.
1948 - This time Dewey had the delegate lead and became the nominee. Even though the newspapers said Dewey had won, he lost to Harry S Truman
1952 - Robert Taft, son of President William Howard Taft, led in delegates but he lost the nomination to General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Dewey, Hughes and Blaine all earned the nomination as delegate leader. All three lost. Six of the seven times someone other than the delegate leader got the nomination, they won.
#DumpTrump should be the Republican motto. Since I wasn't smart enough to copyright it, my loss.
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