What if Trump DOES drop out?

Trebuchet

Penultimate Amazing
Trebuchet
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I think it highly unlikely, but it's the hot topic for speculation today. So who would benefit? Who would the R's nominate? Would it help Hillary, or would the R's do better than with Trump?

Seems to me the fanatic Trump supporters would never accept it or vote for any other R. They'll just stay home. But the loyal R's who don't accept Trump would presumably return to the fold. Net gain for the R's? Or for Hillary? Who knows?

And who'd get the nom? Pence? Seems unlikely, though doing other seems unfair to him. Lyin' Ted Cruz? Hoo, boy, he's the only possible candidate worse than Trump, although he is much smarter. Little Marco? JEB!? Romney's a proven loser so I'd say he's out. Ryan would probably do the best, but would he accept it?

Your speculation to follow!
 
Whoever got runner up at the Miss America pageant gets the nom.
 
Unless he does it very soon, the Republicans would be ********** and Hillary would definitely be elected President of the United States. There are deadlines for getting names on the ballots. Ohio, which Republicans have to win to win the Presidency has an August 10th deadline.
 
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Tony Stark said:
Unless he does it very soon, the Republicans would be ********** and Hillary would definitely be elected President of the United States. There are deadlines for getting names on the ballots. Ohio, which Republicans have to win to win the Presidency has an August 10th deadline.
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But remember, you aren't actually voting for the candidate, just for a slate of electors who can vote for anyone they damn well please.
 
Trump will never drop out. His ego is too large, IMO, to let him even consider that he won't win. Just look at his comments from today; "the campaign has never been more unified, Hillary is evil, Obama is evil, America's been humiliated, and only I can save us", yadda yadda. I don't think I've ever seen someone with his head stuck so firmly in the sand, but the fact is, Trump won't drop out. He'll think, right up until the election, that he'll be able to pull out a victory from the jaws of defeat, when in reality it's more like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

That being said, should he drop out, I would assume that there are rules in the convention to choose the next candidate, but I don't know how they implement them, since I'm fairly sure they've never faced a situation like that in the past. My thought is that the person who received the next largest amount of delegates should be the choice, and Pence is probably SOL at that point, but I don't really know. If the Republicans at large were smarter and voted according to who would be the most likely to beat Hillary, they'd pick Kasich, but he's a little too centric to appease most of the slavering Trump supporters, so they'd probably have to go with Cruz at that point. No idea if I'm correct or not, but as I said, it's likely a moot point anyway; Trump isn't going to drop out, and I don't think legally they can just up and say "we're booting Trump in favor of a guy who doesn't make us look like monumental idiots", so the Republican party is stuck with him.
 
I expect they'd go with Cruz, even though I don't think he'd win in the end.
But I think he has more support than anyone else.

ETA: Convention Rule 9 I think gives them a lot of freedom on the choice.
 
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Trebuchet said:
But remember, you aren't actually voting for the candidate, just for a slate of electors who can vote for anyone they damn well please.
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Faithless electors aren't really a thing that happens and lots of states actually have laws against it.

The GOP is **********. Whether Trump stays or not.
 
Sabrina said:
Trump will never drop out. His ego is too large, IMO, to let him even consider that he won't win. Just look at his comments from today; "the campaign has never been more unified, Hillary is evil, Obama is evil, America's been humiliated, and only I can save us", yadda yadda. I don't think I've ever seen someone with his head stuck so firmly in the sand, but the fact is, Trump won't drop out. He'll think, right up until the election, that he'll be able to pull out a victory from the jaws of defeat, when in reality it's more like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

That being said, should he drop out, I would assume that there are rules in the convention to choose the next candidate, but I don't know how they implement them, since I'm fairly sure they've never faced a situation like that in the past. My thought is that the person who received the next largest amount of delegates should be the choice, and Pence is probably SOL at that point, but I don't really know. If the Republicans at large were smarter and voted according to who would be the most likely to beat Hillary, they'd pick Kasich, but he's a little too centric to appease most of the slavering Trump supporters, so they'd probably have to go with Cruz at that point. No idea if I'm correct or not, but as I said, it's likely a moot point anyway; Trump isn't going to drop out, and I don't think legally they can just up and say "we're booting Trump in favor of a guy who doesn't make us look like monumental idiots", so the Republican party is stuck with him.
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If he drops out by September 1, I think is the date but it might be 60 days before the General Election. 138 Republican party members will select his replacement. The date is important as that is the deadline for submitting names to most state ballots. The party could support another nominee, but voters would have to write in the names.
 
Tony Stark said:
Faithless electors aren't really a thing that happens and lots of states actually have laws against it.

The GOP is **********. Whether Trump stays or not.
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They wouldn't be faithless, just voting for whoever the party nominates, regardless of what it says on the ballot.

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Trebuchet said:
They wouldn't be faithless, just voting for whoever the party nominates, regardless of what it says on the ballot.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
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So you're saying that you think Donald could drop out and the GOP run someone else even with Donald's name (or no name) on the ballot, and still win enough states to get 270 electoral votes?

Nah, the GOP is straight screwed. The only way this election works out for them is if Donald stays in and somehow turns things around.
 
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If Trump stays in or drops out, the election will show us whether the Republican party still even exists. If 40% of Republicans refuse to vote because it's not Trump on the ballot, or if half the Republicans refuse to vote because Trump is on the ballot, we'll know that the fracture is pretty deep.

If R voters pull the lever for whomever the R nominee is, then maybe they can reform themselves into something resembling a national party.
 
I know it's not going to happen, but does the victory at the nominating convention have any actual legal standing?

What I mean is that I suspect that there are fifty different sets of rules for how names get listed on ballots in the fifty states. My guess is that there is a legally recognized entity called something like the Republican Party in the State of Michigan, and that they will designate a person as their official representative, and they will circulate nominating petitions to have that person be listed on the ballot, and be listed as the representative of the Republican Party.

Needless to say, the name they will submit on those petitions will be Donald Trump, but I suspect that's not actually a law. It's just a gentlemen's agreement that the fifty different state parties will all go along with the rules of the national party. Does anyone know if they are required to do so? If there were a state Party whose leaders absolutely despised Donald Trump could they get together and put another name forward as the official Republican representative in their state?
 
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Meadmaker said:
I know it's not going to happen, but does the victory at the nominating convention have any actual legal standing?

What I mean is that I suspect that there are fifty different sets of rules for how names get listed on ballots in the fifty states. My guess is that there is a legally recognized entity called something like the Republican Party in the State of Michigan, and that they will designate a person as their official representative, and they will circulate nominating petitions to have that person be listed on the ballot, and be listed as the representative of the Republican Party.

Needless to say, the name they will submit on those petitions will be Donald Trump, but I suspect that's not actually a law. It's just a gentlemen's agreement that the fifty different state parties will all go along with the rules of the national party. Does anyone know if they are required to do so?
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I would guess that state party rules require that the person they submit to be on the ballot be the one that won the nomination.
 
Pl
Meadmaker said:
I know it's not going to happen, but does the victory at the nominating convention have any actual legal standing?

What I mean is that I suspect that there are fifty different sets of rules for how names get listed on ballots in the fifty states. My guess is that there is a legally recognized entity called something like the Republican Party in the State of Michigan, and that they will designate a person as their official representative, and they will circulate nominating petitions to have that person be listed on the ballot, and be listed as the representative of the Republican Party.

Needless to say, the name they will submit on those petitions will be Donald Trump, but I suspect that's not actually a law. It's just a gentlemen's agreement that the fifty different state parties will all go along with the rules of the national party. Does anyone know if they are required to do so? If there were a state Party whose leaders absolutely despised Donald Trump could they get together and put another name forward as the official Republican representative in their state?
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There are NO provisions in the party rules for removing Trump against his will. None. While there are no State laws governing the Republican party such an action would be judged as a breach of contract between the parties and Donald would be entitled to injunctive relief prohibiting his removal.

The only way Donald will be replaced is if he dies or goes willingly. And replacements must be submitted to most states 60 days before the election.
 
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It is crazy that this is even being discussed. With anyone else, nobody would even consider the possibility. But Donald is such a disaster that maybe it could happen. And he's only officially been the nominee for less than two weeks!
 
At this stage the Republicans are screwed. If they dump Trump his followers will rebel. There will be shifting of alliances but Clinton will still win. And just about any October surprise disfavoring Clinton will be brushed off as 'not this crap again'. By that time more and more people will have begun to see Clinton as Presidential and competent because they will have rationalized (the truth) that the decades long attacks have been bogus.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
At this stage the Republicans are screwed. If they dump Trump his followers will rebel.
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But rebel in what way ?

Obviously if they stay at home or vote for a third party candidate then that will damage the GOP candidate's chances but if Trump drops out early enough (and for a "good" enough reason) then there is plenty of time to convince them to vote for whoever the GOP candidate is in order to stop that monster Hillary Clinton getting into power and destroying America.


Skeptic Ginger said:
There will be shifting of alliances but Clinton will still win.
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I'm not too sure. With a terrible candidate and gaffe after gaffe, the GOP was still within touching distance until the Khan affair blew up. With a more appealing, less disaster-prone candidate IMO there's no reason why Hillary couldn't be in for a very hard fight indeed.

Skeptic Ginger said:
And just about any October surprise disfavoring Clinton will be brushed off as 'not this crap again'. By that time more and more people will have begun to see Clinton as Presidential and competent because they will have rationalized (the truth) that the decades long attacks have been bogus.
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I'd love this to me the case but it's very difficult to reverse 30 years of constant negative propaganda. There are a *lot* of people out there who are reluctantly supporting Hillary because of party loyalty (the Bernie Bros who have come back into the fold) or because the GOP candidate is such a nightmare (GOP voters who have shifted to supporting Hillary as an anti-Trump stance). These voters IMO would be susceptible if a strong anti- story came out in the election lead-up - especially if it was somewhat believable.
 
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